Has Vogue India crossed limits of decency with its latest fashion photos?

Vogue India has published a series of pictures in its August issue that shows the Indian poor using expensive designer wear and accessories.

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One picture shows a toothless and apparently poor old woman carrying a child wearing a Fendi bib priced at around $100. Another shows a barefooted poor villager carrying a $200 Burberry umbrella. Yet another shows a typical middleclass family of three squeezed onto a motorbike for their daily commute, the mother riding sidesaddle in the traditional Indian way prominently while displaying a rare Hermès Birkin bag that usually costs more than $10,000.

This has irked a lot of Indians who say that in a country where more than 450 million people live on 1.25 dollars or less a day, the pictures were in bad taste as they seem to rebuke the Indian poor.

Image: The New York Times.