Steven Meisel's Banned Versace Campaign 'Four Days in LA' as Art

In 2000, Steven Meisel's Versace campaign 'Four Days in LA' was removed from public streets after six months and placed in the White Cube in London, being deemed art rather than advertising. The campaign, featuring models Amber Valletta and Georgina Grenville, explores themes of sameness, clone culture, and gender ambiguity through symmetrical compositions and detached poses. Scholar Isabelle Loring Wallace analyzed the series as a meditation on 'seamlessness' and the loss of gender distinction. A key image shows a lone woman in a room with a mirror that reveals a contrasting, submissive reflection, challenging the notion of a unified self. The campaign was banned alongside Yves Saint Laurent's Opium ad featuring Sophie Dahl, which was criticized as degrading to women.