Peggy Noland’s Oprah Winfrey Dress Sparks Controversy And Conversation

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Missouri raised designer, Peggy Noland, is making waves online with her latest collection featuring Oprah Winfrey’s head Photoshopped onto a nude, black female body.

Noland, who has designed pieces for both Rihanna and Miley Cyrus, told New York Magazine’s The Cut that she chose to expose Oprah as both an homage to a David Nelson piece showing former Chicago mayor, Harold Washington, in women’s lingerie and to explore and exploit the “increased access that we have to celebrities and to all of their ups and downs, for better or worse.”

While Noland insists that her collection of dresses and t-shirts depicting several variations of a naked Oprah is art, most people aren’t buying it, including XOJane.com writer Veronica Miller. In her piece, “I am Fed up With the Appropriation of Black Women’s Bodies,” Miller not only expresses outrage at Noland for “exploring your own issues with repressed sexuality and body image through the use of black women,” she also name checks several celebrities who have similarly used black women as objects in their videos including Noland client, Miley Cyrus.

Although Miller, and several other online sites, have taken Noland to task for her disrespectful, and possibly unlawful, use of Oprah’s image, one person has yet to speak out and that is the media mogul herself.

Check out the dress below and decide is it art or exploitation.

(Photo credit by MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

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