Chinese model Xie Chaoyu shared one of multiple covers of Metal Magazine [IG] No.51, the Fall/Winter 2024-2025 ‘The Error’ issue.

Emanuele Carrera styled the all-Dior fashion story lensed by Barcelona-based Angie Couple [IG], with art direction by Danidevito Creative Studio. / Hair by Edd Lopez; makeup by Blau

Symbols Running Wild at Metal Magazine

The images are full of irony, of course, and the Instagram posts share no clues or pov. Is this fashion story just Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Dior media team being their bad-ass selves? Are they expressing their own creative ideas about the story featuring the ‘nag’ and other notable names history has invented for women — as expressed on Chiuri’s dress?

Or did the Metal Magazine team fly solo, knowing that Dior would love it, along with young customers of the brand around the world?

As is always the case with Chiuri’s Dior, the feminists are in charge. Moving into the Lunar New Year of the Snake, we have many opportunities in the next month to explore its universal symbolism, especially as applied to women.

And on the matter of William Tell himself — who with one shot of his crossbow started the centuries-long series of events that turned “a few isolated settlements of poor, backward medieval mountaineers into the prosperous modern nation of Switzerland” — is the story even true?

My Smithsonian reference article is dated 2004. Hang on and let me check. . . Yes, the ambiguity remains. The William Tell symbol of resistance against tyranny and the struggle for personal and political freedom remains alive and adapted — even as a symbol for the current moment.

But we have questions.

Would Tell have shot the metaphorical apple off the head of his daughter — instead of his son — if he actually had one and the folklore about William Tell is true? Remember, that Aristotle famously described women as a biological mistake. Perhaps even God’s ultimate punishment on humanity is the alleged inferiority of women.

Blame Eve: She Caused This Entire Mess

And of course, we all know the story of Eve and the apple and how she brought down the wrath of God on the entire human race. Due to her disobedience in accepting the apple of knowledge in the Garden of Eden — when precisely instructed not to do so — Eve sent women into the trash heap of history when it comes to obeying God, her divine master.

If Eve condemned us all to miserable lives — in the ultimate case of ‘othering’ half the humans in the world — tens of millions of women worldwide are tired of hearing about it. And that includes women in Asia.

Perhaps the resistance expresses itself in subliminal ways — with the team not even knowing what a can of worms they were opening by putting an apple on Xie Chaoyu’s head and a pencil at her throat.

AOC definitely finds the apple and pencil to send a clear signal that Anne didn’t have too much champagne on New Year’s Eve.

“While the Taliban are trying to silence women, amplifying their voices through this documentary is a form of resistance.”

The House of Dior is all in on Metal Magazine’s flight of imagination here. Do they know that Malala Yousafzi’s documentary ‘Bread & Roses’ is out now on Apple TV+?

Directed by Sahra Mani and co-produced by Jennifer Lawrence, the film follows three Afghan women [filmed in secret] as they live under and resist the Taliban oppression.

Women’s Rights vs Earth Metals

Do they know that the Taliban is sitting on an estimated $3 trillion worth of earth metals in Afghanistan, according to the Australians? Even America’s Wilson Center said last August they are ‘easily’ worth more than $1 trillion.

So exactly what leverage do we have in clamoring to undue this assault on the very existence of women in Afghanistan? Inquiring minds like AOC’s want to know.