By DAISY DUMAS



Gothic chic: Stella Tennant is transported to another era in the eerie shoot by Steven Meisel



Hot on the heels of its incendiary slave earrings blunder, Vogue Italia looks set to continue its shock antics with its latest cover.



The glossy magazine's much-anticipated September shoot is a dark and Gothic affair. It's also one that is laden with hoop earrings.



Featuring Stella Tennant, the 'Avant-Garde'-themed styling is an ode to Ethel Granger, the self-styled lover of corsets and facial piercings who tightened her midriff into epically tiny proportions.





Eccentric: Ethel Granger inspired the Vogue shoot with her mould-breaking fashions





Photographed by Steven Meisel, Ms Tennant wears a dark Prada gabardine coat and sports a gypsie-style nose ring as she holds scissors aloft and ready to cut. Her waist is cinched to a freakish 13-inches.



The British model even appears to sport a lip stud - a small pearl that mimics Granger's mould-breaking experiments with facial piercing.



The shoot has a Tim Burton-style darkness about it as Ms Tennant is transported to another era, her dark stained lips and cold expression adding to the eerie feel.



The cover is sure to raise the eyebrows of many a reader. Vogue Italia was recently forced to apologise after publishing a story in which on-trend hoop earrings were called 'slave' earrings.



The contentious Vogue story read: 'If the name brings to the mind the decorative traditions of the women of colour who were brought to the southern United States during the slave trade, the latest interpretation is pure freedom.'



Sparking an international race row, the glossy magazine went on to release an apology, blaming a translation issue for the poor choice of word.



Ex-supermodel Iman condemned the racial gaffe, telling Fashionista:

'Is it controversial? Yes. The naming of it, I don’t get it. I sometimes wonder in this age of reality shows has it become part of the language - the more controversy the more [buzz] it creates.



'I didn’t like it. Slave does not make it ethnic. Mind you, it’s not lost in translation - the word slave, we know what it is.'



source: dailymail