HEROIN chic has been declared improper and - more significantly - passe in New York.
Glossy fashion magazines and "cutting-edge" journals for the young have promised to substitute "sunny and healthy" photographs this summer in place of the trend that for several years had models depicted nodding-off in public lavatories.
The change of heart follows the death of Davide Sorrenti, 20, the New York photographer at the forefront of heroin chic. He died of a heroin overdose in February. His former girlfriend, James King, the spindly teenage model, has been treated for drug addiction.
The pledge to end the trend was announced in a New York Times story that quoted Terry Jones, the editor of the British magazine I-D, which helped launch heroin chic, as promising a "freshen up" issue in July.
"The point of Davide's death is that it has highlighted a problem," he said.
But the change of fashion was greeted with doubt and some cynicism in Manhattan fashion circles. Specialists in drug abuse have been announcing evidence of a dramatic spread of heroin among those who read the sort of magazines that had exploited heroin chic.
"We're seeing a new generation of users, and they're yuppie, suburban addicts," said Dr Herbert Kleber, of the National Centre on Addiction at New York's Columbia University.
Dr Kleber estimated that the number of "true" heroin addicts in America had risen to more than 700,000 from 500,000 a decade ago, and that tens of thousands more were "recreational" users.
Young New Yorkers familiar with the fashion scene that dominates the trendiest clubs, bars and restaurants said that heroin may have secured a grip that no magazine picture editor could simply renounce.
"It is a lot easier to change your hair colour than give up using heroin," said one young man who attends meetings of Narcotics Anonymous.
After several years of complaints from parents who accused magazines of inspiring their daughters to eating disorders and drug abuse, the campaign against heroin chic changed gear after Sorrenti's death.
His mother, the photographer Francesca Sorrenti, sent faxes to every picture editor in New York, criticising them for using such young models in suggestive, decadent poses and urged them to "pay attention to what they are doing".
"The image promoted has its consequences," she said."Davide was allowed by a lot of editors to do whatever he pleased."
She launched her campaign with demands for random drug testing for models, an agreement among the model agencies to avoid hiring models who were known users, and mandatory parental supervision for models under the age of 18.
So far, none of these suggestions has been adopted.
Mrs Sorrenti added: "Editors watch as children cover their track marks with body make-up. Bags of cocaine are given as Christmas gifts.
"Children are lured to other agencies because they are drug-friendlier."
Her son took photographs for I-D, Detour, Interview and other magazines before his death. Other photographers associated with heroin chic include Juergen Teller, Craig McDean, David Sims and Terry Richardson.
These photographers adopted the style from the Bohemian art photography of Larry Clark, the maker of the film Kids, who documented teenagers on drugs in the 1960s, and Nan Goldin, a former heroin addict whose chronicle of her East Village friends, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, was shown at the Whitney Museum last year.
Michael Williams, a photographer who organised an exhibition of Sorrenti's work during this year's New York Fashion Week, also believes that the dark-and-dingy look has had its day.
"Photographers know that if you take heroin-type pictures, it's out of fashion," he said.
Sorrenti's older brother, Mario, 25, took the pictures for the Calvin Klein advertising campaign for the perfume Obsession, featuring Kate Moss, his girlfriend at the time.This campaign drew comment from President Clinton, and was considered the most mainstream of all heroin chic.
The drug abuse experts are wondering how deeply heroin has now taken root among the "middle class" followers of fashion.
Several models have acknowledged drug problems, including King and Zoe Fleischauer, a teenage model from Arkansas who described to Allure magazine last summer how she had been introduced to heroin on the New York fashion scene.
The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse has reported that the number of people who admit using heroin has multiplied by five in five years, while the federal government's Drug Abuse Warning Network reports that hospitals dealt with 76,000 overdoses in 1995, compared to 63,200 in 1993.
New York police and Dr Kleber agree that there has been a major social shift in the use of heroin, and that fashion photography has played its part.
Until the early 90s, heroin was almost entirely a ghetto drug in America, used by blacks and Hispanics.
It was injected, and had become closely linked to the rise in HIV infection among both men and women. But in recent years there has been a change, making the drug more acceptable to the young middle class. It is now sold more cheaply, and in purer form, so that rather than inject the drug it is smoked or sniffed through the nose.
The police believe that Colombian drug barons, who have replaced the Chinese as main suppliers, are behind these changes. They cut the price, improved quality and sought the market that once consumed their cocaine.
