Will vaping replace traditional cigarettes?

A few hours ago, Highsnobiety posted pictures of Emma Stone leaving a club. She's wearing an all-black outfit consisting of a blazer and a basketball cap that hints at 90s minimalism while she clamps an Iqos between her lips, the electronic cigarette developed by Philip Morris that has led many smokers to other shores than traditional tobacco use in recent years. Jake Sibert draws a seemingly daring comparison: the footage of the actress is juxtaposed with the iconic Le Smoking campaign Helmut Newton shot for Yves Saint Laurent in 1975. The homonym between the men's garment and the English verb to smoke lays the foundation for a historical period in which smoking was synonymous with coolness, from Coco Chanel to Kate Moss and Hedi Slimane. Emma Stone's images therefore seem like a passing of the baton, the emblem of a new way of understanding smoking, both aesthetically and functionally, and of a social phenomenon that affects health, the market and the environment, in an era of change.

As anyone who has spent time outdoors in recent months may have noticed, vaping is becoming increasingly popular. A new report from Action on Smoking and Health (Ash), reported by Dazed, reveals that 8.3% of adults in England, Wales, and Scotland vapourize, up from 1.7% ten years ago. Of the 4.3 million vapers, around 2.4 million are ex-smokers, while 1.5 million vapers have never smoked cigarettes. The report also shows that e-cigarettes are particularly popular among 18-24-year-olds, the largest consumers of e-cigarettes in 2022: 11% of this demographic "vapes" regularly. Of course, traditional tobacco use still makes up a large part of the market, as the pandemic has caused a significant upswing in smoking, but the fact is that more and more people see vaping as the ultimate choice. This is the result of a series of policies and a social consideration that had made smoking a trashy, unhealthy, dangerous, and polluting vice - a consideration that is tentatively taking hold even in Italy, for example with the Milan City Council's ban on smoking at public transport stops and the slow but steady rise in tobacco prices. Electronic cigarettes are replacing traditional ones, but what about aesthetics?

In the more than three million posts that can be found under the hashtag #cigarette on Instagram, there are indeed many selfies of users smoking, honest archive pictures of celebrities from the 90s and early 2000s smoking, but also numerous shots in which the cigarette becomes a sensual and rebellious accessory. One of the most hushed and hidden chapters of the fashion world is the era of fashion cigarettes when famous fashion brands like Yves Saint Laurent, Trussardi, and Cartier produced cigarettes with their brand. And indeed, if cigarettes are almost taboo today in fashion shoots as well as in much of film production or in the media in general, there was a time when their presence was quite common, if not appreciated. Now, looking at the numerous shots of celebrities "vaping" with complicated devices that are light years away from the aesthetic simplicity of cigarettes, it seems more than obvious that electronic cigarettes are (at least in part) less bad for health, but certainly detract from the look. Certainly, the Innokin and Elf bars are much bulkier than a JUUL, but we are still a long way from the simplicity of design that an electronic device needs to replace the sinful aesthetic of a traditional cigarette.