Known for its "provocative" ads, clothing retailer American Apparel sent shockwaves rippling across lower Manhattan last month when its Houston Street store displayed lingerie-clad mannequins with nipples and faux pubic fur.
American Apparel issued this statement to the media:
“American Apparel is a company that celebrates natural beauty, and the Lower East Side Valentine’s Day window continues that celebration. We created it to invite passerby’s to explore the idea of what is ‘sexy’ and consider their comfort with the natural female form. This is the same idea behind our advertisements which avoid many of the photoshopped and airbrushed standards of the fashion industry.”
A few detractors have claimed that the marketing move was done more to sell lingerie than to promote pro-woman body acceptance in its natural state. To which I say: duh!
If a retail giant like Home Depot runs an ad showing a happy family in their backyard having a BBQ over Memorial Day, it's because Home Depot wants to sell you a lawnmower or a new shiny barbecue. Whether or not you have a family picnic is up to you.
Of course American Apparel wants to sell bras and panties. That's there for-profit business. And, as someone once said: the business of business is business. Ads, by their very definition, are human designs calculated, created, and put to the public eye to arouse interest and spark an emotional response.
There's another old saying: sex sells.
That's not news--so why can anyone in the 21st Century be surprised, or even remotely offended by American Apparel trying to tap the fact that "sex sells?"
Other major retailers have been pushing air-brushed women with spray tans and plastic boobs.
If American Apparel displays mannequins with untrimmed bushes to sell "sexy," I say: right on!
As long as sex sells sells and people buy sexy, I think it's great to finally be seeing "sexy" as closer to natural than to fake. I personally think it's lovely to see--FINALLY--a mainstream American advertisement that looks like me. Brown hair. glasses, and bush.
(and nipples)
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