In this article I unpack the medias role in relation to sexism and gender equality in the fashion industry, in order to examine how the fashion industry maintains a status quo around the subject. It is important to create an awareness of the manipulating role of the media, by comprehending that media messages are never ‘neutral’ conveyors of information, but are products of a social process, where someone benefits of its narrative. I will use an advertisement of Jimmy Choo in order to explain how this is the case, and I will be using the mindset and concepts of the critical Media Literacy Framework.
The ad campaign ‘Shimmer In the dark’, by the luxurious shoe brand Jimmy Choo, portrays a woman in the setting of a pulsating city, who takes on the night, dressed in a short glitter dress and a pair of shimmering heels that goes with it. The campaign takes form of a one minute and 48 seconds long video, starring world famous supermodel Cara Delevingne, walking through the late-night buzzing city to a groovy soundtrack, setting a cool and sexy feeling. The aesthetics of the campaign draws on the stereotype of sexy; the little red dress that is barely covering, the high heels, smokey eyes and the blond hair. She is walking confidently with the intention to be seen, not thinking twice about crossing the busy road of yellow cabs, because her sex appeal works likewise a red traffic light. She is in fact shimmering in the dark, standing out in the busy night life.
The obvious commercial purpose of the video is to create a desire and a need amongst receivers, to be a part of the ‘IWANTCHOO’ club miss Delevingne is actually walking into at the end of the advert. They use the media to create a notion that as a consumer you are not only buying a pair of shoes, but also the sex appeal, confidence and admiration that comes with. It seems, but in reality, the club membership depends on whether the consumer live up to the extremely narrow standards of what is beauty and sexy, that the fashion industry keeps on circulating. But with the introduction of social media, consumers have been given a powerful tool to impact the industry, and sometimes the meaning of a product, is not interpreted by society as intended by the production/people behind the message.
The video opens a debate of a rather political subject as Delevingne in the video gets catcalled and gazed at by male by-standers as she passes. The advertisement became a battlefield of sexism, and the global shoe brand found themselves publicly endorsing and perpetuating street harassment positively. But it digs deeper than street harassment, as the video echoes a point of view or yet a system within the fashion industry, where sexism and gender discrimination is tolerated. I argue that the advert objectify woman and when doing so, the fashion brand reproduces a hierarchical power dynamic between the sexes, where men is representing the dominant, and women the nondominant sex, terms I have borrowed from author and anti-racism educator Layla F. Saad. But why might that be? According to Dr Ben Barry, researcher, activist and chair of fashion at Ryerson University at Toronto, “gender equity and sexual respect oppose the very core of fashion”. Maybe the sexist tone of the advert had not raised a red flag in the beginning of the decade, but at the time of its release in November 2017, the dominant hierarchies of power and privilege was being challenged by social media.
Only a couple of month prior media mogul Harvey Weinstein was being accused of sexual misconduct, which lead to the 2017 and 2018’s far reaching #MeToo moment. This might be the reason why the advert was met as controversial and criticized on social media. The movement carried a change of perspective and practice, not only in Hollywood, but in relating industries, like the fashion industry. But has the industry really changed? While some see positively on the repercussions of MeToo like president of IMG Models Ivan Bart who believes that gender equality and sexual respects have never been better off within the workplaces of the fashion industry, Model Alliance founder remains Sara Ziff skeptic. She experiences a change in the acknowledgement of the problem, but not in the actual behavior.
In extension I would like to introduce another term “color blindness” by Layla F. Saad, as I propose this applies to the subject of gender equity and sexism as well. The term originally refers to racism, but in this article, I would like to use it to underline the consequences of the social construct of sexism and gender discrimination, because the fact is that this is very real. Only by questioning the perpetual stream of messages, images and so on, can we break away from the backwards ideas about gender norms, sexism. As Dr Barry says “(…) it takes more than a few charters and editorials to change that culture.”
Furthermore, the advert reflects other concerning subjects of social justice, as racism. Why is it only non-ethnic men, who catcalls Delevingne in the ad? It tells a story that only men of color could act so inappropriate and brutish, why the advert becomes another example on how the media maintains this historical suppression and discrimination of non-white people. The focus of the sexist undertone of the ad (and maybe the Metoo in general) could be explained by referring to the term ‘White Feminism’, by Saad, which refers to a feminism that only concerns with oppression of gender, and exclude the oppression of other intersections, that are just as important. I believe that this is the case of the ad and the criticism it received on social media. I am left with the question; whom does this ad actually advantage, and what does it come down to? White privilege.
By Anna
Sources:
- Layla F. Saad, Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor (2020)
- Jeff Share, Steven Funk and Douglas Kettner, Critical Media Literacy Framework, the collaborative framework was inspired by any people and updated November 5, 2016
- Jimmy Choo, Shimmer in the dark, November 8, 2017
- Tamison O’Connor: Was #MeToo Just a Trend for Fashion? December 17,2019 https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/intelligence/was-metoo-just-a-trend-for-fashion
- Picture collected November 6, 2020
https://www.elle.com.au/fashion/jimmy-choo-cara-delevingne-ad-backlash-15398