I am just going to start with a disclaimer- these ads were not placed in this layout by the company. I found these two images separately and decided to place them together, as the product being advertised works for both men and women. Tom Ford’s website does sell their sunglasses under genders (male and female) and I am curious to know what gender if ended up being sold under, or if it was sold under both.
We get a sense of gender neutrality, as the same product is worn by (presumably) a male and a female. Similarly we can look at most Ray Band sunglasses (as discussed in class) with the same neutrality. Unlike the New York Times article about the Louis Vuitton campaign, the product in the advertisement is not visibly gendered. “In other words, he’s not a man in transition… or a man wearing clothing that looks as if it could be worn by either gender. Nor is he a man wearing woman-inspired men’s wear…. he is a man who happens to be wearing obviously female clothes.” The Louis Vuitton ad can be seen as more transgressive, while the Tom Ford ad is more normative. Genders are yet apposing in the TF ad, (assuming the models are male and female) as if they have some type of sexual attraction or tension between them. We can’t assume they identify with the gender they were assigned at birth, though. Nothing indicates that or makes it obvious. Kaiser speaks about what is happening in the bottom photo in Fashion and Cultural Studies, referring to how men always have some type of power over women. She gives the example of ‘gazing’: “to question the degree to which the masculine gazing subject and feminine (gazed at) sex object are hegemonically represented as heterosexual.”
Bibliography:
“Eyewear.” Tom Ford Online Store. Accessed February 19, 2018. https://www.tomford.com/eyewear/.
“Jaden Smith for Louis Vuitton: The New Man in a Skirt.” The New York Times. January 6, 2016. Accessed February 19, 2018. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/fashion/jaden-smith-for-louis-vuitton-the-new-man-in-a-skirt.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Funbuttoned&_r=0&referer=.
Kaiser. Fashion and cultural studies. Oxford: Bloomsbury, 2011. 128,129.
Tortora, Laura . “Tom Ford: the Fall Winter 2014-15 Advertising Campaign.” Vouge Italia. July 15, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2020. http://www.vogue.it/en/shows/oddities/2014/07/tom-ford-fall-winter-2014-2015-ad.
“Tom Ford Eyewear F/W 2014.15.” Fashion Eyewear. Accessed February 19, 2020. https://www.fashioneyewear.co.uk/blog/whats-hot/tom-ford-eyewear-fw-2014-15.
