This is an ad by SUISTUDIO that I first saw in a magazine several months ago and stuck in my mind. The title of this ad campaign is “Not Dressing Men,” and aims to flip the traditional stereotype of sexualizing females in ad campaigns by depicting them nude, while their male counterparts are often not at all sexualized. It calls attention to this issue, which unfortunately often goes completely unnoticed when it is the other way around. Gender is portrayed through clothing and the notion of a power structure created by the image. The female model is dressed in a full suit, which is traditionally associated with menswear, while the male model is completely naked. Her pose, the way she is towering over him with confidence juxtaposed with the way he is reclined in a somewhat submissive pose plays into gender power structures by placing her (and the female gender) in a literal position of power over men. However, she is still wearing very feminine heels and jewelry that highlight her femaleness as opposed to hiding it or trying to make her more manly.

This ad was extremely progressive when it came out and was welcomely received by the public. Ads like this are examples of cultural studies. According to Susan Kaiser’s Fashion and Cultural Studies,  “Cultural studies refuse ‘to reduce human life or power to one dimension, one axis, one explanatory framework’…It also works against a logic of essentialism: the belief that things are the way they are because that is ‘just the way they are.’ Essentialist thinking fosters stereotypes because it suggests that a subject position such as gender predetermines (biologically or otherwise) a set of traits that apply to ‘all women’… or ‘all men'” (Kaiser, 11-12). This quote really ties into the mission this ad is trying to portray, which is trying to highlight the importance of cultural studies and the importance of questioning essentialist beliefs.