Name: Bixuan (Kirry) Li
Class: Intro to Fashion Studies Section E
Date: 2019.2.19
Post an advertisement for a fashion brand and explain how gender is portrayed through the clothing, models, etc. Does the advertisement reinforce traditional gender norms, or does it subvert (go against) them? Include one quote from Fashion and Cultural Studies to support your answer. Submit the link to your LP Post #2.
This is an advertisement for Dolce & Gabbana spring 2007, and is an example of the countless fashion ads that demonstrates sexism.
This ad clearly shows the how fashion for male is ‘unmarked’ while fashion for female is ‘marked’. Among four men shown in the photo, the men in the center as well as the men to his left are both have their upper body naked and only wear a pair of jeans—a very simple and basic look that has been seen countless times. The other two men, although have their lower and upper body dressed, wore simple denim outfits. According to author of Fashion and Cultural Studies Susan B. Kaiser, fashion for male ‘is more serious, changes in slower and more subtle ways, and eschews elaborate ornamentation[1]’. This idea is well demonstrated by the photo: outfits of the four men featured in the ad are all very basic; nothing eye opening can be found from these outfits.
In sharp contrast to what the men are wearing, the woman in the ad wears a skintight black bodysuit with a pair of fashionable 3inch high heels featuring strap designs and pointy heel shape. The image of the woman is one that resembles the stereotype of a high fashion model: long legs, little black dress, high heels, heavy makeup. The clear difference between the appearance of the woman and that of the four men in the ad exemplifies the theory of Susan B. Kaiser: ‘fashion, like femininity, is marked as the context of the other. Masculinity, by way of contrast…is unmarked[2]’.
Apart from demonstrating the ‘markedness’ and ‘unmarkedness’ of women and men’s fashion, this ad also implies men overpowers women by showing the woman being pushed down by one man and guarded by another three. It also hints gang rape, which has made this ad one of the most controversial fashion ads.
[1] Kaiser, Susan B. Fashion and Cultural Studies. Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2012.
[2] Ipid.
