This advertisement is from the Louis Vuitton campaign with photographer Viviane Sassen. In this advertisement the models are dressed in unisex apparel and have uniform features, which is meant to control the subject formations being presented. Thus allowing the audience to focus its attention on the subject formation of race specifically, which the ad is primarily addressing, regardless of age, gender, or sexuality.
This advertisement, featuring models of color in pastel colored clothing, promotes the introduction of colored garments into Louis Vuitton and suggests a launch campaign towards a new color story for the brand.
“Through style-fashion-dress, individuals have the opportunities to articulate — visually and materially– what might be too challenging to express in words.” (Kaiser 39) The ad is shot on a beach, with water, representing rebirth, crashing in the background. It is as if the models are on a boat, just setting the sails and getting ready to take on an adventure at sea. From the way the model in the back is waving the bed sheet in the air, it looks like a sail of a boat. White sails were meant to signify victory and hope for the future, in this ad, I believe it represents the victories of people of color and the challenges they have endured and prospered from. In this photo, the bright colors on the garments represent a bright future for the brand, and their bringing of life and diversity to a traditionally all white, feminine, Parisienne couture brand. The models are looking back towards inland as if looking back at their past, seeing how far they have come. They are packing their bags, and hitting the road, heading far from their past and towards a bright future, with simultaneously bright luggage. The skies, with sparse clouds, represent the obstacles the race has endured, but no matter what, there is still sunshine, which represents their strength that has emerged from their hardships. It represnts the colored communtiy takign control of their future, their power, and contrastign this to their pat in which traditionally africans were captured from their homelands, brought to the Americas and sold into the slave trade.
The model in front wears a mint colored windbreaker and tan trousers, with white cutout leather combat boots, while the background model wears a dark cool grey suit and multicolored sneakers. “The business suit, in one form or a subtle another, has endured more than 200 years as a dominant symbol of hegemonic (bourgeois masculinity).” (Kaiser 127). Although he wears a dark and unshapely suit, classic features of the bourgeois male; the colored model is also waving a pale bed sheet as though he is pitching a sail, a likely job of an enslaved African American in the late 18th century. Therefore, the background model, hiding in the shadows and “pitching sails” with its unfitted suit, represents the dark African American past of cruel oppression by hegemonic, bourgeois masculinity. This is contrasted by the bright future of the African community, which is represented by the model positioned closest to the camera, holding the bag, representing ownership of material goods, and the state of being prepared (wearing tech apparel such us the windbreaker which is made from a water repellent fabric).
The ad’s mix of stereotypical gender qualities, suggest the brand’s recent incorporation of unisex garments in its collections. The clothing being presented in the ad is minimalistic in pattern and drape, a quality of understated menswear, but contains the variety and softness of color prevalent in womenswear. The mix of minimalistic structure and color suggest a mixing of gender lines, which is further conveyed in the advertisement’s choice of models with gender neutral features, such as short hair, long legs, and bare faces. While these characteristics don’t necessarily convey gender, these habits of daily dress are similar to gender in the sense that they are both “socially constructed and culturally created and represented” (Kaiser 127). Based on the reading, which claims that “fashion seems to imply femininity as a process of frivolous change, colorful details and unnecessary flounces, and superficiality” (Kaiser 125) and “[bourgeois men, at least , moved away from color; silk; pattern; ornamentation; wigs; knickers; and tights, in favor of darker, more somber, business like clothing“ (Kaiser 126), one can assume that this ad is meshing the bright colors and light textiles of femininity, with the dark colored, and unshapely silhouette of menswear. “Variety became the stuff of femininity, whereas masculinity became the epitome of understated elegance, with a much narrower range of options.” (Kaiser 126) This ad is marketing LOUIS VUITTON’s greater variety of clothing for both genders. In addition, the ad’s color palette, including the traditionally gendered colors of blue and pink, further breaks down the gender barrier in the presented garments. All in the all, the ad suggests Louis Vuitton’s introduction of pastel-colored, unisex garments.
