Thursday, October 21, 2021

'Not Dressing Men'

Of course not. Why would you?

Objectify us instead! And if we ask nicely? Please, please?

Gorgeous woman, lucky object.

Suitsupply is a mid-end men's tailoring brand. They sell a lot of suits to students and young men entering the work force. Their success is based on a single strategy: objectification of women. Happens all the time, it's just that Suitsupply is doing it rather successfully. Four years ago the company decides to branch out into business suits for women. Blogger Ciara Hall has a very good explanation of how the average fashion campaign works.

"Recently, Suistudio launched the campaign #NOTDRESSINGMEN in order to advertise their line of business suits created for women. The images that have been released for this campaign are, in some ways, fairly standard for this sort of product: two people, one dressed head-to-toe in a suit and standing in a position of power and domination, the other posed provocatively, their identity meaningless, their body completely on display. Now, this is an image that we have seen before – many, many times, in fact. Yet, there is one thing about this campaign that not only makes it different, but has caused plenty of controversy, and that is the fact that a woman is placed in a position of power, while a male model is the one being sexualized and objectified.

Because this time it's men, not women who are objectified, the internet and social media explodes. Take Teen Vogue for instance: "Since women have historically been treated as props in advertising, it's powerful to see a clothing line flip gender roles, making a progressive statement in the process." Others call it a powerful statement. Nonsense, they'll do just anything to flog their stuff. Almost anything that is, after all they shy away from calling their campaign a femdom-based one.

As for objectification, the only thing worse than being objectified is no longer being objectified. As for us men, feel free to objectify us anytime ladies. We love it. Some more than others :). 

A woman [dressed] in white, another personal favourite of mine.
Him: 'best modelling gig ever.'

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