Alexander Wang launches his new denim line today and, because most humans who wear denim usually do so without wearing shirts, the accompanying ads feature greased-up model Anna Ewers with her pants pulled down on a recliner cause, you know, *whispers* S-E-X. They're also pretty derivative, if you've ever seen a Calvin Klein jawn, but that's to be expected.
Oh, brother. At a certain point, it doesn't matter if Steven Klein is shooting your adverts, if they look like a better-lit version of a web-ad linked off YouPorn. Why not just pay a dude off Craigslist who could use the money? Or, novel idea, hire a woman photographer for a more interesting and probably more subversive perspective! But of course, the YouPornification was basically the point. Wang told WWD, "Once you see it, you can't stop thinking about it... I wanted an image that would provoke."
Which is fine, and probably the entire point of advertising. But using a naked woman doused in oil and, presumably, simulating masturbation, is a concept as old as time, and not really provocative at all, other than the dull, familiar rage-lite I feel from being force-fed a replica of a replica of a replica by Alexander Wang. Besides, the masturbation image is not really to infer Ewers' pleasure—everybody knows masturbation generally looks imperfect, messy and often a little fugnacious—but to infer the pleasure of the viewer, for the audience and not the masturbator. Perhaps more ridiculous is the main image of Ewers, in a Calvin-esque setting (barren; visible radiator; tub in the living room), sitting her bare butt on a leather recliner with her Wang jeans pulled down to her ankles because, you know, *screams* S-E-X.
For his part, Wang says he is simply trying to spark convo, like you know, probably on Tumblr and what not. "It's not provocative just in terms of sexy, but provocative to provoke conversation," he told WWD. "I'm not dictating what that message is exactly. The interesting part is to see how people interpret it, and what they have to say about it. Of course, there are going to be people who disagree with it." Yeah yeah, maybe the ultra-conservative Parents TV Council and like, my grandma will "disagree" with seeing a hot model in various states of undress. And releasing an image of a woman who looks like she could be passed out in a creepy room is probably not the most intelligent or woman-cognizant/woman-caring thing for Wang to do amid a very long era in which every third news headline is about young women being date-raped. But what about those of us (presumably in his target demo—I TUMBL!) who look at these images, ones we've seen a trillion times before, and just feel kind of dead inside and bored and shit cause it's wild cliché? WHAT THEN?!
Image via Alexander Wang/WWD.