14 DAY TRIAL // Nothing sells like a beautiful endorser. Put in an ad two ridiculously looking endorsers in suggestive poses and what you have is the latest campaign for Calvin Klein, featuring actress Eva Mendes and model Jamie Dornan. As the ads with the two are literally burning holes on the Internet, not few are those who are asking whether this is fashion taken to extremes and someone should put an end to the tendency.
For the sake of precision, one must also mention that the ads referred above will not be aired on television, but rather be featured in fashion magazines such as Lucky, Elle, GQ, Vanity Fair, W, Nylon, Details, Interview and InStyle. They also constitute the second time Mendes works with CK and gets banned, the first time being when she was the face of the Secret Obsession perfume and starred in an ad wearing nothing but the fragrance in question.
Eva Mendes and Dornan are featured in the latest campaign in underwear and, in some shots, in the new CK jeans. Their oily skins and poses, which call to mind little else than a romantic encounter, have sparked talk of the fashion industry taking the route to a certain branch of cinematography if you will, and thus forgetting what it was all about. Boundaries are being crossed, critics say, and before anyone knows it, nothing in the industry will not sell if it does not have some highly airbrushed, too perfect and too beautiful to be true model in poses that regular people would not dream assume in the comfort of their home, let alone in front of the camera for shots that will be plastered on huge billboards in major cities around the world.
What’s worse, the same critics say, is that the public seems to love this type of ads, and is thus becoming desensitized little by little. Moreover, the tendency of shooting such ads is nearing a climax and was probably ignited over a year ago, when soccer star David Beckham took part in his first ever campaign for Emporio Armani lingerie. He was shortly followed by wife Victoria and, in their case too, each new ad pushes the envelope a little bit more, much to the concern of the critics.
Of course, a coin always has two sides, as they say, and all of the above is countered by the many voices who say that fashion has always been about glamorizing and building a parallel, albeit faux, reality. The new Calvin Klein shots do just that and, what’s even more important, they also drive the point across and sell. For more on this “controversy” and the ads, see here.