Advertising in Allure: Shirtless Shilling

Spotted in the October issue of Allure: four fragrance ads featuring nearly naked women.  Because everyone knows that wearing perfume means you don’t have to wear a shirt!  (But just in case, better cover up those breasts with whatever object is lying around!  Like that pile of flower petals!)

    

As repugnant (and lazy!) as we find the extraneous use of nudity to sell things, we dislike the Marc Jacobs and Mariah Carey ads even more.  Is the model in the Daisy ad unconscious?  Dead?  Or, you know, just asleep in the grass in her underwear?  Totally normal!  And the Mariah Carey ad—she’s mostly underwater, and her perfume promises an “ethereal presence.”  Thanks, but we’d rather be corporeal than ephemeral.

    

We just read the truly thought-provoking book Can't Buy My Love by Jean Kilbourne, which explores advertising and its insidious effects on women, and we can't stop thinking about it (and, yes, questioning everything we see).  However, there was one ad featuring a topless woman that we wholeheartedly endorse.

Comments

[Lib]

Glad to hear you ran across "Can't Buy My Love". I read it in college, and it revolutionized the way I look at advertising.

[Moi]

Congrats on your nuptials! Glad to see you are back and in fine form. That Marc Jacobs ad is just wrong, wrong, wrong. What? Is Serial Killer Chic suddenly the new black?

[T-Bone]

Yay! Glad you found a worthy man, sweetie!

I worship the breast cancer full page. The woman has BACK FAT. It's fabulous! And she's gorgeous!