Avert Your Eyes! Calvin Klein Crosses New Lines of Indecency

I’m no prude by any sense of the word. OK maybe I’ve never done what the three, wait. Four. Wait… five or so models in Calvin Klein’s Spring and Summer campaign ads are doing but I’m not a prude. I’ve been there, done that and have four kids to show for it.

Still, the latest jean advertisements to come from the famed and edgy fashion mogul Calvin Klein are more than enough to have me calling foul and wishing he’d develop an ad that actually made me want to buy CK jeans and not have me covering my eyes and my children’s eyes as well.

There are so many things wrong with the orgy-esque ads that I can’t even begin to verbalize them all so I’ve decided to just post my letter to Calvin Klein here:

Dear CK,

First let me say that you’re pretty damn awesome. I own some CK jeans and I’ve owned them in the past. My little girl also owns a pair of CK jeans and let me tell you, we’re both pretty pleased with how they look and how well they are made.

Having said that, did I mentio my little girl? She’s nine. Loves fashion and anything fashionable. She wants to be a trend setter. Already at the tender age of nine, she’s learning to sew, design, and make her own clothes. I’m pretty freaking proud because I know she didn’t get the love of fashion from me. The problem is that I really don’t want her taking after you or even seeing the CK brand as something to strive for. It’s not your success that I find fault with. It’s your advertising.

The thing is, because she’s nine, she’s entering a very impressionable phase. One that’s likely to last into her 20’s and maybe even her 30’s until she finds herself and her place in this world. I understand that it’s my job as her mother to help her grow and develop into a confident and self reliant woman but you make it damn hard with the indecent and subjective ads that have been released lately. I don’t know if you realize how hard it is to raise a girl with a positive self image lately so let me shine a little bit of light on it for you.

I spend my days teaching my daughter that beauty isn’t the only thing that matters in life. We talk about the changes that her body will go through in the near future and how those are beautiful things. We talk about how she owns her body, no one else does and how she should protect it.

Then I see your ads with young women openly engaging in what I can only assume is supposed to be an advertising campaign. If it weren’t for the fact that Calvin Klein Jeans is displayed in the bottom corner, I would swear that I was looking at the cover of an adult video. I realize that sex is supposed to sell but do you think that you could try to let the jeans sell themselves for a change instead of a group of young people who look like they should be tested at the nearest free clinic after a night of carefree, orgy-like make out sessions?

I don’t argue that you need to stay edgy to be in fashion but I do argue that you don’t need to put young people in precarious, inappropriate, and borderline obscene pictures and ads, all in the hopes of people buying jeans. I’m not sure what society you live in, but the one I live in involves trying to keep my daughter and even my sons from having the wrong image of women and sex. I’m trying to raise a lady, not a harlot.

You can write back and tell me that I can’t hold you responsible for the self image that my daughter will have of herself or that how my children view sex and women has nothing to do with you and the scantily clad young people in your ads but I disagree. I can only do so much and filter so much in their lives. They will go out into the world, they will pick up a magazine when I’m not looking, they will watch TV at their friends’ houses that I may not approve of. All of this will happen and I will do my best to deflect it when it comes into my home but I’m a realist. I know that the media has a strong hold on young people. It influences their purchasing decisions, it influences how they conduct themselves, how they see themselves and how they see others. A display that shows topless young people or half dressed young people participating in multi partner make out sessions will have an impact on them. Despite everything I tell, teach, preach and practice myself, they will see an ad like this and say, “Well if it’s out in public for everyone to see then it can’t be that bad.”

You as a business person and a brand, know how to influence people to buy your jeans. You’ve been good at it or you wouldn’t be so successful today. Unfortunately, you fall short on taking that reach and using it to influence young people, especially young women in a positive manner. It’s easier to throw some people together, have them take off most of their clothes, put young women in a questionable and possibly immoral situations and let people think what they will and you do it because it will get attention. It will likely sell jeans. However, it will also show young women who struggle with their identity, who struggle with being taken seriously in our society, who work hard to maintain a positive self image that you could care less about what mainstream society thinks of them or how they are treated and demoralized. You give the sick people of the world who act out against women permission to keep doing so and you demonstrate to generations of women that this is how they should look, this is how they should act, and this is what will get them noticed. And for what? The ability to market a product and make money.

I may not be able to change your mind, remove the ads, or even admit that that this choice of advertising is wrong. However, I can stop wearing your jeans and purchasing them for my household. Not because I am a mom and make the purchasing decisions for my household but because I am a woman and this kind of advertising does nothing for me. It doesn’t make me want to buy your jeans any faster than I want to stab my eyes out with a hot poker.

Am I boycotting your products?

Hardly.

I’m making an informed decision based on the advertising you’ve done to market your product. I don’t feel the campaign speaks to me in a way that is positive or makes me want to spend my money. Perhaps you should try another route for marketing your clothing other than soft porn because it’s been done and I wasn’t impressed then either.

Best,

Nichole Smith

Now I don’t know for sure if the ads have been pulled from billboards or not or if they will show up on cable channels this summer. I’ve read a number of articles and posts saying that they’ve been banned in America (the link shows the commercial spot. You have to click play to watch it but It’s definitely not safe for work or children) and then I’ve read some that are asking if they will be. Who knows.

What I do know is that even though sex sells in our society, advertising that continue to put women down and display them as nothing more than sex objects do nothing for me. It doesn’t make want to buy a product, take a trip or wear the clothes they are selling.

Wow me.

Make me stand up and take notice in a positive way. Make me feel positive about your product.

Don’t gross me out and make me wish my children, my daughter, lived in another world.

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