Old Navy was advertising t-shirts supporting various sports teams. There was one little problem though…. someone didn’t check the spelling. They were selling t-shirts proclaiming “Lets Go [insert team here]”. Now, you and I know it should be “Let’s Go” but the average spell checker can’t differentiate between lets and let’s. That’s where the human brain is supposed to kick in and decide which is grammatically correct.

I often hear people moan and complain “who cares” about spelling and grammar. Well… in this case the company cares because they have to foot the bill for the web site correction and are stuck with useless t-shirts that had to be pulled from sale because someone thought “who cares”.

Small error = $$$ lost. Understand now?

On Twitter, you can create groups to follow. Those following the events in Egypt have been following a group titled #cairo. When you write a message for the group you simply include #cairo and your message is instantly tweeted to all those who subscribe to it. As you can imagine, those following this group are deeply interested in the events in Egypt. Many messages from protestors inside Egypt are flashed across this group. Well, some brilliant ad wank thought let’s spam this group with a funny ad campaign. They posted this on the group:

Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KC

It was quickly followed by:

Re Egypt tweet: we weren’t intending to make light of a serious situation. We understand the sensitivity of this historic moment -KC

The apology has not done anything to make up for the crass exploitation of the events. Tweeting directly to people who are watching the events with deep concern was a massive failure in understanding what is going on. But then, this is an industry that sees nothing wrong with promoting fashion and murder in the same breath. It’s not stretching the boundaries, it’s simply stupidly insensitive.

A few more tears in these pants and the subway riding public will be privy to way more than we bargained for, or would ever want.

Now, can someone explain to me, why anyone would wear jeans that obviously belong in the trash? Worse still, why would anyone spend a premium on clothing that is torn and worn out? Has society lost all semblance of common sense? Is it my imagination, or is the world getting dumber?

When even the industry itself is saying photoshopping is out of control, you know things are going to change. It’s going to continue to be an uphill battle, but eventually we will see an end to this ridiculous manipulation of both men and women’s body.

Welcome Jacob to the fight to reclaim our bodies.

Jacob says no to body manipulation
Jacob

In an ode to bankrupt ideals, South Korean fashion label Lewitt commissioned a short film (now yanked from every site I checked) that featured model Abbey Lee Kershaw fleeing from an unidentified danger and throwing herself off a roof. She is then shown falling over and over, in slow motion, wearing a different outfit with each fall. It’s done in a dreamy, romanticized way that is supposed to evoke a sense of “Ohh I want that”.

The problems with this are many fold. First, it is another attempt by the fashion industry to glamorize violence against women… again. Somehow this poor waif-like creature who commits suicide to escape whatever peril she is in, is supposed to be envied because she’s wearing must-have outfits. Hmm yes I want to wear what a dead woman is wearing – tres chic! We’ve seen this over and over in the past. The most egregious was the “murder as fashion” segment of an America’s Top Model episode.

Second, in doing a bit of research before hitting the keyboard, I discovered South Korea has the 8th highest suicide rate in the world, the second highest (just a hair under Mainland China) in female suicides. You would think, or hope, a company from a country rocked by numerous high profile suicides – including one of the country’s top models, Daul Kim – would show just a bit more common sense. Compassion is never going to happen, common sense is all we can hope for.

Daul Kim’s sad death at the age of 20 seems to have no effect on the people who treat women like nothing more than cattle ready for the slaughter. The fashion industry is not solely responsible for Kim’s death in Nov 2009; she was haunted by many demons that were aggravated by her career. Nor are they solely responsible for the high rate of suicide within South Korea. HOWEVER, they do bear responsibility for exploiting women and creating monumentally unrealistic visions of beauty that push girls and women to extremes to meet this phantom of beauty. The unending stream of warped images from the advertising and fashion industry must have an effect. We can’t simply say don’t watch them or worse don’t pay attention to them because this is hopelessly naive.

Blog after blog exposes the over photo-shopped models who have had limbs moved into positions that are anatomically impossible, breasts air brushed away (or in one case moved so low they were sitting just above the poor woman’s navel), thinned so badly the women look like sick bobble heads, belly buttons removed (just what is the industry’s obsession with belly buttons?), elongating arms and legs to the point the women resemble something out of a sci-fi movie, fingers elongated to such an extreme I wonder if the people doing the work even know what a female body looks like. If they want clothes hangers, stop the hypocrisy and put the damned clothes on hangers. Stop redesigning the human body to suit these warped views, and start showing women that come in all shapes, all sizes.

The industry bears a great responsibility for exploiting the notion that violence and fear is glamorous. That somehow brutalizing the vulnerable and weak is acceptable, even envied. I’ve used the term bankrupt ideals before, but it is the only phrase that can fully explain an industry that celebrates self-abuse and violence. No other industry would get away with promoting this type of agenda. Why do they get away with it? Because the world idolizes everything the industry does. They are the neo-gods of the modern world. Legions of magazines drool over every design, and quote even the most inane blatherings from designers who live in a world where they can abuse the female image and be rewarded for their efforts. They seemed to have forgotten Hubert de Givenchy’s statement on fashion, “The dress must follow the body of a woman, not the body following the shape of the dress.”

We’ve endured “heroin chic”, size zero or go home, designers who show open contempt for the female body in their battle against “plus size” models, murder as a fashion statement and now this. When is enough, enough?

There is nothing wrong with wanting tall, willowy models to showcase your work. There is something wrong with photo-shopping the models until they look like they are about to die from malnutrition or redo their bodies to suit a perverse image of what they think the female body should be. There is something wrong with using violence and emotional desperation to sell a warped image of beauty. There is something wrong with an industry that hectors it’s employees (and yes models are employees) to such an extent that anorexia and bulimia are the bywords for employment.

A remedial course in anatomy should be mandatory before anyone is allowed to work in either the fashion industry or advertising (kissing cousins in maintaining high standards of stupidity). This won’t happen until the world stops treating everything the fashion industry does with such reverence. They are employers who exploit their workers and their audience.

Suicide in South Korea
Frockwriter’s blog on the subject
Photoshop Disasters blog they spotlight the entire advertising industry’s misuse of over-touching photos.

There are some truly gifted designers out there – men and women who create fashions for real people. Designers who respect the human shape. But they seem few and far between anymore.  I do get a giggle trolling through fashion websites to see just how silly the industry can be. Case in point? Givenchy’s 2010 Spring Ready to Wear collection. Check these out:

WOW – the Coneheads are coming! The pants alone are migraine inducing, but the little pointy dunce caps send this design right into silly land. The one on the left looks like she’s a cross between a Conehead and an angry Smurfette. Now there’s an image – Smurfs from the darkside. **shudder** The design could be passable – not to my taste, but then really who cares. By plunking pointy hats on their heads, Givenchy transcends all my low expectations of the industry. No intelligent woman would be caught dead wandering down the street wearing a traffic cone on her head.

Mind you, the women came off much better than the men:

When I looked at the shimmery gold number I blurted out “WTF?” WOW … again. Love the executioners hood though. It just makes the ensemble, don’t you think? The shirt sleeves are divine! But where’s the rest of the t shirt?

The real shame is that there were a few designs that looked pretty good to me – yea, I know, I was shocked all to hell too. But I had to look very hard to find something that didn’t make me laugh my head off.

Now I know why so many models are so po-faced – they are just embarrassed.