by Jasmyne-Nicole Walker, contributor
Louis Vuitton released an ad campaign in which Jaden Smith, 17, son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, is the new face of their SS 2016 Womenswear line and the third installment of their Series 4 Campaign. If your eyebrow went up, not to worry, you were not alone. And trust me, I’m a pretty progressive thinker, open to entertaining a variety of perspectives and notions, but calling this stunt “progressive,” I don’t get. Progressive would have been if they created unisex-wear, or better yet, put out a press release that stated they were dropping “Womens” and “Mens” from all signage throughout their stores and marketing campaigns from this day forward so that all clothing simply says “Wear.” They could also have runway shows with models of all gender expressions fully integrated into every show.
That would have been progressive and that would be setting a precedent, especially as the oldest fashion house for what the future of fashion should look like. It would, that is, if they were really about that life and trying to be all activist-minded like they’ve been making themselves out to be in the media. Hiring a famous young black dude with a slight build and soft features to wear a black skirt with metallic embellishments, a white fringe tank, and a black moto jacket surrounded by what feels like a harem of rail-thin white girls, and then calling it an ad for Womenswear, is just LV trying to create a visual question mark, trying to elicit some kind of emotion and that, is not progressive.How can it be, when Prince and David Bowie, respectfully, did it first? It reads, instead, as desperate.
More than that, it reads inauthentic and exploitative of young Smith and the wisdom of naiveté. With more and more conversations around sexuality, sexual orientation, gender as binary and gender identity happening around the country, many brands and companies seem to feel the need to show that they’re down. Which, when done well, can be good. Think of Cheerios and their interracial family commercials. See? Warm fuzzies, right? In contrast, LV claiming to be progressive in gender-bending with this ad feels tired. And, let’s not forget that just a week before releasing Jaden’s ad, Vuitton had just announced that Lightning, a character from the Final Fantasy game series, would also be the face of their Series 4 Campaign, the name given to the collection of visual works that comprise the SS 2016 ad campaign for Louis Vuitton. Marc Jacobs has been gone for a while now, and new Director Nicolas Ghesquière is trying to shake things up, make his mark. It’s cool. I get it. So, was he successful in his efforts? For sure, but perhaps for some of the wrong reasons? Definitely. This ad didn’t feel like the Cheerios ad or even close. This felt like, “Hey look over here, we’re Louis Vuitton doing something totally new! We’ve got a guy in a skirt! A black guy! And it’s in an ad for women’s clothes! Can you believe it?! See, it’s cool and edgy and outside the box for guys to wear what girls wear! Whoa!”
Dear LV: if shallow is how you’ve made your money all this time, stick to what works, and don’t suddenly try to become deep. Let’s be real: you are a bit conceited, snobbish and self-aggrandizing. Perfect for an overpriced, really old clothier that is attempting a new direction. Perhaps this is the positioning Louis Vuitton should have claimed, instead of “progressive.”
