so, this is another old issue, but lately it seems like i am getting a daily reminder of how fucked uo this company seems to be… i really liked their clothes and the early ads i saw! at this point, however, every ad i see looks more and more like fucking kiddie porn and their clothes are over-priced over-hip badly made
And this in 2007????????
to their credit, apperently this was actually done by the magazine i-D and not AA themselves, but they didn’t check it first? more than that i have only seen one AA ad with an African-American woman in (well, 16 year most likely), besides this one. in general the fashion world only uses African models to exotify them and this seems no fucking different. i read a few responses to this saying it was celibrating “Black Beauty” and “OMG this is so high fashion”, but the responses seemed to be from white people. i read other respsonses that it was art, and i agree that it’s artisticly done with amazing use of color/contrast, but ART is not immune to rascism and an ADVERTISEMENTS/EDITORIALS barely qualify as art. And the “Sweeter than candy, better than cake.”?! that in the end is what sets me overboard. i mean, i could see this as reclaiming or confronting our aunt jemmima stereotypes, but that proves it is about the fetish of it. the fact remains AA is a company owned by a white man and i-D a magazine owned/edited by white people. a women responded on AA’s website: “but we’re not dessert, we are not a statement, we are people, plain and simple, intricate and complicated-just like everyone else.”
i can’t help and feel like even though it wasn’t an offical AA ad, that soon we will see their ads with black women in chains in their “native Africa”. i think we are beginning to see what the fashion world is capable of.
what does american apparel have to say? not much, but read the comments from their daily update. what does i-D magazine have to say? no response i found.
it’s worth noting that i can’t find info or pictures of this model anywhere else and there is an arguement as to whether or not she’s really black, or if she truely is wearing blackface.
also, worth mentioning that AA is NOT offically sweat shop free brand clothing. made in america means made by immagrints making minimum wage.
mostly, i think fashion magazines, clothing companies and ad firms need to be put in check: exploiting race and objecting women isn’t fucking provakative or edgey, it’s fucked up. will things ever change, not as long as they profit from it, not as long as we buy it.
