AS FAR AS I know, I was the first person to study the image of women in advertising. I started collecting ads in the late 1960s, tearing them out of magazines and putting them on my refrigerator with magnets. Gradually I began to see a pattern in the ads and to see certain themes emerging – such as the tyranny of the ideal image of beauty, the dismemberment and objectification of the female body, the obsession with thinness, and the normalisation of sexual assault and battering. I put together a slide presentation and began speaking about these issues throughout the United States. I made the first version of my film ‘Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women’ in 1979 (and have remade it three times since then). Since then, advertising has become more sophisticated, more ubiquitous, and more powerful than ever before. Yet most people still believe that they are not influenced by it. Wherever I go, what I hear more than anything else is ‘I don’t pay attention to ads. I just tune them out. They hav no effect on me.’ Of course, I hear this most often from people wearing Gap T-shirts or carrying Louis Vuitton bags. The influence of advertising is quick, cumulative, and mostly subconscious. As the editor-in-chief of Advertising Age, the major publication of the American advertising industry, once said, ‘Only eight percent of an ad’s message is received by the conscious mind. The rest is worked and re-worked deep within the recesses of the brain.’ So we process these images over and over again, mostly subconsciously.

Ads sell more than products of course. They sell values, images, concepts of love and sexuality, of romance and success – and perhaps most importantly, of normalcy. To a great extent advertising tells us who we are and who we should be. One of the earliest and most disturbing themes I noticed was the sexualisation of little girls. From the beginning I felt that both the sexualisation of girls and the obsession with thinness were a kind of response to the growing feminist movement. Many people feel a lot of discomfort, even terror, at the thought of women becoming too big and too powerful. This terror is mostly subconscious and is experienced by many women as well as by men. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, as women seized more opportunities and went into the work force and into medical schools, law schools and business schools, the ideal woman in advertising and popular culture became extremely thin. I’m not implying that this was a conscious conspiracy. Rather I think it reflects what the psychoanalyst Carl Jung referred to as ‘the collective unconscious.’

On the deepest level, the obsession with thinness is about cutting women down to size. This can be done quite literally now with Photoshop, as in the notorious Ralph Lauren ad from 2009 picturing an extremely whittled-down version of the model Filippa Hamilton. I remember seeing an ad for Armani Exchange featuring a very thin Asian woman with the tagline ‘The more you subtract, the more you add’. Of course, this is referring to simplicity in fashion but it implies more than that. At the same time as models were becoming thinner and thinner, advertising and pop culture began offering highly sexualised images of young girls, almost as if they were replacements for newly empowered women. As women moved away from the so-called ‘feminine’ traits of passivity, powerlessness, and submissiveness, images of sexy little girls proliferated. This sexualisation is not harmless. In 2007 the American Psychological Association published a report concluding that girls exposed to sexualised images from a young age are more prone to three of the most common mental health problems for girls and women: depression, eating disorders, and low self-esteem.

The flip side of this sexualisation of girls is the infantilisation of adult women. Signs of maturity in women – wrinkles, laugh lines, body hair – have never been acceptable in advertising or in popular culture in general. Women have long been expected to shave their legs and underarms, or face disgust if they don’t. Today women and girls are also exhorted to remove all or almost all of their pubic hair. We get the message that women are acceptable only if they are young, very thin, white (or at least light-skinned), perfectly groomed and polished, plucked and shaved. Any deviation from this ideal is met with contempt and hostility – which, of course, is waiting for all of us as we age. This repudiation of signs of sexual maturity in women is disturbing, to say the least, and has a powerful impact on female self-esteem.

Women are infantilised in advertising, especially in fashion advertising, in several ways. Sometimes the woman is dressed as a child or holds a childish prop such as a lollipop or teddy bear. Often the models pose in silly and childlike ways and sometimes the models are portrayed as having disproportionately large heads and eyes, telltale hallmarks of children. I have seen more grown women that I care to recall pose with their fingers in their mouths, or being symbolically silenced by having their hands over their mouths or their mouths covered in other ways.

In short, my point is that fashion advertising often sells more than fashion. My hope is that enlightened people in the industry will be more careful about what else they are selling, about the messages they are perhaps unwittingly conveying to girls and women (and boys and men too). We all are affected by these messages and we all have a profound stake in challenging them. As sociologist Erving Goffman, referring to the study of advertisements, said, ‘We must make what is invisible, visible, so we have a choice to make about how we want to participate in the world we inhabit.’

Jean Kilbourne is an American author and filmmaker who critically examines images of advertising.

This article was originally published in Vestoj‘s fourth issue, On Fashion and Power.

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Anja: In the fashion industry you’re known as someone rather opinionated. In an industry notorious for the reticence with which people usually speak, have you found that speaking your mind is an advantage or a disadvantage?

Jean: First of all, I’m frustrated by the fact that I’m called ‘opinionated.’ Everyone should have opinions but I operate in a world where nobody does. What can I do? It’s a big problem. When people say I’m opinionated it sounds like I’m a pain in the ass but really, I just have a point of view.

Anja: Why do you think that so many people find it hard to speak freely in our industry?

Jean: Because nobody wants to risk upsetting anybody else. Journalists today have their hands tied. I mean, not that I have anything against these guys personally, but did you hear about Dolce & Gabbana? They took a fucking billion euros from their business in Italy and put it in Luxemburg to avoid paying taxes. Can you imagine? Now they’ve been given suspended sentences and fined 500 million for tax evasion, but the fashion press pretend it’s raining because Dolce & Gabbana are huge advertisers. Stories like this are as common as sand on the seashore.

Anja: Though when Hedi Slimane was showing his first collections for Saint Laurent I thought it was interesting that the fashion press were uncharacteristically critical. My feeling was that journalists felt that the company went too far with regards to how tightly the image of the brand was controlled.

Jean: Yes, an editor can’t even use his clothes in a photo shoot unless it’s as full total looks. Not even a sock by another designer is allowed. It’s like he thinks he’s the Kaiser or something. But seriously, it’s ridiculous; the brand is trying to establish connections between what Slimane is doing and what Yves Saint Laurent himself did by saying that Slimane is working the rock ‘n’ roll vibe in homage to YSL. The official party line is that Yves Saint Laurent hung out with Mick Jagger in the 1970s, and that the relationship between Slimane and his rock star friends is just the same. But YSL was never into rock n’ roll; he was into reading Proust. I mean it’s one thing to hang out with Mick Jagger at Studio 54 because you’re totally coked out and everybody’s partying, but that doesn’t make you a fan of rock n’ roll. That part is an after-construction and the Kering Group is blatantly trying to spin the story to suit their ends. But the Slimane bashing will stop soon anyway because it’s fashion and people get tired of bullshitting about the same subject. Plus the brand probably sells a lot in China, and as long as you’re financially successful you’re pretty bulletproof.

Anja: How do you think the dominance of fashion conglomerates in today’s fashion industry affects the notion of luxury?

Jean: Okay, here I’ll say something that you’ll think is ‘opinionated’: the more ugliness you accept the more you’ll sell. It’s totally proven.

Anja: What do you mean?

Jean: Well, look at Jay-Z’s website for instance. It doesn’t look good, but it sells a lot. I’m sorry, but beauty is beauty and ugliness is ugliness. If that weren’t the case, the words wouldn’t exist. If A.P.C. was to be bought up by a big conglomerate, it wouldn’t be long before I found myself in a meeting with five bigwig executives telling me that to be really successful, we need to sell more jeans. And in order to sell more jeans we’re going to have to shoot a very obvious ad campaign. And the obvious ad campaign is going to end up being a bit ugly, because that’s just what happens when you try to reach as many people as possible. If you want to be sophisticated, you won’t reach the maximum amount of people.

Anja: Ok, I get it – don’t compromise on your integrity in order to build another swimming pool in the backyard. But considering your stance, how do you see the influence and role of A.P.C. in the contemporary fashion industry?

Jean: We’re independent first of all and that’s a feat in itself today. We don’t have to accept ugliness. We can do what we want. I don’t want A.P.C. to grow so big we become a slave to the banks. If you aim to sell a million jeans a year, that’s what happens: you have to open new stores everywhere. Before you know it it’s all very mechanical. But young designers today they don’t want to be independent, they all dream of being owned by LVMH. Me, I want to make products with care and attention, and I want them to be affordable.

Anja: But what’s ‘affordable’, how do you measure that?

Jean: When something is expensive but you can still manage, then that’s affordable to me. I’m not saying what we do is cheap, but we’ve got the correct margins.

Anja: My impression is that brands price their garments in order to connect with a certain consumer demographic and exclude others. Is that how you work too? Did you already know what customer you wanted to reach when you started out?

Jean: I don’t see point of all these questions because it seems you want a recipe for what we do. You think we have a recipe but we don’t. It’s like seeing a great dancer in a nightclub and going, ‘Please explain to me how you do it – is it about how you transfer your weight and move your head at the same time?’ But the dancer won’t be able to explain his movements; it’s not about the concept, it’s instinctual. So, I understand your questions, but I can’t give you a breakdown of why we do what we do, or why it works. To me, work is instinctual, like dancing is to the dancer. Of course, eventually my instinct gets filtered by business people whose job it is to take my gut feeling and turn it into something financially viable, but that’s not the starting point or even the incentive.

Anja: You seem to often define yourself in opposition to fashion, and in your presentations you’re often openly critical of the industry. The contemporary fashion system appears to be extremely regimented; you have to follow the rules to count. What does it mean for you to be a rebel in the fashion industry today?

Jean: I’m not a rebel.

Anja: Ok, I’m not saying you are. But if you wanted to go against the grain in the industry, what would you do?

Jean: Well, first of all, never copy. That’s rule number one of being a so-called rebel. However much you admire another designer, you should never ever put someone else’s design on your studio table and say, ‘How are we going to knock this off?’ But believe me, even the most respected names in fashion don’t always follow that rule.

Anja: What about trying to break some of the conventions that we appear to take for granted today, say by not showing according to the fashion week schedule, producing according to the commercial seasons or communicating via press releases to the fashion press. Have you ever considered deviating from those norms?

Jean: That would be suicidal! You can do that if you’re Azzedine Alaïa maybe but even he’s well organised now. You need the attention you get from the fashion press during fashion week. What are you if what you do isn’t on Style.com?

Anja: Yes I’ve heard that before – being on Style.com is a sure sign of acceptance by the system. But not every designer who shows on the official fashion week calendar is on Style.com, right? How did A.P.C. get on the site?

Jean: We did have a problem where A.P.C. wasn’t covered for a long time. But more than anything it’s about connecting with the reviewers, finding out what they need in order to do their job, and making sure that they get it on time. What we needed to do was some sort of absurd thing like shooting the lookbook on the day we show the collection so the pictures look like they’ve been shot in the fitting room of the presentation.

Anja: I’ve heard that sometimes they come, see the show, but neglect to review it. What would you do if that happened?

Jean: The sun would rise anyway! Honestly though, if we were to see that the interest from the fashion press was deteriorating, then perhaps it would be time for some serious questioning. It’s never too late to change. Like Cristóbal Balenciaga did in ’68. He said, ‘I don’t fit into this world anymore,’ and stopped designing, and then eventually Yves Saint Laurent took all his customers.

Anja: There’s always someone there to take your customers.

Jean: I’m serious though. The day I feel we’re not good enough anymore, that’s the day we stop.

Anja: I’m curious to know what you think of the way a designer seems to have morphed into a ‘creative director’ in the past few decades. My impression is that the role has changed from someone directly involved in designing garments to someone who often works as a sort of brand manager and public face of a brand.

Jean: It’s true that times are different now, but what can you do? Now my work with the collections is more about the general mood. I give my input at the beginning of the creative process, and after that my staff consult me like a doctor. If they love a fabric, I tell them if it’s shit or good.

Anja: How do you communicate the mood for the coming seasons to your staff? Do you show images or just talk to them?

Jean: Just by talking. Eventually some guy will do mood boards or something but I just talk.

Anja: We talked earlier about how hard it is to break away from the norm in the fashion industry today. At A.P.C. you don’t have standard fashion shows, instead you have small gatherings where you talk the press and buyers through each collection. What’s the reasoning behind that?

Jean: Our clothes are clothes for everyday life so they’re better suited to more intimate presentations, but I do try to do something slightly more personal to make it more fun. It’s always nerve-racking though. Fashion people are a hard audience. I know I have to look relaxed when I talk, like I haven’t been up all night scripting my speech, but I can never quite shake the feeling that the room is full of mean people just waiting to pounce. So I try to make them laugh a bit, maybe teach them something. If I can do that, I know I’ve done a good job. But I need to always be thinking about how to give the press something new. Otherwise they will snore. I guarantee it. If we had just clothes on girls without my act, the journalists would arrive, pick a cookie, eat it and say, ‘It’s got too much sugar.’ Then, ‘Okay, four models done – what time is it? I’m out of here.’ And then to me, ‘Oh, hi darling, it was sooo good! We have to run!’ But this hasn’t happened yet, so we’ve been successful.

Anja: Is there anything in particular that stresses you out before a presentation?

Jean: The models are very important today. So many people at the shows seem to be there to see the casting rather than the clothes. I don’t agree with the fact that they have to be so young or skinny necessarily, but people really judge you on it. If you’re able to get the right girls it means you’ve got money and the right contacts. Another bugbear of mine is cheap champagne. I hate cheap champagne, I really do. I think it gives people bad breath. But I can’t afford to have Crystal because when people start to drink they never stop. So every season we have the same problem and we have to find creative solutions for our champagne conundrum.

Anja: We’ve talked quite a bit about the unwritten rules in fashion. Is it in fact possible to challenge the status quo, and, if so, how?

Jean: Frankly, it’s totally regimented and if you do something different, you’re dead. But I have some rules of my own: my staff is strictly forbidden to call anyone ‘darling’ for example. And if I’m in a situation that I find awkward or boring – whoosh, I’m gone! Even if it’s a bank meeting. That’s a new rule. Once I played the harmonica in a very important bank meeting. A banker had sold us what’s called a ‘structured product’, which is finance speak for ‘you’re going to get screwed.’ I was having a meeting with the big boss – the kind with slaves, you know, with little ties on – we’d just lost 300,000 and I was ready to crack. So I took my pocket harmonica out. I figured playing it in the meeting would really make him think I’d lost my mind.

Anja: You’ve been running A.P.C. more than twenty-five years now. What lessons are you carrying with you today?

Jean: I’m always open to change. But the creative process can be very difficult. I was making fun of Yves Saint Laurent before, but really I know how torturous it can be to be creative. Ok, ‘torturous’ is a bit of an exaggeration, but being creative and running a company is pretty demanding. I’m sure you know because you have a company yourself; at some point you have to be a shrink to everybody. Especially at my age, I’m pretty sure I’m a father figure to every young member of my staff. But I have learnt a lot over the years with the company, most importantly – never skip your holidays.

This article was originally published in Vestoj On Fashion and Power.

Anja Aronowsky Cronberg is Vestoj‘s Editor-in-Chief and Publisher.

We presented the first instalment of this series in Vestoj‘s issue ‘On Fashion and Power’, published in October 2013. This, the second of six similar Q&As which will be published here throughout the following weeks, is a discussion about sartorial power with Michael Cruz, former student body president of Stanford University (2011–2012), California.

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Anna: What does power look like to you? 

Michael: When I think of power, I think in two directions: One is the idea of having confidence. The other is more political or subtle, where they might not be exuding confidence, but it sits beneath the surface. There are a lot of ways to be a leader that can be reflected in people’s personalities. Body language and confidence can signify authority. This includes how their physicality is contextualised by the space – for instance, situating their body in the space they choose for a meeting, whether in a conference room, classroom, my office, etc. And the objects they choose to display in their office are also signals of power to me.

Anna: Is there anything in particular that signifies power when you see it?

Michael: Being a student body president is a very traditional position (though Stanford often feels like a very innovative and non-traditional environment). The way I see power is in terms of people owning their style, or having a consistent style. Like Steve Jobs, for instance – not necessarily an icon of mine, but a person who owns his own style. Mark Zuckerberg is another example. They are both people who use their clothing or image for the disruption of the traditional suit and tie.

Anna: What is your personal power uniform?

Michael: It’s what on the East Coast would be called ‘business-casual’, and on the West Coast would be called ‘business’ or ‘semi-professional’: dark dress shoes, tailored pants, and a coloured button-up with rolled-up sleeves and a starched collar. I’d usually wear this with a blazer in a corresponding colour.

Anna: What would be a disempowering look for you?

Michael: Something like sweat pants and a T-shirt. That’s what I wear to disengage. I think that’s generally true for my compatriots in that environment. There’s a difference between owning a style and looking stylish. People who are fashionable might look good in sweatpants, but regardless of that, it doesn’t look good in this setting.

Anna: Were there any visual indicators of a power hierarchy that would tip you off to authority figures, the administration, other students, etc? 

Michael: Yes. The visual indicator I saw was not just a suit or tie, but their ability to appear at ease in whatever they were wearing. There was a mid-level manager who always wore business suits – a skirt suit. I outranked her, and most people I worked with outranked her, but she always wore it. I felt she was using her dress to give herself more power than she actually had.

Anna: Do you think it worked in her favour?

Michael: Certainly in some settings, but not with me and the people I was working with.

Anna: Was that because she didn’t appear comfortable in it, or because her actions/capabilities didn’t align with the visual?

Michael: I think there was a cognitive dissonance, where what she reported to give was not what she could actually give. The reverse is also true: There was another person who dressed nicely, and wasn’t in a skirt suit or anything, but in nice clothing – like what Oprah might wear when she’s on her couch doing an interview. Her position was lower than the mid-level managers, but because of her confidence, she conveyed much more actual authority.

Anna Akbari is a writer and sociologist. She teaches at the department of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University.

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Jason Evans, Co-Founder and CEO of the New York-based IT company, Stackpop

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Gabriella Biro, retail store manager at Gypsy, Palm Beach, Florida and Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Anna: What does power look like to you?

Gabriella: It is very empowering to be knowledgeable enough to help high profile customers. I have a whole team working for me and I have the power to teach these girls to be the best in the field and to be more advanced in their positions. I have a lot of influence over how the store looks and how I handle the merchandise that comes in. I have to be in control of everything that is related to the business.

Anna: What’s your power uniform?  

Gabriella: Bright, fun, trendy and stylish clothes that fit me perfectly.

Anna: In your industry/position, what is the most disempowering look or visual?

Gabriella: An unkempt look with a bad attitude.

Anna: Describe the power hierarchy in your industry/field, using only visual indicators.

Gabriella: The leader/owner of the company has the luxury to wear high-end brand names and very expensive merchandise that is always in season or just came off the runway. These are special items and only people in this field and or who are very interested in fashion will recognise it. The rest of the company wears similar, less expensive versions of these items.

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David Katz, Litigator and Managing Partner at David Katz and Associates LLP, New York.

Anna: What does power look like to you? 

David: Demeanour – the way you present yourself to whomever your audience is, whether a judge, a jury, clients, prospective clients, colleagues or staff. Each audience requires some sort of quiet confidence that manifests itself visually, whether it’s an appropriate suit, a tie and a jacket. You have to show appropriate seriousness given the situation. If I’m at a conference with a judge, it can be a more relaxed look. If I’m at trial with a jury, it’s going to be a dark Italian navy suit or a dark charcoal grey suit and a white shirt. Shoes should be well-polished.

Anna: What’s your power uniform? 

David: A three-season wool, four-button Pal Zileri suit in dark charcoal grey with thin chalk stripes, white shirt with a narrow collar and narrow black tie, single-buckle black shoes – and red underwear, of course. I don’t wear cufflinks or a watch. As I got older and more confident, I did away with the watch, it was really more of a costume than function. I don’t wear something unless it serves some utility in my professional dress (which isn’t the case in my personal dress). I wear glasses, and might do a hip frame, depending on the audience, but a more conservative frame for a trial.

Anna: In your industry/position, what is the most disempowering look or visual?  

David: To be dishevelled, for instance to have an ill-fitting shirt or suit or an undone top button and loose tie, or a shirt collar sticking up above the jacket collar, or else if the back of the collar is up too high. These details send a message of carelessness – not paying attention to detail. If you look in the mirror and you miss that, what else are you not paying attention to?

Anna: Describe the power hierarchy in your industry, using only visual indicators.  

David: There’s a difference between an authority figure and competence. It may be wrong to assume that if someone is disheveled they’re incompetent, but at the outset, I’ll give someone a greater degree of respect if they’re put together properly. There’ve been plenty of times when I’ve been the best dressed guy in the room, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve had the best case. But it has generally worked in my favour. However, when I’m not in professional mode, I change my look completely.

Anna Akbari is a writer and sociologist. She teaches at the department of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University.