The Rocky Mountain Collegian

April 9th, 2007

Fashion And Sex Meet On The Runway

You don’t need to take a course in advertising to know that sex sells, and to know it sells almost anything and everything. From Diet Pill advertisements on television to the ads for Sunray Apartments in the Collegian (unless she comes with the apartment when you sign the lease) sex is selling everything, including today’s new fashions.

Take notice, this is in no way a complaint for the recent increase in sex-based advertising that has gone on in the industry throughout recent years. No, this is just my way of complimenting the industry on their tactics for increasing sales.
Alright, so we all know that it only takes a few minutes of flipping through the first 20 or 30 pages of Elle, W, GQ, Arena, you get the idea, to know that you are more inclined to stop when you see a bathing suit for Summer than a business suit for Winter.  And even more inclined if you are paging though one of the British editions of these magazines as showing skin seems to have rather different guidelines. But what about the Runway, the RTW (Ready-To-Wear) shows specifically wear the change has not gone as noticeable. Let me explain.
Start, for example, the Hussein Chalayan show for Spring/Summer 2007 clothing. While the designer is known for some of his theatrics, try and tell me that creating a dress that was able to slide up model Leah De Wavrin and into her hat, leaving the model naked I remind you, doesn’t shout out “Check me out”. Again, finishing a show with a naked model is not something I am about to complain about, but I must applaud Chalayan for taking it a step further, both for his line and for the industry altogether.
Here is where the big subliminal advertising comes into play, more and more of the outfits that are part of the RTW shows are not always seen in stores. And while some of the theatrics are done to show off the designer’s talents, not everyone has a couture show you know, it is of no coincidence that there are always few of those outfits that seem to bare a lot of skin. Now, I can’t imagine (in my mind I can but not in reality) there will be another show finishing with a naked model, but you can’t argue that it worked well. Despite all the skin that shows with a Dsquared2 bathing suit that I could fit in my palm or the Dolce & Gabbana models wearing only a towel, it is the Hussein Chalayan show that really has you talking.
All in all, I have to tip my cap to the designers and their talents, but I never thought I would be applauding them for their sly addition of sex appeal to the runway to gain attention.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 at 12:42 pm and is filed under Rags to Riches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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