There’s been a fair amount of pearl-clutching this past week over the new Calvin Klein ad campaign, described thusly by Bethan Holt in The Telegraph.
Calvin Klein launches predictably provocative advertising campaign. But can sex still shock?
Calvin Klein’s new advertising campaign is boldly entitled Erotica. In the images shot by photographer Tyrone Lebon whose work is renowned for being raw and candid, supermodel Kendall Jenner squeezes half a grapefruit so that it resembles a vagina. In another image, actress Abbey Lee Kershaw is shown with her hands clasped inside her CK pants. Meanwhile actress Klara Kristen is pictured with the camera gazing up her dress in a predatory manner to show the underwear between her legs.
But, as Holt notes, “As I write these descriptions, I realise that the pictures should shock me. But they don’t. As they popped up on my facebook feed as I scrolled through this morning, I barely registered their provocativeness.”
Not even this belfie.
Whenever discussing Calvin Klein ads, of course, the control group is this fabled 1980 Brooke Shields TV spot.
But that’s small bare compared to CK’s 1995 chicken-hawk porn campaign.
The marketing of CK Jeans has always been about alienating adults, thereby attracting teens. We’ll see if that formula still works in an age of Internet porn and Facebook friending by your Mom, yeah?