Porn in Fashion Industry

This is an interesting topic for me, because I work in a high-end fashion forward environment. We sell eyeglasses. You would think that it's only eyeglasses, it's not like any advertisement would contain sexually suggestive poses. Wrong. I remember one graphic we had for D&G (Dolce & Gabbana) that showed a man and woman, lips touching in a very sensual photograph, and it was displayed at the front of the store.

Another one that is posted now has a woman wearing D&G glasses with red lipstick, and it has a caption that says, "Your lipstick makes you feel flirty. Do your glasses?" And I actually had a female customer come in that was offended by that. I thought she was overreacting, but then I really started to pay attention to the kind of ads that had been displayed in the store. Thankfully, most of them aren't too revealing. But all of the female graphics, which are most of them, contain something regarding the appearance of the woman, how she should look and feel. Besides the one about the lipstick, there is another with a woman in her 40s wearing a black dress, looking confident and ready to go out, and the caption says, "That dress makes you feel ten years younger ... do your glasses?" This reinforces the idea that you must try to defy the aging process. It's unacceptable to look like you're as old as you are, so get the right glasses that make you look/feel younger. The only male graphic is a guy wearing D&G glasses, and his says, "your lucky shirt turns you into the guy who just can't lose ... do your glasses?" All of these ads are sending the message that if you get the right pair of eyeglasses, you'll be sexy and beautiful.

The truth is "pornography," as the book calls it, all of this sexually suggestive advertising, is everywhere. It's amazing when you think about it. I think as a society we are just accepting it and allowing it to happen. I'm in an odd position because I don't want to become desensitized to the advertisements, but I'm surrounded by them everyday and encouraged by my general manager to wear high fashion clothes, to know the fashion trends and am constantly surrounded by these porn-like ads. In the store, we have fashion magazines (one an almost 900 page Vogue edition). I know that many of these ads can be seen as degrading women, yet that is what the fashion industry is based on.