[Work warning: racy imagery ahead…] A Dutch high-end tailoring firm is marketing its new women’s power-suit range with the usual high-end photography and models you’d expect. However, there’s one subtle difference – there’s also buffed, naked blokes strutting all over the place.
Suistudio is the female off-shoot of men’s tailoring brand, Suitsupply, and is using its new women’s “Toy Boy” campaign to play-up the typical advertising cliché of scantily clad females being the sole prop in men’s clothing ads.
However, fans of the brand are divided on the company’s marketing tactics. Many seeing the fun side, while others arguing it’s a case of reverse-sexism. “Sexism is sexism, no matter if a woman dominates a man or vice versa. And revenge is not a way to overcome in justice,” wrote one to the company’s Instagram page. While another cheeky female respondent enquired, “Is there a size chart?”
Commenting on the campaign, Suitsupply’s CEO, Fokke de Junge, told The Huffington Post, “The men in our toy boy campaign are depicted as play dolls for the women, we don’t see the men having the upper hand here.”
However, it’s not the first time the company has courted controversy. In 2010, it found itself in strife after the release of its “Shameless” campaign for its men’s range which featured, among other things, a male model looking up the skirt of a woman. The campaign, which featured on its Facebook page, had to be pulled following a string of complaints.
