THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE
DEPARTMENTS OF ENGLISH AND ADVERTISING/PUBLIC RELATIONS
CREATING CHANGE IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY: AN ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN TO BRING TOGETHER DIVERSITY, INCLUSIVITY, AND SUSTAINABILITY
JORDAN PIETRAFITTA SPRING 2020
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for baccalaureate degrees in English and Advertising with interdisciplinary honors in English and Advertising
Reviewed and approved* by the following:
Stephanie Madden Professor of Advertising/Public Relations Thesis Supervisor
Christopher Reed Distinguished Professor of English Honors Adviser
*Electronic approvals are on file. i
ABSTRACT
Historically, the fashion industry has failed to properly and respectfully represent many demographics of the population and reflect the rising need for environmental sustainability in advertising campaigns. Fashion advertising mostly included white, straight-size female and male models and targeted a wealthy, white audience, until the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first. Even today, many fashion brands are still fast fashion because they are low-cost brands, encourage disposability, and operate on a fast-response system (Joy et al.).
In order for fashion brands to cater to the world’s diverse population and beliefs, brands and their advertising campaigns must be inclusive of all races, ages, genders, sexualities, sizes, abilities, and socioeconomic statuses. Additionally, they must make sustainable choices to minimize the detrimental effect that their brands and the entire fashion industry continue to make on the environment. I will analyze the history of fashion advertising, specifically focusing on diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability, to uncover how brands have excelled and failed in these areas.
Then I will expose the historical inadequacies of the fashion industry by creating my own fashion campaign that proves how possible it is to incorporate diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability into a fashion brand’s advertising campaigns and behind-the-scenes practices. ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………….i
LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………iv
Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1
Chapter 2: History of Diversity and Inclusivity in Advertising ...... 9
Race ...... 9 Gender ...... 12 Sexuality ...... 16 Size ……………………………………………………………………………………...18 Age ……………………………………………………………………………………...20 Ability ...... 20
Chapter 3: History of Sustainability in Advertising ...... 24
Chapter 4: Standards of Diversity, Inclusivity, and Sustainability in the Fashion Industry ...... 32
Chapter 5: Competitive Analysis ...... 37
Eileen Fisher ...... 37 Girlfriend Collective ...... 38 Reformation ...... 39 Kotn ...... 40 Competitive Summary ...... 41
Chapter 6: Organizational Background and Campaign Plan ...... 43
Target Audience Research ...... 45 Goals, Objectives, Strategies, and Tactics ...... 46
Chapter 7: Evaluating the Campaign ...... 50
Chapter 8: Conclusion ...... 57
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 60
APPENDIX A: Survey Instrument ...... 65
APPENDIX B: Survey Findings ...... 71
APPENDIX C: Campaign Images ...... 79
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Summary of EARTHLY's Campaign Plan ...... 49
Figure 2: EARTHLY website landing page 1...... 50
Figure 3: EARTHLY website landing page 2...... 51
Figure 4: Example Image from Social Media Campaign 1 ...... 55
Figure 5: Example Image from Social Media Campaign 2 ...... 55
Figure 6: Example Image from Social Media Campaign 3 ...... 55
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis truly would not have been possible without the help of so many amazing professors, family, and friends. It’s been an exciting journey.
Dr. Stephanie Madden, thank you for being the best thesis supervisor. I couldn’t imagine working with anyone else. Thank you for being so passionate about diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability and for supporting my craziness. You’re an amazing friend.
Dr. Christopher Reed, thank you for continuously meeting with me to check my writing and brainstorm ideas. Your constant support and encouragement of my ideas and creativity played an enormous part in shaping my thesis journey.
Mom and Dad, thank you for always supporting me. Thank you for always encouraging me to succeed even when things are tough. I can’t believe that my senior year is now over.
Michelle Mischler, thank you for being so willing to contribute your amazing clothing to my campaign. It wouldn’t have been as meaningful without your passion and excitement.
My fantastic campaign models, thank you for donating your time to participate in
EARTHLY’s campaign. You are all so beautiful and truly made this campaign. It wouldn’t have been possible or as special without you.
Rose McDaid, Olivia Kramer, Kate Sweeney, and Sophie Haiman, my absolute best friends, thank you for helping me through the rough patches and very late nights. You’re amazing.
And last but certainly not least, Jeff Zaengle, my love and greatest supporter, I couldn’t have done this without you. Thank you for your constant words of encouragement and for being there for me every step of the way. Thank you for always pushing me to do great things.
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Chapter 1: Introduction
According to Frank Presbey, the concept of advertising can be traced back thousands of years to the drawings and paintings of cavemen. Although many people disagree with Presbey’s argument, advertising has unarguably become a permanent fixture in society. Advertising saturated modern society for the past century and is necessary for brands to sell their products and services to target audiences. With the rise of technology, advertising platforms have exploded in number. Companies, brands, and individuals now advertise on billboards and other outdoor signage, on the radio (both nationally and locally), in print media (magazines and national and local newspapers), on television (both nationally and locally) and digitally
(websites, search engines, social media, YouTube), along with other media. As these media evolved, advertising progressed technologically, but many brands and companies are still creating advertising campaigns that lack the diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability needed for today’s society. Despite the diverse population of the United States and across the globe and the rising need for environmental sustainability, many brands continue to create advertising campaigns that exclusively represent a few segments of the population and promote the constant desire to consume.
In particular, the fashion industry has failed to represent the Earth’s diverse population and to make sustainable choices when designing and producing clothing, accessories, and other merchandise. Print advertising was created in the 15th century, when William Caxton, the man who first brought the printing press to England promoted a book that had his first print advertisement. Although print advertising has been around since the 15th century, the most influential advertising has occurred within the last two centuries (“Old & Classic Ads”). Until around fifty years ago, most of fashion advertising specifically focused on and targeted white
2 men and women of the upper class. The ads that did feature and target racial and socioeconomic minorities were few and far between, often perpetuating stereotypes. Many brands and companies have started to improve their advertising campaigns to properly and accurately showcase the diversity that exists within the population. Although there are still companies and brands that have campaigns that lack the necessary diversity to accurately depict the overall population, strides have been made.
Diversity, specifically pertaining to mass media and advertising, is defined as “being composed of differing elements or qualities, and more specifically, in the context of social groups, the concept of diversity embraces the ideals of acceptance and respect, and an understanding that groups are made up of unique individuals” (Luther et al. 1). This definition encompasses many different aspects of the population, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, size, age, socioeconomic class, and physical and mental ability. In order to be fully diverse, an advertising campaign must not only show members of different races, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, sizes, ages, socioeconomic classes, and physical and mental abilities, but it must also be inclusive and accepting. A diverse and inclusive campaign cannot merely acknowledge that everyone is different; it must celebrate those differences, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. A diverse and inclusive campaign should be relatable and accessible to these groups as well, making the campaign’s target audience very comprehensive. A diverse and inclusive campaign must also address intersectionality, the concept created by Kimberlé Crenshaw that “social groups do not experience things as a monolithic identity. One race, gender, age, or class of people will not respond as one mind to a media representation of their group…it is our combination of identities that makes us
3 individuals” (Luther et al. 2). When a campaign is able to encompass all of these identities while showing the existence of intersectionality, it can be considered diverse and inclusive.
Many brands have been attempting to achieve this goal of diversity and inclusivity in their advertising campaigns, but one brand sticks out for its exceptional diversity and inclusivity.
Aerie, a company that produces clothing and intimates specifically for women, as a part of
American Eagle Outfitters, Inc., launched their #AerieREAL campaign in 2014. This campaign completely changed Aerie’s mission and values (Pearl). The #AerieREAL campaign began as a way to break down the fashion industry’s current beauty standards and introduce portrayals of real women. The #AerieREAL campaign uses everyday people as models for Aerie’s intimates, clothing, and accessories and prides itself on refusing to retouch photos. Aerie stopped retouching its photos, deciding to leave in tattoos, stretch marks, beauty marks, moles, piercings, acne, and all other qualities of the models that contribute to their real beauty, which was alien to the rest of the fashion industry. In the beginning stages of the #AerieREAL campaign, Aerie used models of different sizes without labeling them as plus size; they are just different sizes than runway models. American Eagle Outfitters, Inc.’s website describes Aerie’s brand as
“committed to making girls of all sizes feel good about their real selves. #AerieREAL started as no retouching but has grown to mean so much more” (“Our Brands”). The #AerieREAL campaign began as something extraordinary in the fashion industry, before any other companies even considered the idea that reality was what their audiences wanted.
Over the past five years, the #AerieREAL campaign has grown from its inclusion of different sized models to the inclusion of almost every type of woman. Currently, the
#AerieREAL campaign features women of many different sizes, body types, ages, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and abilities. There are many women in the campaign who have
4 disabilities or physical conditions that are rarely shown in other fashion campaigns. Women with crutches, colostomy bags, blood sugar monitors, vitiligo, and Down Syndrome are featured in the
#AerieREAL campaign, as well as women with tattoos, scars, freckles, moles, stretch marks, unshaved hair, and other “flaws.” Aerie has made its mission to empower women by properly and realistically representing the female population; in doing so, Aerie has nearly achieved the definitions of diversity and inclusivity discussed above, in that the #AerieREAL campaign embraces the ideals of acceptance and respect and understands that groups are made up of unique individuals. Aerie’s overall price point is generally affordable for the middle and upper classes, especially when compared with many other brands, but its prices would not make its brand accessible to all socioeconomic statuses. This could be something for the brand to consider in the future if it is trying to include every segment of the female population in its campaign. Aerie also only produces intimates and clothing for women, which excludes the entire male-identifying population. Although even the best campaigns have room for improvement, the #AerieREAL campaign is a great example of an advertising campaign that works hard to be diverse and inclusive of the female population.
Despite its representation of diversity, Aerie is currently not an environmentally friendly brand, which is not uncommon in the fashion industry. The majority of fashion brands and companies today are fast fashion, which are “low-cost clothing collections based on current, high-cost luxury fashion trends and are by its very nature, a fast-response system that encourages disposability” (Joy et al. 275). At its core, today’s fast fashion culture promotes the cycling through of clothing and trends at a higher rate than ever before. According to McNeill and
Moore, “sustainability is a general term that speaks to the preservation of human life on Earth in the healthiest means possible. Without consideration of sustainable practices, the toxic
5 degradation of the earth’s ecosystems will undoubtedly increase, making the planet fairly uninhabitable” (220). The definition of sustainability also extends to the preservation of life outside of humanity, including plant life, animal life, and the life of the planet Earth as a whole.
As Joy et al. explains, “sustainability is about much more than our relationship with the environment; it’s about our relationship with ourselves, our communities, and our institutions”
(274). They describe that there are a few different ways to look at sustainability: “an activity that can be continued indefinitely without causing harm; doing unto others as you would have them do unto you; and meeting a current generation’s needs without compromising those of future generations” (Joy et al. 274). Companies that practice sustainability, especially in the fashion industry, promote actions that oppose typical fast fashion practices.
Fast fashion promotes the prevalent and suffocating culture of consumerism. Companies bring runway fashion to consumers in a few short weeks, rather than the previous six-month turnaround (Joy et al. 275). Many fashion brands moved their manufacturing plants and production processes to other countries; brands in the United States often outsource their production to factories overseas. These factories are often sweatshops, where workers of many ages, including young children, work more than twelve hours a day, with no safety procedures, air conditioning, or breaks, for less than fifty cents a day, to produce the clothing that many fast fashion companies sell. One of the best-known fashion documentaries, “The True Cost,” discusses the social problems with mistreating workers in factories and sweatshops overseas, so consumers can buy clothing from huge fast fashion companies, and also addresses environmental issues that accompany the practices of the fast fashion industry. The factories and sweatshops that manufacture most of the clothing and merchandise for these brands produce an immense amount of pollution, often contaminating water sources with dyes and chemicals that cause
6 health problems for the community and the planet. The clothes that are manufactured in these factories enter stores, where consumers buy and quickly cycle through them and buy more, continuing this consumption.
Sustainable fashion strives to fix this constant cycle of consumption and desires to halt and reverse the damage that has already been dealt to the planet. Certified B Corporations exemplify companies that try to be as sustainable and environmentally friendly as possible.
Although not limited to the fashion industry, certified B Corporations demonstrate how fashion brands should operate with regard to the environment. The B Corp movement began in 2006 when “three friends left careers in business to create an organization dedicated to making it easier for mission-driven companies to protect and improve their positive impact over time”
(“About B Corps”). B Corps focus on reducing their harmful impact on the environment, while promoting ethical and transparent practices, making these companies some of the best in the globe, socially and environmentally. The B Corps mission statement encompasses all aspects of society that need to be improved upon:
The B Corp community works toward reduced inequality, lower levels of poverty, a
healthier environment, stronger communities, and the creation of more high quality jobs
with dignity and purpose…B Corps use profits and growth as a means to a greater end:
positive impact for their employees, communities, and the environment. (“About B
Corps”)
Becoming a B Corporation is a great start for companies to be sustainable and environmentally friendly, but it is not the final step. Companies can become more sustainable by engaging in zero-waste practices and other energy- and resource-saving strategies.
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Currently no fashion brand is 100% sustainable, but the practices that the fashion brand
Reformation implements to support the environment and prevent further damage are some of the best. Reformation dedicates a section of its website to explaining the green practices that it puts into action. Reformation uses sustainable materials and fabrics when designing and creating its clothing and tests its dyes against all of the chemicals on the Restricted Substance List, to make sure that the dyes are not toxic or harmful to people or the environment. All of the packaging that it uses to ship its products is made out of recycled and compostable materials, and its in-store bags are made of canvas instead of plastic (“Sustainable Practices”). Reformation is striving towards a zero-waste initiative, but it is currently able to recycle 75% of the garbage that it produces. Most of the production of its clothing and merchandise occurs at its own factory, and
65% of its cutting and sewing occurs locally, in Los Angeles. Reformation uses green appliances and LED lighting in its offices and “sources electricity offsets from 100% wind power suppliers”
(“Sustainable Practices”). All of these practices barely scratch the surface of Reformation’s sustainability initiatives, making the brand a sustainability leader in a fashion-forward and trendy environment. Because of these sustainability initiatives, Reformation has become one of the best examples and role models for all fashion brands when they think about how to become more sustainable for the environment.
The current standards for diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability in the fashion industry are an improvement on past practices, which will be explored in the next few chapters, but there are still many changes that need to occur. The information included in this introduction and the history and current standards of diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability in the fashion industry could be useful to already established companies. For the sake of this project, it was especially useful when I created my own fashion advertising campaign. Although I cannot guarantee that
8 the campaign I made is perfectly diverse, inclusive, and sustainable, my goal was to create a fashion campaign that comes as close as possible to the definitions of diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability. I wanted to create a fashion campaign that included and was accessible to everyone, taking race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, size, age, socioeconomic class, and physical and mental ability into account. I also wanted this fashion campaign to be as sustainable as possible to minimize its negative impact on the environment. Sustainable fashion is still fashionable, and I wanted to show, to the best of my ability, that it is possible for every single person to participate in the sustainable fashion movement.
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Chapter 2: History of Diversity and Inclusivity in Advertising
Advertising that even somewhat showcased diversity began in the 1800s, but often this type of advertising represented non-white, non-male individuals in derogatory and inaccurate ways. P.T. Barnum, a man known for his “half-truths, exaggerations, and outright trickery” rose to popularity in the 1800s (“A Brief History of Advertising in America”). P.T. Barnum ran his own circus and lured customers in with visual promotions of the freaks and oddities in his collection. Barnum used sideshow banners to promote his freak show, displaying images that did not necessarily match up with the actual display. Historian William O’Barr discusses in his article, “A Brief History of Advertising in America,” how Barnum advertised the “Fiji Mermaid which he claimed to be half human, half fish…which in reality was the head of a monkey attached to the body of a fish.” Barnum promoted oddities and the strange, which counts as a promotion of differences, but he did it in a way that promoted discrimination and ridicule. The sideshow banner that Barnum used for the Fiji Mermaid does not look like its description; the half human, half fish looks like a ghoul-like, skeleton figure, with dark, almost black “skin,” attached to a fish tail. Although it may not have purposely perpetrated racism and stereotypes towards other races, Barnum’s combination of a darker skin tone and a ghoul-like appearance in his ads highlights differences from the white European “norm” in an unflattering manner and treats other races as oddities and freaks.
Race
Barnum is only one of many examples of lack of diversity and blatant racism in advertising campaigns. People of different colors, sexualities, genders, classes, sizes, and abilities generally have been excluded from or diminished in most advertising campaigns, until very recently. Until the 1960s, “advertising using stereotypical images of African-Americans
10 was pervasive throughout the U.S….blacks were made to appear subservient and ignorant as well as ugly and grotesque” (AdAge.com). If African Americans were in advertisements, they were featured in derogatory and discriminatory ways. Many early-twentieth century advertising campaigns that featured African Americans promoted products that eliminated their blackness or depicted them serving whites. Soap advertising, in particular, was extremely racist towards
African Americans and people of color. Many soap companies, including The N.K. Fairbank
Company and Pears’ Soap, compared African Americans with whites, as a juxtaposition of the two races, to portray African Americans as dirty and unclean, while whites were a representation of cleanliness and proved that the product worked. Pears’ Soap specifically focused on soap
“lightening the white man’s burden” by kickstarting cleanliness for Africans and people of color, to make it easier for white people to tame them and introduce them to civilization (Heilpern).
Brands like Jell-O and Van Heusen further discriminated against people of color by showcasing a young black child serving a white woman Jell-O on a plantation and portraying a Native
American man as a savage among five white men, respectively. Many companies today would not dare to make such blatant racist statements, but some twenty-first century ads still miss the mark when featuring African Americans and other people of color.
When brands and companies make mistakes pertaining to diversity and inclusivity in advertising campaigns, people who are negatively portrayed and affected often speak up to companies to express how they have gone wrong. In his article, “Sexuality, Race, and Ethnicity in Advertising,” William O’Barr asserts that “advertising imagery…tends to follow and mimic social and cultural changes rather than to initiate them.” Companies and brands began to change their advertising style and campaigns when they realized that their exclusion of many different
11 groups caused them to lose valuable customers and business. Edward Lama Wonkeryor discusses a theory that says:
There are two salient reasons for the advertising industry to take undying interests in
assessing the images of ethnic minorities in advertising. First, marketers, because of
financial reasons, would like to understand and adequately represent the various
consumer groups. Second, considering that advertising is a form of social
communication, advertising firms and marketers want to present what is familiar so that
consumers can embrace their messages and they can interact with each other.
(Wonkeryor 77)
In the present, most companies and brands would fail if they did not tailor their ads to include diverse demographics. They do not always do it correctly, though.
Although Dove has had some successful advertising campaigns, specifically its Real
Beauty campaigns, which highlight women’s natural beauty, it has also made a few mistakes, as recently as 2011 and 2017. In 2011, Dove created a before and after photo that it stated was to
“demonstrate the ‘after’ product benefit” but used a black woman with cracked skin as the before and a white woman with smooth skin as the after. This advertisement “was reminiscent of infamous soap ads from history…where a black child in a tub is handed a bar of soap by a white child and is delighted to see that after using the soap, his skin has turned white” (Reuters). Dove did a similar thing in 2017 to promote body wash. It showed a black woman standing in the shower taking off her t-shirt to reveal a white woman; the white woman then took off her shirt to reveal an Asian woman. Dove stated that its intention was to show that its products are suitable and accessible to everyone, but that it “missed the mark in thoughtfully representing women of color” (Eutachewich). Although Dove may not have intentionally evoked racist imagery of the
12 early twentieth century, it failed to properly represent women of color and other races on more than one occasion. Dove has attempted to promote the natural beauty of women of many different ages, races, and backgrounds, but it has struggled with executing its advertising campaigns in a way that represents people of color without being offensive.
Gender
Many companies and brands struggled during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to correctly represent African Americans and people of color, but many have struggled since the beginning of traditional advertising to properly represent multiple minority groups, in addition to people of color. Innumerable brands and companies failed at representing women, older people, the LGBTQ+ community, lower socioeconomic classes, non-straight-size individuals, and people with disabilities in a respectful manner until the twenty-first century. Even so, many brands and companies still fail to fully encompass each of these communities in their advertising campaigns and target markets. Although women were often included in advertisements before the start of the twenty-first century, as opposed to the glaring lack of representation of people with different abilities, sizes, socioeconomic classes, ages, sexualities, and genders, women featured in advertising campaigns were often sexualized or objectified to reach specific audiences and sell more products. Often, older advertisements focused on a woman’s relationship with a man and how she could serve him; the advertisements in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries never focused on empowering women or showing that they have a greater purpose than to serve men.
Women were often forced to stay inside the house to cook, clean, and dedicate their lives to their husbands, especially during the 1950s, and the advertisements of the time clearly reflected this.
Hoover vacuums released advertisements that focused on how happy the stereotypical housewife would be on Christmas morning after receiving a Hoover vacuum with which she can clean the
13 house (Heilpern). Women in the 1950s had two purposes: to be a good wife for their husbands and to be a good mother for their children. They fought for their husbands’ attentions and were reduced to mindless beings.
Women were portrayed as unintelligent, weak, clumsy, and useless, whereas men were portrayed as strong, intelligent, serious, and breadwinning. Jim Edwards and Harrison Jacobs wrote an article for Business Insider that includes twenty-six sexist advertisements from the
1950s through 1970s that objectify and devalue women; these advertisements cover multiple different topics, including “keeping women in their place,” “making light of domestic violence,”
“showing women it’s a man’s world,” “always pleasing the man,” and many other advertisements and headlines that focus on what men want for their wives, rather than what women want. All of the ads are written in a way that emphasizes a man’s role in society and deemphasizes a woman’s role in society. Additionally, each of the ads included in this compilation of sexist ads “from the ‘Mad Men’ era” feature only middle to upper class white men and women. People of color and other non-white ethnicities, the LGBTQ+ community, the younger and older generations, lower socioeconomic classes, and people of different sizes and abilities are missing from this era of advertisements. These advertisements are not only sexist but also exclude a great portion of the American population that advertising did not deem important enough to target in the 1950s through 1970s.
Not only were women frequently reduced to unworthiness in ads from the twentieth century, but they were also constantly sexualized in advertising campaigns. Although much of this sexualization began in the twentieth century, when people did not necessarily see what was wrong with sexualizing women and treating their bodies as objects, sexualization of women is still an everyday occurrence in the twenty-first century, both in and out of advertising. Countless
14 brands and companies continued sexualization of women through the twentieth century into the twenty-first. Women were forced to stay inside of the home throughout most of the twentieth century, so many ads revolved around that type of sexism, but it was not until the later years of the twentieth century, post-1960s, when advertisements became sexist towards women in other ways. Advertisements no longer focused on preventing women from having greater roles in society but instead focused more on women’s bodies. Samantha Felix writes about this phenomenon in her article, “18 Ads That Changed How We Think About Women,” by saying,
“when people say sex sells, most of the time what they really mean is that sexy women sell.”
Sexy women sold products to both men and women; men wanted her and women wanted to be her. Companies and brands across the country still use sexualized women to sell different kinds of products, often by showing naked or nearly naked women using, eating, or emphasizing the product. Sexualized ads often include sexual innuendos like “it’ll blow your mind away” for a sandwich from Burger King, “she’ll tell you size doesn’t matter…she’s lying” for a burger ad featuring Paris Hilton, and “don’t worry if it gets in her hair” and “get her used to it” for Got
Milk? ads, all from the twenty-first century. Women in sexualized ads are often shown in sexual positions as well, with their legs spread, grabbing their breasts, often but not always being touched by a man.
Calvin Klein was one of the first brands to sexualize and objectify not only women but also men. The majority of its advertising campaigns from the 1980s to the 2000s were controversial and were often banned for their content, headlines, and models. Brooke Shields was featured in a Calvin Klein Jeans ad at the age of 15, while wearing a barely buttoned shirt and jeans, with the headline “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins?
Nothing.” Although sexuality is subjective and every woman has the right to dress and act how
15 she wants, dressing up an underage fifteen-year-old in a revealing outfit with a sexualized headline is wrong. CBS believed so and banned the commercial from its channels. This was not
Calvin Klein’s only sexualized ad during the 1980s to 2000s. Since 1985, Calvin Klein has released multiple ads with completely naked and partially naked models; most of these ads are provocatively posed, with multiple naked models posing together. They are often in an intimate setting, including in a bedroom or on a bed, and some are set up to look like orgies, with models touching each other’s inner thighs and faces as if they are about to have sex. Calvin Klein frequently used underage models, including Brooke Shields and Kate Moss. Kate Moss has frequently modeled for Calvin Klein in various states of undress, sometimes completely naked; she was not always underage when modeling but the controversial ad featuring her in 1992 shows her at seventeen-years-old wearing only a pair of Calvin Klein underwear while hugging
Mark Wahlberg, who was older and was also wearing jeans. Most of Calvin Klein’s ads during this time period featured only white men and women, which excludes every other demographic.
Its advertisements have also included potential references to child pornography, rape and sexual violence, and underlying sexual tones that specifically shows up in an ad that ran in 2011, with a table, the model’s breasts, and the letters “ck” spelling out the word “fuck.” Calvin Klein constantly crossed lines when creating its advertising campaigns, which paved the way for other brands to create more controversial advertisements.
The fashion brand American Apparel followed in Calvin Klein’s footsteps and is the prime example of what not to do when advertising clothing for women to women. Most of its campaigns tend to feature white women, but American Apparel has featured women of color, men of multiple ethnicities, and older women, all before 2013, which was fairly early for the fashion industry. For over a decade, starting around 2003, American Apparel put out sexualized
16 advertisements of women to sell its clothing; these advertisements featured barely clothed women (and a few men) wearing a pair of underwear or socks and usually nothing else. Women were posed provocatively, with a focus on their nudity, and were often facing away from the camera, so that their butts became the focal point. These women were portrayed as engaging in sexual acts with men in the ads, which were frequently set in the bedroom or on the bed.
American Apparel even used real porn stars in 2008, which is when full-frontal nudity began to feature in its advertisements, and these models touched themselves and other models in provocative and sexualized ways. Many of American Apparel’s ads objectified women; they are frequently lying among sheets, with their legs open, hands touching themselves, and naked chests pushed up and out. Since then, American Apparel almost went out of business but managed to pull itself out of crisis and toned down many of its sexualized advertisements. As exemplified by American Apparel, most of the mainstream sexualized ads mostly featured white women, leaving out a considerable amount of the population. The goal is not to sexualize every community but to get rid of objectification and to add diversity and inclusivity to modern-day advertisements.
Sexuality
Absent from most advertisements of the past century, the LGBTQ+ community has been more prominently featured in modern advertising over the last thirty years. According to William
O’Barr, “throughout the 19th and most of the 20th centuries, advertising simply assumed that everyone was heterosexual…images depicting heteronormativity also depict images of race/ethnicity and social class. Along with advertising’s treatment of heterosexuality as normal, ads have most often featured white people as generic and a certain degree of affluence as the usual” (“Sexuality, Race, and Ethnicity in Advertising”). Because of this, most advertising until
17 the late twentieth century did not include representation of anyone in the LGBTQ+ community.
People in the LGTBQ+ community often hid their sexualities during the twentieth century, due to homophobia, so the community was rarely represented in society or in advertising. The term
“gay” was used in early twentieth century advertising as a synonym for happy; most people did not apply it to sexuality until later, so when it was used in advertising or when advertising showcased “potentially homoerotic scenes,” they were “published in entirely innocent contexts”
(Felix, “15 Ads That Changed the Way We Think About Gays and Lesbians”). Around the
1960s, homophobia in advertising started to pick up, with advertisers and brands proclaiming that society needed to stay away from homosexuals, as they “were said to be sick” (Felix, “15
Ads That Changed the Way We Think About Gays and Lesbians”). Most brands avoided including people of the LGBTQ+ community in their advertisements for years after the initial homophobic ads were published, but a few brands created advertising campaigns that specifically targeted this community and were published in LGBTQ+ media, including Absolut,
Anheuser-Busch, Miller Brewing Company, and Coors. According to O’Barr, LGBTQ+ advertising became more mainstream towards the end of the twentieth century when Ellen
DeGeneres, a highly respected celebrity, outed herself on her sitcom, Ellen (“Sexuality, Race and
Ethnicity in Advertising”). People of the LGBTQ+ community became more comfortable with being publicly out, and companies noticed and started advertising with this audience in mind.
The middle of the 1990s and the early 2000s began an era of advertising that went out of its way to include people of the LGBTQ+ community in respectful ways. Ikea started advertising to LGBTQ+ couples in 1994, with an ad that positively featured two gay men searching for the perfect piece of furniture. This ad was ahead of its time as most companies and brands at this time were still only advertising to the heterosexual, white upper class. Companies like Guinness
18 and Johnny Walker began making ads in the late 1990s that targeted LGBTQ+ audiences by showing gay and lesbian couples. Johnny Walker’s ad about a lesbian couple getting married successfully ran, but Guinness, among other companies, had difficulties running ads that specifically showcased gay couples because it faced intense backlash from anti-gay groups.
Companies still face backlash from anti-gay and anti-lesbian groups in the twenty-first century, even after 2010. JCPenney released multiple ads that featured gay and lesbian couples with their children, which were both boycotted by anti-gay and anti-lesbian groups. Despite the backlash, many companies still focused on advertising for the LGBTQ+ community. Chevy, Amtrak,
Absolut, and Ray Ban all released advertising campaigns that were specifically inclusive of the
LGBTQ+ community. Absolut especially excelled in representing the LGBTQ+ community, having released advertising campaigns as early as 1989 that included LGBTQ+ people, and continued to release campaigns that not only included the white LGBTQ+ community but included people of differences races and ethnicities as well. Companies today make more of a concerted effort to include people of the LGBTQ+ community and have certainly come a long way, but even so, many advertising campaigns including the LGBTQ+ community are not entirely inclusive of socioeconomic class, size, race, age, sexuality, and ability. Still missing are advertisements that specifically incorporate and celebrate transgender and non-binary individuals, but as more people speak up and vocalize their sexualities, the hope is that advertising will catch on and adapt to consumers’ desires.
Size
Until the twenty-first century, most advertising campaigns also excluded people of different sizes, ages, and abilities. Before the twentieth century, people of sizes outside the norm were often either missing from advertising campaigns or portrayed as the opposite of the ideal
19 standard. Many ads that targeted women focused on helping women change their body types so that they could fit the ideal beauty standard; these ads began in the early 1900s and are still around in the twenty-first century. Ads targeted towards women at the time of the Great
Depression focused on helping women gain weight to have larger hips and breasts, but within a few years, advertising focused on helping women reduce their breast and body size. According to
Cynthia Petrovic, a collector of vintage advertisements, “the economy is intrinsically tied to sexuality, and I like exploring exactly how that works. When there’s less food, heavier people are considered attractive. When there’s more food, skinnier people are more attractive.”
Advertisements continued to portray women as needing to have the ideal body type until women demanded their own representation. Many fashion and beauty companies in the twenty-first century have put in the effort to ensure that women are heard; Evelyn Wang, the senior vice president of Wet ‘n’ Wild, a makeup brand that is moving towards inclusivity of race and size within their models, said in an interview that the industry has been so slow to move towards inclusivity and diversity because:
It’s the fear of doing something differently. What if you do it and no one responds? It’s
happening now because there’s been a buildup in demand from consumers who don’t
want to see something unattainable or unrelatable. And the brands that are brave enough
to do it are getting the acknowledgment and positive responses on social media. (Andrea
Cheng)
Wet ‘n’ Wild is just one of the many fashion and beauty brands of the twenty-first century that attempt to better represent women. For example, Fenty Beauty, Sephora, and Ulta are three brands that have reached out to casting agencies for non-straight-size models, which are models outside of the stereotypical runway size range of 0-4, to be in their campaigns. Despite the
20 obvious lack of representation of non-straight-size models in advertising campaigns of the twentieth century, companies drastically improved their representation of all sizes in the twenty- first century.
Age
Companies and brands also improved their representation of different ages and abilities since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Unless specifically targeted, brands rarely included people outside of the 18-44 age range in their ads; people of younger and older generations were often excluded from campaigns. There are instances where it is not necessary for all generations to be included in certain types of advertisements, but most products can easily be targeted to multiple generations and markets, especially fashion and beauty. Although not technically considered a product, many brands and companies purposely exclude people of older generations for jobs through their advertising methods. Companies like Verizon, Amazon,
Goldman Sachs, Target, and even Facebook have placed ads on Facebook to target specific age groups for jobs, to ensure that they only receive applications and attention from younger generations (Angwin et al.). Although fashion and beauty brands may not intend to exclude older generations when selling their products, many purposely target younger generations. In the past fifteen years or so, companies like Aerie, Nike, and Girlfriend Collective have been making an effort to include younger and older generations in their advertising campaigns. These brands and others have not only worked on their representation of younger and older generations but have also included people of differing abilities.
Ability
People with disabilities have rarely been portrayed in advertising, especially before the start of the twenty-first century. Even in the twenty-first century, “disability is absent from
21 advertising, invisible for when it speaks specifically about disability – for example, Channel 4’s
Paralympics trailer, or disability charity Scope’s ‘End the awkward’ campaign. Rarely do ads show disabled people doing everyday activities such as cooking, working, or household chores”
(Magee). Ads related specifically to disability-focused campaigns and events do not always accurately portray people with disabilities; Brazilian Vogue released an image promoting the
2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro that displayed able-bodied actors and models photoshopped to have disabilities. That being said, proper representation of people with disabilities in advertising has been on the rise in recent years. Brands including Tommy Hilfiger, ASOS, Nike,
Aerie, and River Island have all incorporated representation of people with disabilities into many of their recent advertising campaigns. Samantha Renke, an actress and disability campaigner, has made it her mission to show retailers that it does not have to be different to advertise and sell products to people with disabilities. Products do not have to be different to work for people who are able-bodied and disabled; Renke believes that “[retailers] get quite scared when they think of disability, they think it’s going to be a niche market or they’re going to have to really change their products. But actually you don’t have to.” Renke specifically works with companies to make products that fit both able-bodied and disabled people without making obvious differentiation.
Nike is an athletic-wear company that works extremely hard to be inclusive and diverse in all of its branding and advertising, in a way that highlights the similarities and differences of athletes in a non-discriminatory manner. This progress occurred fairly recently, most within the last year or so, but Nike has released numerous diverse and inclusive ads in this time frame.
Nike’s “Dream Crazy,” “Dream Crazier,” and “Stop at Nothing” advertisements portray various athletes, professional and unprofessional, young and old, of different races, genders, and abilities
22 participating in their chosen sports. Just a few of these amazing athletes are Serena Williams, a
38-year-old African American female tennis player, Isaiah Bird, a 10-year-old male wrestler,
Colin Kaepernick, a 32-year-old male biracial football player, Beatrice Vio, a 22-year-old Italian female Paralympic wheelchair fencer, Usain Bolt, a 33-year-old Jamaican male Olympic sprinter, the entire United States Women’s National Soccer Team, and many others. A Muslim female with a hijab, younger female soccer players, women’s high school rugby teams, men’s high school football teams (with a female teammate), and a multitude of other athletes of different races, abilities, genders, ages, and sizes are also prominently featured in each of these ads. Each of these Nike ads are meant to empower every person who watches them; in this day and age, Nike’s advertisements do a fantastic job of representing many of the extensive segments of the population.
These advertisements are supposed to show people of every demographic that they are powerful and strong and can accomplish their dreams, no matter their background or what they look like. In doing so, Nike also has clothing that encompasses all demographic groups without differentiation; people of different races, genders, sizes, ages, sexualities, and abilities can wear
Nike’s clothing and footwear to chase their dreams and accomplish whatever they set their mind to. Despite its fantastic representation in its current advertisements, Nike still has room for improvements in its campaigns. Nike does a great job of featuring younger generations and middle generations, but its current campaigns do not feature people of older generations actually participating in a sport, which leaves out an entire demographic. Nike also leaves out a decent amount of the population when considering socioeconomic classes. Nike’s activewear and shoes are not cheap; it could be difficult for members of the middle class, depending on their income, to afford Nike’s products on a regular basis. This does not take into consideration the members
23 of the lower class. In order to become completely inclusive, Nike must work to include people of all generations, not just younger and middle, and all socioeconomic classes, not just upper and upper middle classes. Nike is also lagging behind other companies in its sustainability initiatives as well; it has begun to create plans for sustainability and saving the environment, but Nike and many other brands and companies in the fashion industry have a long way to before they can be considered sustainable.
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Chapter 3: History of Sustainability in Advertising
Similar to diversity and inclusivity, sustainability in advertising was mostly introduced in the beginning of the twenty-first century. Although global warming and climate change have been on the rise since the 1950s, sustainability advertising and sustainable business practices have only been seriously discussed by corporations in the past ten years. The increase in popularity of sustainable practices in the twenty-first century relates to the opinions of the corporation’s target audiences. Studies reveal that “new generations of buyers, specifically millennials and Gen Z, care more about the earth they’re poised to inherit and have adjusted their spending accordingly. [According to a recent] Nielsen study, 81 percent of consumers said they felt strongly that companies should help improve the environment” (Pasquarelli). Companies and brands evolve over time to cater to the desires and needs of their consumers; if they do not, brands fail and ultimately must make changes or cease to exist. Brands and companies can only be successful when they follow the consumer market. Because consumers want their products to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly, more companies are working towards sustainability, but companies and consumers have only recently started thinking and acting in this way.
The twentieth century was a time of immense consumerism, “the theory that an increasing consumption of goods is economically desirable and promotes the consumer’s interests” (“Consumerism”). Despite this, the United States experienced multiple periods of recession and limitation during the twentieth century, including The Great Depression and World
War II. Both of these events forced Americans to ration food and supplies. Materials and supplies were used for the war to become parts for weapons and other necessary equipment, which required that people at home used less. The opposite behaviors were also extremely
25 prominent in the twentieth century. The Roarin’ 20s were years that emphasized the idea that people needed to constantly buy things in order to be happy. Advertising in the 1920s was focused on getting customers and potential buyers to go out and buy more and more products, to the point that many consumers no longer had any money. Credit was introduced to allow many
American consumers to buy things that they could not afford upfront, with a payback system that involved payments every month with interest. People in the 1920s often lived paycheck-to- paycheck because they spent all of their money on products with credit and then continued to spend money in order to pay back the credit. Henry Ford revolutionized the assembly line process in factories to produce his Model T Fords at a lower cost, making them cheaper for the public. Consumers in the 1920s bought these automobiles and large appliances along with things like radios, vacuums, beauty products, and clothing. The 1920s drastically changed America’s economy into a consumer-focused economy, giving advertising the space to expand and attract more consumers.
By the time World War II was over, advertising came back in full force, reinvigorating all American consumers to shop unlimitedly again. The PBS site “American Experience” states:
Wartime production had helped pull America’s economy out of depression, and from the
late 1940s on, young adults saw a remarkable rise in their spending power. Jobs were
plentiful, wages were higher, and because of the lack of consumer goods during the war,
Americans were eager to spend…the American consumer was praised as a patriotic
citizen in the 1950s, contributing to the ultimate success of the American way of life.
The 1950s became the era of suburbia. The American Dream in the 1950s was to own a house and be a part of this suburbia. People wanted to modernize their homes and lifestyles, and many desired household appliances that would make their lives easier and more efficient. Historian
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Lizabeth Cohen explains that “the good purchaser devoted to ‘more, newer, and better’ was the good citizen, since economy recovery after a decade and a half of depression and war depended on a dynamic mass consumption economy” (American Experience). In order to grow economically as a country, American consumers had to put more of their money into businesses and corporations that continued to produce the things that they desired. The processes of continuous production and consumption that rose in the 1920s and heightened significantly in the
1950s created a global culture of consumerism that has only increased since then. Consumers and brands feed off each other: one would not exist without the other. Brands must change their behavior in order to stop consumption, but consumers must also change theirs to affect change within brands.
Consumer culture positively affects the economy, but it negatively affects the environment. Sustainability in advertising was not seriously considered by corporations until the beginning of the twenty-first century. Since the beginning of modern times, advertising’s purpose has been to promote consumption and consumerism; brands and companies advertise because they want people to buy their products so they can make more money. Companies benefit, consumers think they benefit, and then a few weeks later, the feeling of happiness that was achieved after buying a product disappears, new products get released, and the cycle perpetually repeats. Consumers want more, so the companies produce more, and because the companies produce more, consumers want more. The need to buy material things to flaunt wealth and status and to seemingly fulfill desires exists now as much as it did in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Thorstein Veblen put it best when he described the class structure of the nineteenth century; he stated that “as wealth accumulates, the leisure class develops further in function and structure, and there arises a differentiation within the class. There is a more or less
27 elaborate system of rank and grades. This differentiation is furthered by the inheritance of wealth…” (37). Consumerism would not exist without this attachment that humans have to wealth and status. Once consumers and brands realize that there are greater things to think about than making money and flaunting it, advertising and production can shift to more sustainable options.
Although more businesses have started to shift towards sustainability in the past fifteen years, there are brands that strove towards sustainability since the beginning of their existence.
Patagonia, an outdoor brand founded in 1973, with the tagline “We’re in business to save our home planet,” has emphasized its love of the environment and the natural world since its conception and has grown in its efforts to be sustainable. Since its start, Patagonia has supported organizations that work to counteract global warming and climate change. In the early 1970s, a group from Patagonia “went to a city council meeting to help protect a local surf break…experts testified that the [Ventura] River was dead and that channeling the mouth would have no effect on remaining bird- and wildlife, or on [their] surf break” (“Beginnings and Blacksmithery”).
After partnering with a 25-year-old biology student who realized that the river was not actually dead and was still spawning life, which saved the state of the river, Patagonia decided to donate money only to smaller grassroots organizations who work hard for their environmental causes.
Beginning in 1986, Patagonia has donated either 10% of its profits or 1% of its sales, whichever ends up being higher, to grassroots organizations that truly make an impact, rather than giving the money to non-governmental organizations “with big staffs, overheads, and corporate connections” (“Beginnings and Blacksmithery”). Considering its annual profit revenue was around $1 billion in 2017, Patagonia donates about $10,000,000 to grassroots organizations to save the planet.
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Patagonia is also very aware that being a company that produces clothing makes it a corporate polluter. Since the mid 1980s, “[it] has been using recycled-content paper for [its] catalogs…and worked with Maiden Mills to develop recycled polyester for use in [its] Synchilla fleece” (“Beginnings and Blacksmithery”). Patagonia also prides itself on using only 100% organic cotton, eliminating all harmful chemicals from its cotton-based clothing, and continuing to work towards finding more innovative and environmentally friendly production and production processes to minimize its negative impact on the planet. It is a brand that is invested in saving the planet that makes it possible for people to climb, hike, ski, surf, mountain bike, and trail run, all things for which Patagonia produces clothing. Patagonia provides extensive information on its website to inform customers about its environmental impact, specifically pertaining to its partnership with WornWear, materials and technology, reference library, and resource use (“Environmental Impact”). Although not 100% sustainable, Patagonia has made it clear that it constantly aims to reduce its negative impact on the planet, and it was the first big brand to pioneer initiatives that actually made positive impacts on nature and communities.
As time has progressed, more and more brands and companies have been working towards aspects of sustainability in their business models. There has been a surge of companies trying to be sustainable since the 2010s, which will seemingly benefit the environment, yet it is difficult to discern the motivations behind why brands are trying so hard now to be more environmentally friendly. Although it is impossible to know entirely whether Patagonia supports the environment and sustainability because of an actual desire to save the planet or because being sustainable is a great way to attract a specific consumer market, based on its own statements about the environment and that its sustainability initiatives were created before sustainability became cool, Patagonia appears to be genuine. It is difficult to say the same about many of the
29 larger brands that more recently discovered the positives of being sustainable in advertising, business practices, and production. H&M, an internationally known fast fashion brand, launched its H&M Conscious line in 2011; this clothing line is made with sustainable materials, including organic cotton, recycled polyester, and lyocell, a form of rayon that is made of dissolving pulp
(Radparvar). It is a great thing that H&M has introduced a collection that is sustainable and environmentally friendly, making it more accessible to people of lower socioeconomic statuses because of its price point, but H&M is still a worldwide fast fashion brand. A sustainable collection is fantastic, but nothing else about H&M’s production process for its other clothing has changed. H&M successfully added a sustainable line to its brand in order to reach a wider audience and earn more money, but the brand has not made a significant positive impact on the environment and continues to pollute the earth by producing tons of waste every year.
H&M is not the only fast fashion brand that has introduced smaller sustainability initiatives to reach nature-loving buyers. Urban Outfitters has its own vintage and repurposed brand called Urban Renewal, but it makes up just a small fragment of the clothing that is sold in stores and online and it is very pricey. Zara, another fast fashion retailer, released statements in
2019 that it would be focusing on using more organic, recyclable, and sustainable products in the next six years, but did not define how it would do so and currently are not using any environmentally friendly fabrics. These brands are just a few of many in the fashion industry and beyond that are purposely misleading, in order to grab sustainable customers’ attention. These brands have figured out how to capitalize on many people’s passion for the environment by trying to lure customers in without explaining how their products are sustainable or making any significant changes to the other aspects of their clothing. No brand that can be completely sustainable; in some way, energy will be used and waste will be produced, but there are fashion
30 brands that are trying their best to be as sustainable as they can while still remaining known in the fashion industry.
There are sustainable brands, like Allbirds, Girlfriend Collective, and Reformation, that have made a huge positive impact on consumers and on the fashion and footwear industry.
Sustainable and ethical brands like these make an effort to be transparent with their consumers by showing exactly what their clothing and footwear is made of, where the materials come from, how they are made, and how they are sustainable in other aspects of their business and production models. Although Allbirds, Girlfriend Collective, and Reformation are all extremely transparent with everything relating to their products, Girlfriend Collective specifically does an exceptional job conveying every step of their production process.
Girlfriend Collective, an activewear company that produces leggings and sports bras, provides videos that take consumers through its entire production process. Girlfriend Collective specifically works with the government of Taiwan to repurpose the country’s used water bottles into yarn that can be woven into clothing. The facility where the bottles come from is monitored by the government to make sure that only used water bottles enter and are made into leggings and bra tops. These recycled bottles are processed and repurposed into leggings and bra tops in ethical Taiwanese factories. These clothing items are then dyed with certified safe colors in the factories, and the water used to produce and dye the products is filtered until completely safe and then returned to its source. The entire process is fascinating, and the transparency that Girlfriend
Collective displays to show its customers that it is striving for sustainability when producing clothing out of materials “that would otherwise clog landfills and threaten wildlife” is a new level of excellence (“Who We Are”). The details that are not included in the video on its site are explained in an extremely comprehensive fact list that discusses every aspect of sustainability
31 within the brand. Additionally, Girlfriend Collective also has an initiative called ReGirlfriend, where customers can send back their old Girlfriend Collective clothing to be upcycled and repurposed into brand new pieces right in North Carolina. Girlfriend Collective strives to close the clothing loop and prevent waste that will damage the planet; as its video states, “it’s new stuff made from old stuff…made from old stuff” (“ReGirlfriend”). It is the prime example of a brand that is passionate about the environment and is going above and beyond to ensure that people know that it is possible to wear cute and sustainable clothes without destroying the planet.
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Chapter 4: Standards of Diversity, Inclusivity, and Sustainability in the Fashion Industry
Although there are brands that work hard to portray diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability in their advertising and in the fashion industry, there still are not set standards for any of these things. The industry needs to make changes in order to save the environment but
“one basic problem [it] needs to tackle [is] how to define sustainable fashion in the first place”
(Andria Cheng). The same ideas also apply to diversity and inclusivity in the fashion industry.
The overarching ideas of diversity and inclusivity in the fashion industry mean that people of all demographics should be included and celebrated; representation of all races, sizes, ages, abilities, genders, sexualities, and socioeconomic classes behind-the-scenes of the fashion industry
(production and management) can directly influence the more visible aspects (campaigns and runways). Models, brand corporate employees, ambassadors, brand sales associates and store employees, photographers, videographers, and any other representatives of the brands should include each of the demographic groups above. Brands like Aerie, Nike, and Girlfriend
Collective have incorporated most but not all demographic groups into their advertising campaigns, giving them a greater head start towards more diversity and inclusivity than many other brands. This is extremely important to keep in mind when thinking about the industry standard because these brands, among a few others, have been the best examples for including and accepting people of all demographics, except for socioeconomic status. None of these brands are inexpensive, which unfortunately excludes many different social classes.
Other than these specific brands, many American fashion brands have dominated the
New York Fashion Week runways with their model diversity and inclusivity. The Spring 2019 runways “[were] the most racially diverse, size diverse, and gender-inclusive fashion month ever and the labels that cast the most models of color had entirely nonwhite lineups” (Tai). Chromat,
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Savage x Fenty, and Christian Siriano were the top brands to include plus-size models on the
New York runway, and “35 of New York’s 42 plus-size castings went to women of color, two to plus-sized women over the age of 50 [for Chromat]” (Tai). Chromat’s diversity and inclusivity is consistent among all platforms; not only does it include and celebrate different demographics on the runway, but it also includes a diverse range of women within its advertising campaigns, promotional website images, and corporate employees. Chromat also specifically focuses on the intersectionality of its models, often emphasizing and celebrating “the combination of identities that make [people] individuals” (Luther et al. 2). Many brands that already understand the concepts of diversity and inclusivity when choosing models and representation for the brand also understand that intersectionality exists and is a reality for all human beings. These brands, some of which are discussed above, make a point to include models that belong to multiple demographics, instead of picking and choosing models who only fit specifically into one demographic. Although the motivation of brands for including a diverse range of models cannot be fully confirmed, it is obvious that many brands have realized that diversity and inclusivity is necessary for the success of their products and their brands.
That being said, there are still many fashion brands who have not caught on to the necessity of diversity and inclusivity for their advertising campaigns. These brands are often controversial and have had issues with public response to their lack of diversity or inability to portray diversity. Abercrombie, for example, has struggled immensely over time with lack of diversity and inclusivity in its advertising campaigns and in its store employees. When
Abercrombie began advertising to tweens and teenagers, its models were solely white, attractive, thin, and blonde men and women, which it aimed to recreate when hiring store employees and deciding on its target audience. In 2006, former CEO Mike Jeffries famously stated:
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In every school there are cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids.
Candidly, we go after the cool kids…a lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and
they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. That’s why we hire good-looking
people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and
we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than
that. (Kaplan)
Multiple employees and rejected applicants sued Abercrombie for discrimination lawsuits and won. Muslim women wearing hijabs were often turned away from positions and those who did get hired were forced to remove their hijabs or faced consequences if they refused. Former employees with prosthetic limbs were forced to work in back rooms, away from the customers as well (Kaplan). Jeffries eventually stepped down, and Abercrombie loosened the strict nature of its “look policy” of its employees, allowing them to be more individualistic and no longer hiring based on their physical attractiveness. Although Abercrombie has included a few models of different races in its current advertising campaigns and website promotional materials, they are still conventionally attractive and thin. Abercrombie has taken steps towards diversity and inclusivity, but it still has a long way to go to even come close to other brands. Despite no set standard for diversity or inclusivity in the fashion industry, there are a lot of companies who do a great job of making an effort to diversify their models and employees while others are lagging far behind.
There are also plenty of companies that have made great efforts to introduce sustainability into their business models as well. There are no set standards for sustainability efforts in the fashion industry either. Fashion brands that are Certified B Corporations, which set some standards for sustainability and ethicality, have already gone above and beyond to ensure
35 that their brands are doing as much as possible socially and environmentally. Certified B Corps are internationally known and highly esteemed for their honorable values; according to the B
Corps site, B Corporations are “purpose-driven and create benefit for all stakeholders, not all shareholders” (“About B Corps”). They believe:
[They] must be the change we seek in the world, all business ought to be conducted as if
people and place mattered, through their products, practices, and profits, businesses
should aspire to do no harm and benefit all, and requires that we act with the
understanding that we are each dependent upon another and thus responsible for each
other and future generations. (“About B Corps”)
B Corporations work to save the planet and do everything they can to help everyone involved with the brands, and then they work even harder. Unfortunately, there are no specific numerical values for how to be sustainable as a fashion company, but after looking at many different ethical and sustainable fashion brands, there are a few qualities that they have in common.
When looking at most sustainable fashion brands, they often hold themselves to high standards that they have established. Sustainable brands, including Reformation, Patagonia, and
Girlfriend Collective, have all set company guidelines to sustainability that they continue to follow and strive to go beyond. Companies like these work to ensure that they use recyclable or environmentally friendly materials, such as recycled polyester, TENCEL, a branded version of lyocell, 100% organic cotton, bamboo, and hemp, in most or all of their products. Additionally, many of these brands have programs where they collect old products and recycle them into new products to close the clothing loop. They encourage people to return the clothing to be recycled instead of getting rid of it or throwing it out. These brands make sure that their clothing is not the only aspect of their companies that are sustainable; many sustainable brands ship their clothing
36 in sustainable packaging and hang their clothing on eco-friendly hangers in stores. Sustainable fashion companies, for the most part, are not fast fashion companies; they are not necessarily slow fashion companies where they only produce clothing and merchandise in small batches, but they often make points to produce only a certain amount of clothing to sell, instead of mass producing multiple styles every few weeks.
Sustainable fashion brands, like Reformation, Patagonia, and Girlfriend Collective, often have slower cycles of clothing production, and they use energy efficient processes to make their clothing. They tend to use energy efficient lighting and appliances throughout all of their workspaces, offices, and stores and try to reuse production supplies as much as possible, including the water that is used to power the creation and dyeing of clothing. The dyes that sustainable brands use are often eco-friendly and go through tests and inspections to make sure that they will not harm the environment or consumers. Some brands also filter through and test the water used to produce the clothing before they release it back into the source, so that dyes and potential chemicals will not enter the environment. These practices have set somewhat of a standard for companies that began as sustainable fashion or those that are working towards it, but there are still no numerical figures that exist to set an accurate representation of what sustainable fashion should be. Although no fashion brand can ever be 100% sustainable, the practices above provide brands a baseline for how to work towards being as sustainable as possible to minimize their effects on the planet.
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Chapter 5: Competitive Analysis
Although there are no set guidelines for diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability in the fashion industry, there are a few brands whose practices go above and beyond the rest of the industry. In order to create my own campaign, I looked at how these brands have made progress towards greater diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability and attempt to emulate the most progressive and effective aspects of their brands. My fictional fashion brand will be a smaller brand than each of the brands below but will ideally combine elements from each to create a more accessible and comprehensive diverse, inclusive, and sustainable fashion brand. I looked at
Eileen Fisher, Girlfriend Collective, Reformation, and Kotn, four sustainable fashion brands that are pioneering more diverse, inclusive, and accessible fashion.
Eileen Fisher
Eileen Fisher, a women-only, luxury brand, was founded in 1984 by a woman of that name as a small collection with “beautiful colors, great fabrics, and [pieces that] have certain shapes and proportions that work together” (“Meet Eileen”). The brand focuses on using common sustainable fabrics in most of its pieces, including TENCEL, organic cotton, responsible wool, hemp, viscose, and recycled cashmere. Eileen Fisher has increased domestic production by bringing some of its manufacturing to the United States, rather than focusing on international production, and has made women and their human rights a priority. Eileen Fisher strives to empower all women through its designs, marketing, and “Women Together” campaign, which focuses on women supporting women through livestreams and events held across the nation. Eileen Fisher looks at every aspect of the supply chain when creating and manufacturing its designs, in order to make sure that it can be as sustainable as possible while preventing human trafficking and slavery and raising its standards of labor. The brand also has Renew and Waste
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No More programs to focus on closing the “conventional cycle of consumerism,” where customers can bring back their old Eileen Fisher clothing to either be resold or upcycled into brand new pieces (“Who We Are”). Eileen Fisher makes sustainable clothing for women of different races, ages, sizes (including plus size and petite), and backgrounds, as shown through its choice of models, but the brand is not accessible to women of all socioeconomic statuses because it is extremely expensive.
Although inclusive of many clothing sizes, the models that Eileen Fisher uses for its general “women” section on its site are also the models for the “petite” and “plus” sections, yet they are not plus size or petite. Eileen Fisher needs to use petite and plus size models for its petite and plus size clothing to properly represent these sizes. Its clothing is inaccessible to many people of lower and even middle socioeconomic classes because of its price point; there are few full-priced pieces under $100 on their website. Eileen Fisher does a great job of making sustainable fashion for wealthier women, but as its founder Eileen Fisher states, “we don’t want sustainability to be our edge, we want it to be universal” (“Meet Eileen”). This is nearly impossible to accomplish when most women cannot afford the clothing. Pricey and niche sustainable fashion brands, like Eileen Fisher, have become a norm in the fashion industry, making it hard for many people to participate in the sustainability movement.
Girlfriend Collective
Girlfriend Collective, another female-only brand, is slightly more affordable than Eileen
Fisher and covers the niche market of sustainable athletic wear, selling everything from leggings and sports bras to windbreakers and bodysuits. It is a brand that strives to be as sustainable and as diverse as possible. It offers up to seventeen color options for their most popular items, including the compressive high-rise leggings, and offer a size range of XXS-6XL, without
39 labeling people as plus size or petite. All of Girlfriend Collective’s clothing is made from recycled materials, whether that be from used water bottles or from organic cotton factory waste.
Its models are extremely diverse; Girlfriend Collective features women of different ages, races, sizes, and abilities, all modeling the same products with no differentiation or separation. It strives to close the loop of consumerism with clothing by running a program called ReGirlfriend that allows people to send back their products to be recycled into new products and to receive store credit, without having to throw them out or get rid of them in a wasteful manner. Girlfriend
Collective partners with other organizations, such as ECONYL1, that are also trying to save the planet; this collaboration allows Girlfriend Collective to reduce the waste that has already been created by making fabric out of it. Although the clothing is not made in the United States where its headquarters is, the factories that the items are made in, in Vietnam, are SA8000 certified, which “guarantees a bunch of things, including no forced or child labor, safe working conditions, and the right to unionize…[it] ensures all workers are paid fair wages, and provided catered meals and guided exercise breaks” (“About”). The only downside to Girlfriend Collective is its prices; although cheaper than Eileen Fisher, the prices are still not cheap enough for all socioeconomic classes to afford. The cheapest item is a tank top that is costs $26 and the most expensive is a windbreaker that costs $128. It also sells only activewear, which targets a niche market.
Reformation
Reformation is another sustainable, female-only brand that targets another niche market.
It rates its clothing and materials on a five-letter scale from A-E, A standing for “allstars” and E standing for “eww, never.” Although its clothing is inclusive of many sizes, all of the main
1 ECONYL is “a fiber made from recycled fishing nets and other waste that would otherwise be discarded into oceans and landfills” (“About”).
40 models on the website are skinny. There are a few models who are of different races, but most of the clothing on Reformation’s website is modeled by thin Caucasian women and based on the measurements of women from 5’6 to 5’10 in height. Reformation has a collection for petite women, under the height of 5’2, an extended sizes collection that goes up to a size 22, and a collection for women with cup sizes C-DD. These collections include women who do not fit in the 5’6-5’10 size range, but like Eileen Fisher and unlike Girlfriend Collective, these collections are separate from the main clothing collections. Reformation has been completely carbon neutral since 2015 and exercises sustainability practices in every aspect of its business, whether it is in its headquarters, in its factories, or in its stores. Its website has an entire page dedicated to all of its sustainable practices, which is an extremely long list of things including recycling 75% of its garbage and always striving for more, energy efficient lighting from wind power, recycled hangers, non-toxic biodegradable cleaning products, compostable and recyclable packaging, and many others. Reformation’s clothing is the closest to a fashionable young adult’s everyday style, in that it sells casual and dressy clothing and has many different options for most styles and tastes. It also designs and creates new clothing in weeks, which is somewhat similar to the turnaround time of many fast fashion companies. Reformation is expensive, less than Eileen
Fisher and more than Girlfriend Collective, and appeals to a very trendy, wealthy audience, and is very sustainable, yet appears, at first glance, to be the most similar to how fast fashion companies operate.
Kotn
The fashion brand Kotn is a sustainable and ethical clothing brand that produces clothing from 100% Egyptian cotton for both women and men. Its goal is to work directly with the farmers to make ethical clothing that “doesn’t cost a fortune, in order to rebuild the fashion
41 industry from the inside out” (“About Us”). Kotn provides comfortable and fashionable clothing that is affordable and keeps farmers, weavers, and craftspeople in business. Kotn makes its “own fabrics from raw cotton bought direct from farmers at guaranteed prices. Like farm-to-table, but with your clothes” (“About Us”). It is a Certified B Corporation, which signifies Kotn’s dedication to serving more than just shareholders by focusing on the community and the planet.
Excluding $10 socks, the lowest full-priced item for women, a tank top, is $20 and the most expensive, a cardigan, is $85. Excluding $6 socks, the lowest full-priced item for men, a t-shirt, is $25 and the most expensive, a color-blocked sweatshirt, is $100. Most of Kotn’s pieces are neutrals and basics, so its collections do not have many bright colors, but the basic colors can be worn with many pieces. All of the dyes used to color the fabric are OEKO-TEX non-toxic certified, so they are safe for Kotn’s customers and for the earth. Kotn also focuses on childhood education and has saved 1% of its profits since the start of the company in 2014 to give back to
Egyptian communities by opening schools for children. In terms of diversity, Kotn features models of many races and ethnicities, but the majority are white or light-skinned, and all of them are thin. Kotn’s sizes range from XS to XXL, and it has no models outside of the stereotypical straight-size range.
Competitive Summary
Most of these sustainable brands target female-only, niche markets; Kotn is the only exception as it targets both women and men. The decision to target primarily women is unsurprising as women are more likely to buy and be swayed to buy sustainable products than men. Research states:
Mothers tend to be especially interested in making healthier choices for their families and
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are often willing to pay slightly more for organic food and natural cleaning and health
and beauty products…in most households, women are the primary shoppers for groceries
and household goods. [Its] findings showed that women, more than men, can be swayed
by eco messages and aspire to an eco-friendly lifestyle. (Robinson)
Eileen Fisher specifically capitalizes on targeting wealthier mothers and women above the young adult range, who want to be stylish and sustainable, want basic pieces, and do not mind spending more for it. Kotn also targets people who want basic pieces but is cheaper and more accessible to younger demographics of men and women than Eileen Fisher. Reformation targets a younger audience as well, specifically trendy, wealthy women in their twenties and early thirties, and
Girlfriend Collective targets a younger audience but includes women of all ages who want to be athletic or wear athletic clothes. Each of these brands covers a niche market of the sustainable fashion industry; it is not possible to get every type and style of clothing from just one of these brands. If that were possible, the brand would not be sustainable; it would be fast fashion, which offers everything all the time in one place, and if the brand does not carry it, it will be produced and released the next week. Although each of the brands above have put effort into being diverse and inclusive, Eileen Fisher, Reformation, and Kotn are especially lacking representation of people of different races, genders, sexualities, abilities, ages, sizes, and socioeconomic statuses.
Because of this, there are currently very few sustainable fashion brands that target people outside of a wealthy, white female audience.
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Chapter 6: Organizational Background and Campaign Plan
I used a combination of brands, such as Girlfriend Collective, Aerie, Reformation, and
Kotn, as inspiration for my own diverse, inclusive, and sustainable advertising campaign. Each of these brands approaches diversity and sustainability in its own way; I pulled the best elements from each to make a new brand and advertising campaign for diversity and sustainability in the fashion industry. For the sake of having a brand to attach the campaign to, I created my own made-up brand called EARTHLY. EARTHLY is a diverse, inclusive, and sustainable fashion brand that focuses on representing groups that have been missing from consumer and business culture. EARTHLY prioritizes people and the planet in its process of making sustainable clothing that fits every person. EARTHLY believes in making sustainable fashion for every body. The sizing is all-inclusive, like Girlfriend Collective’s XXS-6XL size range, and
EARTHLY is a brand for both women and men. There is an untapped market for sustainable fashion in male audiences, and EARTHLY wants everyone to participate in the sustainable fashion movement. Since the male audience is still a fairly new market for sustainable fashion brands, EARTHLY is starting out slow with the incorporation of men into the advertising campaign, meaning that this initial campaign will include more women than men. EARTHLY is a diverse, inclusive, and sustainable brand that aims to be accessible to people of every race, gender, ability, age, sexuality, size, and socioeconomic class, similar to Aerie’s #AerieREAL campaign. In the style of consignment shops and online clothing resale platforms, such as Plato’s
Closet, thredUP, and Poshmark, the clothing that EARTHLY sells is made from only recycled and reused materials.
EARTHLY began from old fabrics and household materials that were upcycled into new styles, and the brand has grown to upcycling donated clothing from consumers and unwanted
44 and leftover fabrics from other brands. EARTHLY believes that clothing belongs on a person’s body, not in a landfill, so it purposely makes an effort to rescue old clothing and fabrics from being disposed of and permanently residing in a landfill. EARTHLY offers the option for customers to get their own clothing back in a recycled piece of clothing or to donate their clothing to be redesigned and recycled into a unique piece for other people to purchase. The clothing is affordable for many socioeconomic classes; EARTHLY also provides some basic sewing and clothing redesign tutorials on its site, in order to provide options to those who cannot afford the clothing or those who would rather not spend the money. EARTHLY aims to close the clothing loop and prevent as much damage to the planet as it can, specifically through recycling materials. Although EARTHLY is a brand, its goal is to be a lifestyle for everyone; the average
American throws away eighty-one pounds of clothing every year, and EARTHLY wants to encourage us to reuse these products in sustainable ways or to return them back to the fashion industry to be reused sustainably.
Since there are not defined standards for diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability in the fashion industry, I created my own set of standards to follow. A goal of my campaign was to decenter whiteness from the fashion industry and include underrepresented groups, so more than
50% of the models were from the underrepresented demographics that I have discussed: race, size, age, gender, sexuality, ability, and socioeconomic class. In order to avoid tokenism, which is “the policy or practice of making only a symbolic effort as to desegregate,” I focused on intersectionality in my campaign (“Tokenism”). The campaign and clothing are meant to be accessible to all demographics, especially underrepresented socioeconomic classes. All of the clothing was borrowed from Michelle Mischler, a senior at Penn State University who makes clothing from common household fabrics, including sheets, tablecloths, blankets, and
45 pillowcases. The goal was to only use recycled materials in the campaign shoot. I did not buy any supplies specifically for the photoshoot; buying new clothing or supplies for the shoot would not be sustainable, which is the opposite of what I was trying to accomplish. Using clothing made from recycled household objects makes sustainable fashion more accessible to every demographic and socioeconomic class; all fashion is exclusive, but sustainable fashion can be very pricey, which makes it even more exclusive. My goal was to represent and celebrate members of many different demographics in the campaign while showing that sustainable fashion can be accessible to everyone.
Target Audience Research
In order to collect more data and hear from a real audience, I sent out a survey in
December 2019 through Facebook, Instagram, and GroupMe about consumer perceptions of fashion advertising, specifically pertaining to diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability (see
Appendix A). Because of my location in State College, Pennsylvania, a college town, twenty- two of the twenty-four responses that I received were from students ages 18-24 and nineteen of the respondents were female. I asked survey respondents about their shopping habits and to rate how important diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability is to them, in general and in fashion advertising practices, on a scale of 1 through 5. Twenty-three out of twenty-four respondents rated sustainability, ethical business practices, diversity, and inclusivity as a three, four, or five in importance, indicating favorable attitudes. Out of these twenty-three responses, twenty-one of them were from students ages 18-24. Although twenty-four responses were hardly enough to base every decision of the project, they were helpful to see which age groups cared about diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability to narrow the target audience. I focused on a primary target audience of college students, ages 18-24; although the goal is to include people of all ages,
46 due to my location and resources, it was easier to recruit college-age models than any other age.
As a step towards targeting men who desire sustainability, my campaign will include male models, but because the sustainability movement is already very appealing to women, the campaign will feature a few more women than men. EARTHLY is a brand that appeals to every race, age, sexuality, gender, ability, socioeconomic status, and size to participate in the sustainability movement, but for this specific campaign, with the resources of State College and
University Park, it will be harder for all groups to be completely represented.
Goals, Objectives, Strategies, and Tactics
The goal of this proposed campaign was to raise awareness for sustainable and diverse fashion while reaching a wider, more diverse audience. The hope was that after seeing this campaign, more people from all races, genders, sizes, ages, abilities, sexualities, and socioeconomic statuses would feel more properly represented and be more inclined to shop sustainably or reuse their previously worn clothing. If this smaller scale campaign were to be expanded into a real-life EARTHLY brand, the goal would be to create a campaign that is entirely diverse and inclusive. With a larger amount of resources available, this campaign would ideally be able to include people of all races, genders, sizes, ages, abilities, sexualities, and socioeconomic statuses and would cater sustainable fashion to as many audiences as possible.
Brands like Aerie are able to include such a wide array of people in their campaigns because they are large companies with a world of resources at their fingertips. Because of my location and limited resources as a college student, the goal of this campaign was to accomplish as diverse and sustainable of a campaign as I could with these restrictions in State College, Pennsylvania.
The objectives for the smaller scale campaign were to include people of different races, ages, sizes, sexualities, abilities, genders, and socioeconomic statuses. In order to achieve this,
47 more than 50% of the models for the campaign and advertising materials were from these underrepresented demographic groups. The campaign and photoshoot also used 100% recycled materials for the clothing. Although representation of all races, genders, sizes, ages, abilities, sexualities, and socioeconomic statuses may not have been feasible for a small scale, student- created campaign, representing as many of these groups as possible was necessary and extremely important. After studying many other large-scale brands and their approaches to diversity and inclusivity, I believed that having more than 50% of the models in the campaign from the underrepresented demographics of race, sexuality, gender, size, age, ability, and socioeconomic status was a good initial baseline for my campaign and for the industry as a whole. Despite the lack of standards across the fashion industry, there are brands that have made the effort to be inclusive of these groups, some even to the extent of all runway models being people of color or of other underrepresented groups. I wanted EARTHLY to follow in the footsteps of the brands that are conscious of proper representation of underrepresented groups for the campaign and advertising materials.
In order to raise more awareness for sustainable fashion in the population, I used recycled and sustainable materials in the clothing for the campaign. The campaign was meant to promote sustainable fashion and zero waste, so I did not create any waste or contribute to problems of the environment while producing the campaign. If EARTHLY became a larger-scale brand, these objectives would remain the same, but I would also like to increase brand awareness on social media amongst people ages 18-24 by 10% and would like to receive and remake at least 10,000 donated articles of clothing into other pieces, both in a year. I think it is important that younger demographics have the option to buy sustainable, affordable clothing, and EARTHLY allows this to be possible. Because the only clothing sold by EARTHLY is recycled, reused, and
48 remade, customers can ensure that they are helping to save the environment and avoiding contribution to landfills.
The main strategy for my campaign was the practice of conscientious inclusion without tokenism. I wanted to make sure that I could include people from as many ages, races, genders, sizes, abilities, sexualities, and socioeconomic statuses as models for my advertising campaign without specifically picking and targeting people to fit into these categories. Because of my location and the results of my survey, the target audience for the campaign was female, college- age students, but I included both male and female, college-age students as models to reach a larger audience. If EARTHLY were a large-scale fashion brand, I would promote the brand as a mix of sustainable clothing brands like Girlfriend Collective and Reformation and secondhand clothing stores like Poshmark and thredUP. EARTHLY could offer clothing of all styles, instead of having to fit into niche categories, because the clothing is donated by customers and can be remade into any style of clothing for them.
The tactics for this campaign included reaching out to different multicultural student organizations and clubs to see if any of their members wanted to participate, including the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity and the Multicultural Resource Center on campus. By reaching out to organizations on campus, I could still reach people from groups who I wanted to represent without targeting and selecting specific people. The campaign includes ads that can be published on social media, specifically Instagram and Pinterest, to target younger demographics who are likely to be interested in fashion and reusable products. I chose Instagram and Pinterest specifically based on information provided by the Pew Research Center. According to Pew, 67% of adults ages 18-29 use Instagram, which is the largest percentage of users from all demographic groups. Although Pinterest is used less than Instagram by adults ages 18-29, 34%
49 of adults in this age group still use this platform (Pew Research Center). Both of these platforms encourage users to express themselves, often through fashion, photography, and other visual art mediums, which is the audience that EARTHLY desires. Pinterest especially encourages users to
DIY their own clothing and other crafts rather than getting rid of items, which is how
EARTHLY began. If EARTHLY were to be a large-scale brand, it would have specific clothing drop-off dates where people can donate their clothing to be remade into other items for sale to a larger audience. There will also be other options for customers who specifically want their own clothing returned to them in a new style. On a larger scale, I would also be reaching out to eco- friendly influencers and thrifters who are passionate about EARTHLY and EARTHLY’s mission and can spread that passion to larger demographics.
Figure 1: Summary of EARTHLY's Campaign Plan
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Chapter 7: Evaluating the Campaign
The final campaign consisted of nineteen models of different genders, races, sexualities, abilities, sizes, ages, and socioeconomic statuses. The campaign photoshoot took place on
February 26th at 3 Dots Downtown in State College, PA from 12:30-6pm; models were able to come whatever time they were free during this time frame, which allowed time for individual and group photos. I shot over 1000 photos, including multiple groups shots and individual pictures of every person, which I narrowed down to 10-15 final photos for the digital campaign and social media advertisements. The clothing featured in the campaign is 100% reused and recycled material, designed and created by Michelle Mischler, a senior at Penn State University.
Michelle has made multiple clothing lines, Insecure Nudist and Revive Nine to Five, that specifically focus on sustainability and using recycled materials, both of which have been used to create EARTHLY’s first clothing line. Michelle created her pieces for all genders and multiple sizes out of recycled blankets, tablecloths, bed sheets, and pillowcases. Although many of the items were initially designed and sized for Michelle’s close friends, the range of designs she included in her line made it possible for any person to wear the clothing.
Figure 2: EARTHLY website landing page 1
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Figure 3: EARTHLY website landing page 2
I wanted more than 50% of the models in my campaign to be people from underrepresented races, genders, abilities, ages, sexualities, sizes, and socioeconomic statuses, and based on these qualifications, I was able to achieve this number. 19 of the 20 total models somehow belong to one of the underrepresented groups that I wanted to include. There is only one model who is a straight, white male; every other model is either a female, person of color, non-straight-size, member of the LGBTQ+ community, spread out amongst the grade-levels of
Penn State, or a combination of many of these. EARTHLY’s campaign includes 15 women, 9 people of color, multiple non-straight-size women, and at least 5 members of the LGBTQ+ community. Based on prior knowledge of the campaign models, these are the conclusive numbers. I cannot be sure of the models’ socioeconomic statuses, exact sizes, or abilities because
I did not want to pry into aspects of their lives that they may not have wanted to share. Because of this, I am only aware of my own socioeconomic background (middle class), size (6 & S/M), and ability (affected by autoimmune disease systemic lupus). In the future, if EARTHLY was continued, I would ask people to sign up to participate in the campaigns by filling out a survey;
52 this survey would collect information about their backgrounds to ensure that I am properly representing as many underrepresented groups as I can.
Based on the limited amount of time and resources available to me as a student in State
College, I believe that I was able to successfully represent many of the demographic groups that are often underrepresented or misrepresented in the fashion industry. I want to continue this campaign and work with a larger group of people because although EARTHLY includes women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, non-straight-size models, and different grade levels, I want to properly represent a larger range of sizes and ages and more people of varying abilities and socioeconomic statuses. Although 95% of the 20 models for EARTHLY’s campaign belong to one or more of the underrepresented demographic groups, I want to make sure that I can represent every group I have discussed to the fullest extent that I can. I reached out to multiple organizations on campus, including the Multicultural Center and the LGBTQ+ community, and to many personal connections that I have made throughout the time I have spent at Penn State. In the future, I would reach out to even more organizations for underrepresented demographic groups, especially disability resource centers and more LGBTQ+ and multicultural groups. If EARTHLY became a large-scale fashion brand with unlimited resources, I would want to expand the scope of the campaign and include a larger number of models and would strive for a greater representation of people of different races, sizes, sexualities, genders, ages, abilities, and socioeconomic statuses.
The entire campaign process was zero waste, from its conception to its creation and finalization. Michelle created her designs out of recycled material to reuse fabrics and avoid getting rid of them, which were used in the campaign shoot with recycled backgrounds and recycled materials that I already owned. Nothing new was purchased for the shoot and nothing
53 was disposed of afterwards; 3 Dots had some materials already in their inventory that I used to help set up the backgrounds, and all accessories were already owned and provided by myself,
Michelle, and the models. If EARTHLY became a large-scale brand, I would continue with the same zero-waste practices. As I mentioned before, EARTHLY’s clothing is recycled and remade from clothing sent in by customers, minimizing the amount of clothing that gets sent to landfills every year. This business structure made Michelle’s lines perfect for the first campaign shoot, as she followed the same practices to avoid disposing of otherwise unwanted fabrics. As a large- scale brand, I would want to receive at least 10,000 donated articles of clothing from customers within the first year to be recycled and remade to be sold online or sent back to the original owner as a new item. Because the materials are recycled and were not personally bought by
EARTHLY, items would be priced affordably and would be accessible for all socioeconomic classes, making it easier for every person to be sustainable.
The advertising methods that I chose for EARTHLY are a website/landing page,
Instagram ads, and Pinterest ads, which are all digital and cannot be disposed of by being thrown into a landfill. The landing page incorporates twelve photographs from the campaign photoshoot and includes every model who attended the shoot. Both the Instagram and Pinterest ads include the same photos as the landing page to keep the advertising materials for EARTHLY’s first campaign consistent across all platforms. As I mentioned in my target audience research, both
Instagram and Pinterest are crucial platforms for my target audience of people between the ages of 18-24, especially those passionate about DIY crafts and fashion. Pinterest is especially good for attracting customers who are passionate about the environment and about DIYing and remaking their own clothing. I designed the posts and landing page to incorporate all twelve of the final campaign photos in a creative and crafty manner to evoke a strong image of art and
54 nature by utilizing fun shapes and varying shades of green and yellow. These colors are meant to work with the colors of the clothing and the colors of the backdrop for the campaign photoshoot, in order to create a cohesive and visually appealing design. I wanted to utilize a format for posting the campaign on social media in a manner that is commonly used among photographers but not as common for brands, by layering the photographs and lining them up so individual photos take up more than one slide on Instagram. This method allows for these specific photos to stand out on a person’s feed while highlighting the details of the clothing and the photograph; layering the photos makes it easier to fit more photographs in one post in a way that is different than usual brand posts. By using platforms that are common for younger audiences and designing trendy and unusual post formats, EARTHLY is meant to especially stick out to an audience of individuals between ages 18-24.
The tagline and campaign copy are meant to appeal to a younger audience as well and is consistent across all advertising platforms. Each visual advertisement includes this copy:
“Introducing EARTHLY, the inclusive and sustainable clothing brand that rewards you for giving back. Send us your old clothing instead of sending it to a landfill and we’ll remake it into a stylish new item of your choice, shipping free of charge. Check out our first release of recycled items, now available to purchase online. We’ve made people and the planet our main focus.” I’m not actually releasing the advertisements on social media, but if EARTHLY became a large-scale brand, I would aim to raise brand awareness on social media by 10% among college-age students in the first year. The copy specifically appeals to a younger generation that is looking to creatively save money and the planet; EARTHLY’s brand and mission appeals to individuals who are passionate about fashion and saving the environment. Although I’m not releasing actual
55 advertisements and cannot measure real results, I believe that these platforms would perform the best among my chosen target audiences.
Figure 4: Example Image from Social Media Campaign 1 Figure 5: Example Image from Social Media Campaign 2
Figure 6: Example Image from Social Media Campaign 3
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Although there were a few limitations throughout the campaign process, I believe that the overall campaign is inclusive, diverse, and sustainable. Ultimately, I would have loved to have more models, specifically people of color and minority groups, but after reaching out to multiple groups on campus and to a bunch of friends and personal connections, I believe that the models included in this campaign are perfect for it. There is a good mix of many types of people, especially from groups that are frequently underrepresented. I do believe that I successfully followed the steps of my campaign plan, specifically when working towards achieving my proposed objectives. EARTHLY’s first campaign is definitely not perfect, but I believe that with the time frame and resources available to me, I was able to put together a campaign that accurately and respectfully represented many people of very different groups while promoting a sustainable fashion brand. EARTHLY is a smaller-scale example of a brand that proves that it’s possible to be diverse, inclusive, and sustainable, all at once.
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Chapter 8: Conclusion
Although some brands within the fashion industry have made changes to their stances on diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability and have followed these changes through to their campaigns and advertisements, many have yet to even reconsider their current implementations of diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability. People of color and other minority groups are still vastly underrepresented across the fashion industry and various technological platforms.
Underrepresented people of different sizes, ages, races, sexualities, genders, abilities, and socioeconomic statuses are still rarely featured in the fashion industry, both behind-the-scenes and in advertisements. Despite the decreasing amount of blatant racism and stereotyping in the advertising industry, exclusion of many different groups from advertising campaigns is still a problem that many brands need to reconcile. If these brands want to make a difference in the fashion industry, they must take cues from brands who have successfully implemented great policies of diversity and inclusivity. Brands like Aerie, Girlfriend Collective, Nike, and Kotn spearheaded the inclusion of many of these groups of people in their advertising campaigns, attracting a lot of positive attention from consumers and the media. Consumers love to see diversity and inclusivity in advertising, the results of which my survey back up; brands who implement these practices make more of a positive impact and end up becoming more beloved because of it.
Some of the brands above, like Girlfriend Collective and Kotn, make an effort to be diverse, inclusive, and sustainable, something that many brands could not begin to accomplish.
Other brands like Reformation, Patagonia, and Eileen Fisher are not as skilled at diversity or inclusivity but excel at making sustainability and saving the planet their number one priorities.
Although no fashion brand is currently 100% sustainable and may never be completely, these
58 brands are making an enormous effort to reduce their negative effects on the environment while still creating beautiful sustainable clothing. This effort extends past the creation of the clothing; each of these brands have instituted environmentally friendly practices in their headquarters, factories, and stores to limit energy use, waste production, non-recyclable and -compostable materials, and toxic dyes. These practices exemplify the brands’ dedication to saving the environment and providing their customers with the best quality for themselves and the planet.
The only downside for most of these brands is their price point; as much as they have pioneered the sustainable fashion industry, many people still cannot afford these brands, making it extremely difficult for these brands to be accessible to anyone other than the upper and upper middle classes. Less sustainable brands are often cheaper and more accessible to many groups of people, which make them easier for everyone to purchase but only add to the pollution of the earth by the fashion industry. In order to eliminate fast fashion, sustainable fashion brands must cater to all demographics, especially all socioeconomic statuses. If fashion isn’t sustainable and accessible to everyone, then it won’t be effective.
In order for a fashion brand to be effective and make a positive change in today’s cultural and social landscape, it has to successfully combine diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability.
Girlfriend Collective is one of the few that comes close; although the brand and models are diverse and the brand’s clothing is sustainable and made out of recycled water bottles, the pricing is still unaffordable for many socioeconomic statuses. Although EARTHLY isn’t a real brand and is by no means a perfect campaign, it encompasses diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability much better than many already established fashion brands. It is unacceptable that many large fashion brands are still fast fashion and are not accurately or respectfully representing people of all races, genders, sexualities, ages, abilities, sizes, and socioeconomic statuses, especially with
59 the amount of resources available to each of them. Although it was not easy to put together
EARTHLY’s campaign, I was able to put together a diverse, inclusive, and sustainable small- scale campaign with the connections that I had within State College, yet many larger fashion brands still have not, with practically unlimited resources and connections. It is unacceptable that large fashion brands have the resources and capabilities to represent the underrepresented and halt their environmental damage to the planet yet choose not to. In order to permanently fix the problems of the fashion industry, fashion brands must make the effort to change their beliefs and implement the necessary practices to achieve the diversity, inclusivity, and sustainability that properly reflect the people and state of the world today.
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APPENDIX A: Survey Instrument
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APPENDIX B: Survey Findings
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APPENDIX C: Campaign Images
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ACADEMIC VITA Jordan Pietrafitta
EDUCATION The Pennsylvania State University, University Park | Schreyer Honors College May 2020 Bachelor of Arts in English, Paterno Fellows Program Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society, Dean’s List, projected Cum Laude Bachelor of Arts in Advertising; minor in Sociology Douglas A. Anderson Chapter of Kappa Tau Alpha, Dean’s List, Cum Laude International Studies: London, England (Summer 2019)
RELEVANT COURSES Research in Advertising/PR Advertising Creative Strategies Media Planning Advertising Campaigns Photojournalism Photography in the Mass Media
PROFESSIONAL & ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE VALLEY Magazine, State College, PA, Director of Public Relations January 2017-May 2020 • Supervises a team of 15-20 people • Manages relationships with companies, brands, and influencers and runs VALLEY social media • Previously a web & print writer and a photographer (editorial division)
Champs Downtown, State College, PA, Freelance Photographer February 2019-May 2020 • Photographed Sheck Wes, The Jonas Brothers, and Jordan McGraw
Jordan Alicia Photos, remote, Founder/Photographer June 2016-present • Proficient in Adobe Creative Suite for day-to-day editing of concert, fashion, portrait, and studio work • Featured on prominent celebrities’ social media, including Joe Jonas and Grouplove
The Bicycle Shop, State College, PA, Marketing Intern June 2019-May 2020 • Designs graphics, flyers, signs, and newsletters • Creates Facebook and Google ads and manages and runs the shop website, Facebook, and Instagram
Penn State University, State College, PA, Environmental Science TA August 2018-September 2019 • One of 28 environmental science teaching assistants who led discussions amongst students • Dedicated entire fall and spring semester to teaching environmental science students
Communications Test Design, Inc., West Chester, PA, Marketing Intern May 2018-September 2018 • Responsible for digital media projects including video archiving, photography, and graphic design
ACTIVITIES THON, State College, PA, Fundraiser August 2016-May 2020 • Personally raised $19,000 for the Four Diamonds Fund to independently dance in THON 2020 • Technology Chair of OHANA, one of the largest special interest orgs on campus, for THON 2018 o Responsible for web design, videography, and photography (event/portrait)
Movin’ On, State College, PA, Photography Team Captain September 2018-May 2020 • Organizes band and merchandise photoshoots with studio equipment and lighting • Takes pictures at every musical performance held by Movin’ On