Heads up: some of these images are not safe for work.
Brands and companies aren’t allowed to show vaginas in their advertisements — you know, media standards and all — but gosh, Calvin Klein has had a really good crack at it.
The US fashion house has a long history of campaigns that aim to push the envelope and get people talking. From Mark Wahlberg’s early ’90s crotch grabs to the 2010 Lara Stone billboard that was banned in Australia for being “suggestive” of violence and rape, Calvin Klein is no stranger to controversy.
And the spring 2016 campaign, starring Kendall Jenner, Aussie export Abbey Lee Kershaw, and a whole host of ‘wink-wink, nudge-nudge’ props and poses is no different.
Take, for instance, the image of Jenner posing with a juicy, juicy grapefruit half and declaring she “eats” in her #Calvins.
Sure, it's a "grapefruit". (Image: Calvin Klein)
Now, for all we know the 20-year-old really does enjoy snacking on grapefruit in her designer dacks — but her sultry squeezing of the fruit and the fact it's, well, extremely reminiscent of female genitalia suggests that would be an extremely naive interpretation.
Ooh, so ~raunchy~.
In a second photo, the second youngest Kardashian klan member holds a tulip next to her mouth.
Image: Calvin Klein
According to the slogan, this is what "reminiscing" looks like when you're wearing Calvins.
What, you don't caress your lips with long-stemmed flowers when taking a trip down memory lane? You've got it all wrong.
Watch: On the topic of vaginas, here's the answer to what makes one "normal". (Post continues after video.)
It's hard to believe, but the photos of Jenner are actually the most subtle of the lot.
Abbey Lee Kershaw's appearance takes a turn for the very literal, with a close-up of the model's hands thrust into her tightey-whiteys to represent "pulsing" — whatever that means:
Image: Calvin Klein
Then we have an unnamed model posing in jeans, unzipped to reveal... her bare butt. Yep, the #belfie has moved from its motherland, Instagram, to the world of fashion advertising.
We have a couple of questions about this image:
Image: Calvin Klein
One: Does this lady realise her jeans are on back to front? Two: Did she forget to bring her undies to the shoot, forcing the photographer to improvise...?
As it was undoubtedly intended to, this campaign has sparked a bit of a stir online (and more than a few eyerolls).
However, there's one image that's been met with outright anger instead. It's an upskirt shot of model Klara Kristin "flashing" in her Calvins — and according to the brand's many Instagram followers, it crosses the line from provocative to perverse.
"So it’s OK to take photos up a girls skirt for underwear modelling? Seriously not a good look CK. If no one sees a problem with this then I suggest you get a reality check with a psychologist. As if women don’t get enough uncalled for sexual attention, now this marketing image comes out," one wrote.
"Human sh*tstains sneaking up-skirt shots of women in public is a very real thing that happens everyday. This ad trivialises the sexual violation those women have suffered," another added.
What do you think of these photos?
Top Comments
"So it’s OK to take photos up a girls skirt for underwear modelling? Seriously not a good look CK. If no one sees a problem with this then I suggest you get a reality check with a psychologist.
Yet somehow it is ok for Victorias Secret to constantly show underwear clad women prancing around, but a tiny glimpse of someones panties is somehow offensive?
You have totally missed the point. Perhaps intentionally, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
It's not merely the glimpse of the panties that is offensive but the way the photo is posed. The photo CK have used is intentionally set up to look like an upskirt shot, a kind of photo that is almost always taken without the girl or woman's permission or even knowledge. It is creepy as hell to make any sort of allusion to that practice in advertising. That model is not "flashing", as the caption suggests.
Victoria's Secret models choose to prance around in their underwear and they do so knowing that people will be watching them. I don't understand what you think one has to do with the other, apart from the fact that they both involve women's underwear.
It's not like we haven't seen underwear in a photo before, it's the voyeuristic nature of this shot that's taking it a bit far. Unlike VS models who are intentionally showing off their underwear, this shot does look a little like the pervert shots that circulate on the net of women who are unaware they are being photographed "upskirt".