I want to congratulate you on your latest collection, once again you showcase a great range of fabrics, modern refined cuts, and effortless styling at an accessible price. It was this combination, which after a great deal of searching led me to approach you first to design a suit for my wedding this August.
However, after being emailed your new advertising campaign “Toy Boys” to promote the collection I’m afraid that I have had to swiftly reconsider. I fail to understand how the campaign, featuring highly sexualised and suggestive images of women in swimsuits, has any relevance in the advertising of formal menswear. These images are manipulated to include the image of a miniature man wearing your latest collection, often placed suggestively, looking elegant, refined and above all else professional.
What particularly offends me is that the promotional copy states that this is somehow empowering—reflective of women having more influence in a traditionally male dominated world. If this truly was your aim, you failed. The campaign reduces women to nothing more than objects of lust, for your exclusively male customer base to ogle and fantasise, and they are used in the vain attempt that sex will sell your products.
Getting married this year will be one of the happiest moments of my life. I am extremely fortunate. I have a fiancé who is smart, supportive, considerate, and strong. She is someone that I am immensely proud of; she is someone that I aspire to be more like; and she is much more than the one-dimensional image that your tired and lazy advertising campaign portrays.
I feel that having a suit made for one of the most important days of our lives, by a company that has so badly misjudged this, isn't appropriate.
As I said at the start of this letter, there is a lot that you have right, but your advertising is nothing short of disastrous, it only serves to detract from the efforts of all the people who work hard to create your suits. Do the sensible thing, ditch the campaign and learn from it. Potential customers want to know what makes you different and why they should buy from you. Tits and ass just doesn't cut it.
