One week into the social-media maelstrom created by Sydney Sweeney slipping into her nice denims—whereas speaking about her nice genes—American Eagle broke its deafening silence by issuing a assertion on social media late Friday afternoon.
“‘Sydney Sweeney Has Nice Denims’ is and all the time was in regards to the denims,” the corporate stated. “Her denims. Her story.”
Spelling means every little thing on this case, for the reason that mud that the advert kicked up centered round whether or not the usage of the homophone was a thinly veiled endorsement of a debunked idea of genetic desirability.
As ADWEEK reported on July 29, the advert’s juxtaposition of Sweeney’s line, “My physique’s composition is set by my genes,” and the narrated slogan “Sydney Sweeney Has Nice Denims,” prompted some critics to cost that the advert was nostalgic for eugenics, a discredited perception—although in style in Nineteen Twenties and ’30s America—that society could possibly be bettered via selective breeding.
American Eagle’s assertion refutes to that suggestion, nevertheless, including that “we’ll proceed to have fun how everybody wears their AE denims with confidence, their method. Nice denims look good on everybody.”
Although the submit’s intent is evidently to type out any misunderstandings over the advert’s that means, the assertion straddles the difficulty even because it confronts it. Whereas AE makes clear that the advert was “all the time in regards to the denims”—in different phrases, not in regards to the desirability of sure organic and racial traits—it’s additionally clearly defending the marketing campaign.
Traditionally, in circumstances the place a bit of promoting creates an imbroglio, it’s widespread for a model to apologize and yank the advert. That is what Pepsi did following its disastrous 2017 quick movie through which Kendall Jenner soothed racial unrest by handing a can of cola to a cop—a theme that offended Black Lives Matter supporters, amongst others. (“Clearly, we missed the mark,” the corporate stated on the time.)
It’s additionally unclear why American Eagle waited a number of days to reply to the tumult—and did so late on a summer time Friday afternoon, after the weekly information cycle had ended. (The corporate didn’t reply by press time to ADWEEK’s request for an evidence.)
In the meantime, Sweeney’s personal Instagram account has saved the actress a protected distance from the fracas that started earlier this week. Her most up-to-date submit, dated July 23, options her engaged on the engine of a 1968 Mustang fastback—carrying denims, in fact.
