american iconography, by el gato malo

A clothing company decides that a shapely white gal model will sell more jeans than their fat black mama models, and it does! Who knew? From el gato malo at boriquagato.substack.com:

the ideology of hallucination runs smack into reality

“so you think you’re an icon, well why’s that? i remember when icons meant classics.”

-DJ 8ball, space cowboys, san francisco, back in my rowdy raver youth.

fashion, culture, memes: these can all be iconic and iconic is an important idea. an icon is that which transcends, that which has instant recognition and meaning. a classic. a marker. a sort of platonic form or reference value.

for anyone gen X or older and many who are younger, the sydney sweeney jeans ad is an obvious icon, a cultivated callback to a genre that once was, the latest modern take on a corbusier chaise lounge or an homage to 1950’s sport shirts. it looks like 1,000 other things you saw your whole life, a piece of classic americana once as common as summer sunshine and about as objectionable.

i present it here as exhibit A.

[see linked article for hot Sydney Sweeney clip]

on its overt level, this branding makes deep sense as jeans styles are changing, moving from the stretch-fit skinny jeans paradigm of the last 15 years back to a looser and baggy 80’s and 90’s low-rise style. it’s all of a piece: a throwback ad style to foreground a throwback clothing style. it caught the zeitgeist. it’s clever, stylish, sexy, and strong. she’s an attractive woman doing cool stuff in a cool stuff in a cool way. sweeny looks like a bad ass, the car is epic, and this triggers appeal to women and men alike. you want to go to there.

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