Author(s)

Jiaqi Fan

Corresponding Author

Jiaqi Fan

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to study how women is portrayed in Brandy Melville's advertisements, and what messages about women are given to the audience through advertisements. Brandy Melville is a Italy clothing brand featured to create "sweet and cool American girl" by Silvio Marsan and his son Stephan Marsan in 1970. The marketing strategies of “one size fits all” and “no advertisements” has raised controversy in the society. In 2019, Brandy Melville officially entered Chinese market and have quickly become popular on Chinese social media through the recommendation of many actresses and internet celebrities. Its "short, tight and revealing" style has also become a highly discussed dressing style, namely, the "BM style". While BM becomes a trend in China, the concept of "one size fits most" and its too-small sizing has also sparked discussions about body standards among women. This paper specifically focuses on, in a time where post-feminist sentiment and consumerism both raised, how BM avoids its criticism of male gaze and body anxiety. The study selected 200 images posted on the Little Redbook by the BM account. Through a quantitative analysis of advertising images from May 2020 to July 2021, the study explores the brand's representation of women. This study found that, compared to the straightforward display of feminine body lines in the early 20th century, the style of advertisements now tends to be more like street photography - emphasizing on everyday movements. The models highlight their body curves and reflect their personality through autonomous daily movements, instead of showing their female curves through revealing clothes and impersonal sexy movements. Thus avoiding the suspicion of female objectification. At the same time, in order to avoid the suspicion of excessive sexual innuendo, the brand's advertisements diminished the audience gaze, and use the camera language such as group power to enhance the status of the characters.

KEYWORDS

Female representation, Social media, Gender advertisement, Brandy Melville