The Male Body: Abercrombie & Fitch

Advertising has been a way of convincing people that they need to purchase an item in order to be a certain way or gain something they want. The purpose of advertising has not changed, but the way the ads go about convincing the public has changed drastically in the past decades. Susan Bordo wrote “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body” as a way to document and normalize these changes. A company that Bordo mentions multiple times is Abercrombie & Fitch. In the late 1900s, Abercrombie & Fitch began to use men as a way to convince young men and women into buying their clothing. This targeting method is seen in an ad published in 2011. Abercrombie & Fitch sell the idea of masculinity to their customers by using a sexual pose, an outdoor background, and positioning in their advertisement.

Many of their ads feature half dressed men and women. In 2011, the company came out with an ad that shows a young man leaning against a pole. The shirtless man shows off his abs, his jeans are hung low on his hips, and his belt and jeans are unbuttoned. One thumb is inside the waistband and pulling part of the jeans down. The man’s head is cut off from the picture allowing male viewers to imagine themselves as the model in the ad. By leaning against the pole, the man is pushing his pelvis out drawing attention to the area. The ad barely contains clothing and so the question of what they are trying to sell cannot be answered with clothing. The real answer is that Abercrombie & Fitch is trying to sell the idea of masculinity. The company is trying to sell the idea that if men buy their clothing, they will look the man in this ad, or if women and gay men shop at their store they increase their chances of attracting a guy like the one in the ad. The way that the model leans against the pole radiates sexual charm as a way of promoting the idea of