Demian Repucci content

Just got a look at the new campaign for Wrangler shot by photographer Ryan McGinley.  I have been a fan of McGinley’s for a while.  His images of guys on bikes riding around Lower Manhattan on the night of September 11th are haunting.  I always thought they sort of addressed the question of how the ‘cool crowd’, gleefully uncaring about anything other than themselves, responded to tragedy.  Answer:  They turn it into an X-Games race course.  Just kidding.  Although, now that I think about it maybe I like those images because it is my own memories and emotions that resurface when I look at them.  And the fact that maybe I was blissfully ignorant about anything but myself too…

Anyway, his Wrangler shots fit right into his catalogue of work.  His normally naked models now naked except for Wrangler jeans.  Really, it was only a matter of time.  These shots are not very different from McGinley’s typical work of skinny naked hipsters roughhousing in various settings.  All it needed was an art director to look at his images and imagine their clients’ product covering the model’s naughty bits.  Home run.  Interesting that it was those savvy guys at Wrangler that made it happen.  Now if they could just do something about their lame logo…

One question though in regards to the controversy surrounding the images… the people that are upset about them are falling unwittingly right into this typical advertising trap.  How is this much different than, say, the Abercrombie & Fitch adds a couple years ago of underaged underwear-clad models in wood-panelled suggestiveness?  Or anything that finds its way into Terry Richardson’s camera?  Or David LaChapelle?  These guys, and the brands they work for, know that sex sells.  There is nothing new or interesting about that.