Throughout the history of advertising, the female image has changed along with time. At first, the female image in advertising was humdrum with sexism, such as sexual fantasies or stereotypes of the good wife and good mother. But at present, we can find numerous powerful and independent female images in advertising. The struggle between Nike and its advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy (W+K) is representative this historical narrative.

Nike was known as a masculine sport brand. The parent brand depicted the image of sweating, muscular male athletes. In 1990, Nike executives laughed the women sub-brand. Actually, women’s professional sports were non-existent at that time. The sub-brand opened the door to the huge female market. Almost all advertisements for the Nike Women’s sub-brand were created by the female creative team from W+K between 1990 and 1997. During the early 1990s, the female stance was barely reflected in advertising. To expand the market, Nike executives and the female creative team had totally different ideas about how to achieve this. The team tried to challenge female stereotypes and the social construction of gender through their ads. [1]

In 1990, Nike Women’s first campaign was named List(Figure 1). The creative team started with criticism of women’s magazines. They found that magazines could not represent the actual lives of women. Moreover, members of the creative team were also women who were sick of the message that the magazine conveyed that women exercised for beauty. They believed that women exercise because it makes them feel better. Therefore, they printed a list of what women should refuse. Their audience responded with enthusiasm by hanging the list at home, showing it to their daughters, and buying Nike instead of other brands. [2]

Although sales increased, Nike didn’t acknowledge their efforts. Nike Men got large budgets but Nike Women didn’t. Also, they were restricted to several pages of ad space. Furthermore, Nike executives required that the models in Nike Women’s ads be pretty. Janet Champ, a member of the creative team, wrote a sixteen page ad that was cut to eight pages in the end. This campaign, named Empathy(Figure 2 – Figure 4), described women’s experiences from their childhood to adulthood. The creative team encouraged women to be independent and live for themselves like the sentence in the ad: “never too late to have a life and never too late to change one.” [3]

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From 1991 to 1992, the Dialogue (Figure 5) campaign was launched. The idea for the ads came from the life experiences of ordinary women like the Listand Empathycampaigns. For this campaign, Champ used an old photograph of her sister and mother. As a woman, when she was growing up, she was expected to be soft and tolerant because of the stereotype of women in society. In this ad, she wrote that “you are not destined to become the women who came before you… the only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” She asked the audience to be the person they want to be and challenge stereotypes of women. [4]

In 1994, at spring, the creative team advised Nike to add sports and not just fitness. But this was hard to realize. The Nike parent brand rejected being “pinkified” by the women’s sub-brand. And those man of Nike executives didn’t believe women can do real sports. Female seems another species for them. In the fall of that year, the campaign shifted from fitness to real sports with Just Do It Stories(Figure 6 – Figure 7). For this campaign, they launched three ads. Two of them told the experiences of two female athletes – Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Mia Hamm. The other one was based on the experiences of two lesbians. The creative team used the lesbian elements to protest against hegemonism. [5]

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All of the above campaigns got enthusiastic responses from audience as well as increased sales. The creative team create a sense of empathy with the audience and remind them of past experience. Like the female creative team at W+K, I created a poster as a voice for women (Figure 8). It started from a situation in China where women over 30 years old are often pressured to marry. Those women are called “leftover ladies” or “leftover women.” In Chinese society, most people think an unmarried woman is incomplete and that a woman should be a good wife and good mother. Therefore, once a woman becomes a leftover lady, the people around her, such as her parents, grandparents, and colleagues, desire to see her get married. In the poster, I used only black and white to form a strong contrast. The black square implies the pressure from people and society. The fist represents the power of these leftover women. The women break away from that pressure of getting married so that they can make the decision for themselves of whether to get married or not, decide who they are, and what is meaningful. Same as what the creative team for Nike Women did, the idea of the poster came from the life experiences of ordinary women to create a sense of empathy with the audience. The tagline, “Decide for yourself,” encourages leftover ladies to be independent. All the work by W+K and me are to provide a voice for women and empower women to be confident, independent, and to live for themselves. Moreover, we both question the social structure and protest against the stereotypes of women as well as the patriarchal oppression of women in society.

At the beginning of this story, Nike executives restricted the Nike Women’s creative team to a small budget, pretty models, fitness, and soft female image. Through the struggles of the team, they used ordinary women as models, and started to focus on real sports, showing portrayals of powerful and strong female athletes. Pierre Bourdie conceived a term, “symbolic violence,” to refer to cultural expulsions that might be imperceptible forms of class distinctions. [6] Symbolic violence reflects various aspects in the design industry. One of them is the stereotype that women should be pretty, soft, emotional, and are expected to be good wives or mothers in advertising. Fortunately, there are many designers like the creative team at W+K, who speak for victims, question conventions, and protest against the patriarchal society through their designs.

[1]Grow, Jean M. 2010. The Gender of Branding: Early Nike Women’s Advertising as a Feminist Antenarrative.

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid 

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

[6] Onafuwa, Dimeji. 2018. Allies and Decoloniality: A Review of the Intersectional Perspectives on Design, Politics, and Power Symposium.

Bling is defined as “Ostentatious,flashy; designating flamboyant jewellery or dress. Also: that glorifies conspicuous consumption; materialistic” in the Oxford English Dictionary. In the design industry, bling products have always been regarded as in bad taste and thus of less value. However, good taste and good design are not synonyms. Good taste is based on subjective inherent values[1]. But good design is based on the designer’s competence and professional skills[2]. Therefore, bling products can be of good design. This is a dress (Figure 1) from the Christian Dior couture house from the Spring-Summer 2018 collection in NGV, which is an example of a bling product that is also a well-designed product.

The designer of this work is Maria Grazia Chiuri. On the dress, which is a nude woman in shadow. The dress is made of silk and covered by a mass of differently colored metal sequins. The designer vividly shows off the female body by arranging the three colors of the metal sequins by using the light colored sequins to create light, dark hued sequins to create shadows, and the medium toned sequins as the transition. Moreover, the directions of the sequins similarly create a kind of movement [3]. For the 2018 Spring-Summer collection of the Christian Dior couture house, Maria Grazia Chiuri reflected on surrealism and the unconscious, being inspired by the work of Leonor Fini. Fini was known as a surrealist artist. Before Monsieur Dior became a couturier, he held an exhibition of Fini’s work in Paris.For Fini, clothes were about interpreting herself, expressing her personality, as well as defining and differentiating herself from others [4]. She went to a ball in order to represent herself rather than to dance. Fini wanted to be a work of art [5]. This dress uses the common elements of surrealism—body but in a bling way. 

Bling is obvious, straightto the point, impossible to ignore, and generates strong feelings and opinions, dividing public opinion into two camps. A bling product shouts out its message: bigger is better and more is better [6]. Here, the dress uses a large amount of dazzling metal sequins. Bling products are considered to be in bad taste. However, taste is dangerous because it is a matter of morality.Good taste is related to good behavior and sense of morality. Kant mentioned three kinds of beauty; one of them exists in the ideally beautiful, such as morality. However, as bad taste, bling products are equated with vulgarity, lack of education or intelligence, and ugliness. According to Sandqvist, ugliness is filled with delight. It can help people escape from the demand for credibility and truth as well as express themselves in a playful way [7]. Chiuri not only expressesthe beauty of female body’s shape, but also displays the power of women by embroidering a nude woman with metal sequins.Therefore, bad taste provides more joy than good taste. A product is beautiful if it can give meaning and delight to its users (Hume). Therefore, whether they are ugly or not, bling products can present meaning depending on its user’s emotion toward the product. 

When we concentrate on what bling products do for their users, we can find that bling does occurs on two different levels [8]. On the individual level, bling can enhance the user’s pride and identity. It becomes a symbol of success. On the social level, bling represents the user’s climb up the social ladder, changing their destiny from one of poverty to wealth. Bling signifies revolt, the users breaking of the social codes, and choosing to place themselves outside of mainstream convention and tradition [9]. Chiuri tried to break away from the stereotypes that women are emotional, weak, and subordinate to men. The dress not only demonstrates the beauty of women, but also describes a muscular, independent, and mysterious female image by using the colors of black and white with the material of the metal sequins. It challenges normative values that are deeply rooted in society that men are more important than women. Back to Sandqvist’s opinion, products that can liberate their users and set them free are beautiful[10]. Bling products emancipate us from tradition and conventions, increasing our creativity and passion for life.

There are a large number of products that represent an extreme stance in taste, such as anime merchandise, Lolita fashion, and glam rock that are similar to bling products in that they are regarded as in bad taste. However, these products can provide delight to their users who can express themselves and define who he or she is as well as break away from the conventions of society. This is why bling is still alive and well.

[1] Christoforidou, Despina and Elin Olander, Anders Warell. 2012. Good Taste vs Good Design: A Tug of War in the Light of Bling.

[2] Ibid.

[3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LisU7a47IG8 (accessed April 06, 2019)

[4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO4ZjlW3ToA (accessed April 06, 2019)

[5] Ibid. 

[6] Christoforidou, Despina and Elin Olander, Anders Warell. 2012. Good Taste vs Good Design: A Tug of War in the Light of Bling.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.