Among them were Joey Harary, the president of the Morét Group, a company that acquired 2(x)ist in 1995 and is to skivvies what LVMH is to couture; the designer Jason Scarlatti; two marketing executives; and James LaForce, whose fashion public relations firm has been hired to take the label in a direction that is “more aloof” and “not so intimidating.”
A video playing in the background showed behind-the-scenes moments from a recent photo shoot, where a lithe young man, Lasse Hansen, described his journey from serving in the Danish Navy to landing a big-time modeling career in New York City.
“I like the quiet life,” he said. He wears a robe in most of the scenes, his modesty intact.
“We describe it this way,” said Mr. Scarlatti, a winsome, precisely scruffy designer who also works part-time as a comedian. “We are going for something a little more statuesque, and a little less steroid-y.”
Mr. LaForce interjected, “We are giving the models an identity, so they are not just a piece of meat.”
Vic Drabicky, the founder of January Digital, who is consulting on the company’s online business, got to the point: “We are taking the focus off the crotch shots.”
It should be emphasized, right up front, that 2(x)ist is a company that has long held a strict “no stuffing” policy when it comes to advertisements. Only last October, the company staged a runway show of hot guys in their underwear, hosted and ogled by Jenny McCarthy.
Sex sells, you know, and nowhere is this truer than in the booming business of briefs, where the imagery has followed an ever-more-provocative and chiseled trajectory since Marky Mark dropped trou for Calvin Klein in 1992. Things have become so raunchy now that the marketing for a sizable niche of underwear brands bears a marked resemblance to gay pornography (see, or please don’t if you are prudish, labels like Andrew Christian, Papi, Baskit, Rufskin and, for a very particular man, Nasty Pig).
At 2(x)ist, and elsewhere in the underwear market, there was a growing sentiment that the models were getting to be, well, too sexy, at least to be relatable to a new breed of fashion customer: the average heterosexual man.
Thus, the change in campaign direction, which shows models (still attractive, shirtless and depilated, mind you) in lifestyle situations like exercising on a beach, often turned slightly away from the camera. The company is also creating a series of online videos that show the products in a more artistic light, including the one with Mr. Hansen, and another using dancers from the Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet.
The focus here, it should be noted, is more on the packaging than the package. And that is also the message coming from some new underwear brands, like MeUndies and Mack Weldon, that are hiring models of less conventional beauty. Reacting to what is perceived to be a case of abs fatigue among male shoppers, these companies are resisting the notion that a model has to look like Matthew Terry, the one from the Calvin Klein Super Bowl commercial, to move products off the shelves.
Flint and Tinder, another new collection taking an artisanal approach, rarely uses models in its marketing, which is more focused on the fact that the underwear is American made. “You don’t need to see a picture of a half-naked man to get a feeling of how a product is going to work for you,” said Jake Bronstein, its founder.
Who’d have guessed that a lot of men are uncomfortable with underwear shopping these days? “They don’t want to see only those plucked-chicken models,” said Michael Kleinmann, the editor of the blog The Underwear Expert. “They want models who are somewhat aspirational, and they want to look like the guy in the pictures, but every model can’t be blond, hairless and perfect.” The most common feedback Mr. Kleinmann has heard from readers recently is that they want to see more diversity, including guys with tattoos and guys over the age of 40.
WHETHER UNDERWEAR models are generally getting less sexy, though, depends on your definition of sexy.
“I think a lot of these brands have segregated themselves a bit, and the models they pick are indicative of their targeted demographic,” said Gregory Sovell, the creative director of the nearly decade-old label C-IN2, and before that the founder of 2(x)ist.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/fashion/changes-in-the-marketing-of-mens-underwear.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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