Just months after an African American shopper lodged a discrimination lawsuit against Barneys New York, the exclusive retailer has unveiled a stunning ad campaign featuring transgender men and women ranging in age from 17 to mid-thirties.
Titled Brothers, Sisters, Sons & Daughters, the campaign will appear in Barneys catalogue and magazine ads. It features close to 20 non-professional transgender models of various ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Some of the models in the ad series are poised with family members, friends and pets.
The move to feature transgender people in an ad campaign however might be viewed by some as part of an attempt by the luxury store to repair its recently tarnished image in terms of diversity. In October last year, an African American college student filed a highly publicized lawsuit against Barneys New York claiming that he'd been racially profiled. After purchasing an expensive Ferrigamo belt at the retailer's flagship store in Manhattan, the young man was arrested and detained by New York City police.The arresting officers stated that they'd been notified by a Barneys employee that student used a fraudulent credit card to purchase the belt, which turned out not to be true.
Yet according to Time.com, the person in charge of Barneys advertising Dennis Freedman, came up with the campaign a year ago to develop awareness about the transgender community and also to address the dire lack of transgender people found in fashion imagery.
The black and white images for the Barney's campaign shot by famed fashion photographer Bruce Weber, feature clothing designs worn by the transgender models from the likes of Ann Demeulemeester, Balenciaga, Lavin and Manolo Blahnik. Additionally, excerpts from interviews with the models conducted by biographer Patricia Botsworth (her works include biographies on Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando and Diane Arbus) will be included in the catalogue along side of the photos.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
