Review of Skims Summer ‘Swim’ 2023 Ad Campaign with Talents Jenny McCarthy and Carmen Electra
The 90s live on in the latest campaign from Skims, which features a reunion between iconic models, actors, and 90s sex symbols Carmen Electra and Jenny McCarthy.
You’d be forgiven for looking at the campaign and thinking the last thirty years of social and aesthetic progress were all a dream, and that we’re right back in the advertising and magazine imagery of the early 90s, with all of its thinly veiled sexual innuendos, obvious airbrushing, and overt objectification of women. The blonde bombshells pose in classically tacky scenarios, like a bikini carwash, licking melty vanilla ice cream cones (hm), or fondling exploding garden hoses (hmmm).
You don’t see a lot of ad campaigns where 50-year-old women are positioned as super sexy, so in a way there might be something to be said for that. Then again, McCarthy and Electra don’t look like your average 50-year-old woman. Perhaps there’s also an argument to be made that the imagery is reclaiming and parodying the problematic gonzo sexuality of that time. But does wilfully engaging in a trite and tacky play to the worst kind of male gaze make it any less gross and unethical?
Skims has always claimed that its primary motivation was body positivity and making solutions-oriented designs that work for everyone. After seeing this campaign, it’s hard to believe how honest that claim is. It’s definitely going to get a lot of coverage and social media attention, thus getting more eyes on the already very popular brand – but that also means more eyes on a campaign that is disappointingly retrogressive.
Talents | Jenny McCarthy and Carmen Electra