Wacoal Product Line - Essay Example

Assignment Analytical Essay Introduction This paper is aimed at analyzing that how a publicspace is designed for a particular gender. The space selected for the purpose of this paper encompasses the visual and commercial effects as created by Wacoal’s recent lingerie product line called btempt’d. As a famous brand, Wacoal’s swimwear and innerwear are available at and exotically demonstrated/advertised across several showrooms in USA. This space is highly dependent on the merchandise, advertisements, visuals, and demonstrations that are found in a typical lingerie store. The company openly says that this lingerie product line is aimed at physical and mental wellbeing of young girls. However, the way the brand btempt’d has been designed and is being demonstrated suggests a more complex approach. Although a typical showroom featuring Wacoal products may appear to be oriented toward women, its merchandise and featured female models reinforce beauty stereotypes for women as created by men. Thesis Statement As a specific brand presented across different showrooms in major US cities, Wacoal’s product line btempt’d appears to be creating a commercial space for swimwear and lingerie exclusively oriented toward women and their well being. However, the way these products are exhibited and advertised suggests that the company uses stereotypical concepts on women’s beauty and practically undermines the genuine comfort and health issues. Discussion Wacoal has created a powerful commercial cult around its recently launched swimwear-cum-lingerie range named btempt’d. This brand specific space can be regarded as a highly distributed conceptualization and materialization of the company’s lingerie products across various media. Wacoal showrooms with btempt’d swimwear have been prepared along with other evolving business methods like online retiling and web based marketing. According to the website of Wacoal, “Making women look and feel their best has always been a part of Wacoal’s mantra” (paragraph 1). Such a stance might appear to be pro-feminist for a while. Having desire to look beautiful can be regarded as an innate property of human beings irrespective of gender. For a young girl, honing beautiful looks or proper grooming and dresses can lead to an effective makeover in a positive direction aimed at harnessing a better personality. Visiting the website of btempt’d product line or a showroom exhibiting Wacoal swimwear, a spectator can easily find out that the presentation techniques used are highly dedicated to the beautification of women in general and young ladies are being particularly targeted. In the words of Wacoal, btempt’d is actually a range of “sexy, sophisticated, and flirty lingerie” (Wacoal, paragraph 2), aimed at exciting young girls. Implementing an analytical point of view, however, it can be stated that this approach of Wacoal is quite inter-contradictory. On one hand, the company states that it is concerned about women’s health and comfort issues, and the main target is to provide utility oriented innerwear. On the other hand, it is highly reluctant of using a bulky or less attractive girl (say, with dark complexion or a blunt nose) as its model or ambassador for practically exhibiting the lingerie. Clearly, this is a kind of prejudice which gives rise to internalized oppression. From the perspective of women in general, such an approach on the part of a commercial giant will attach extra value to physically more attractive women in the society. Furthermore, the company’s claims about its sense of corporate social responsibility remain quite ambiguous. The company states that it is committed to spreading awareness on breast cancer, whereas its sole publicity stance is based on women’s physically beauty and sexy appearance. The concept behind visualizing the ideal female model for a lingerie product is based on the perspective and desires of men, not women. So a young girl must feel good when she is liked by others; especially by her boyfriend/s. This is the basic philosophy of Wacoal’s corporate strategy, which has no serious relation with societal issues like cancer awareness. Likewise, when obesity is a major problem in USA, the company does not take care of advertising and demonstrating its products with the help of overweight models. So what is most expected and/or encouraged in a typical btempt’d showroom is tendency of beautification with the help of ideally maintained, physically attractive, non hairy (or shaved), and petite female models. Now, one should refer to certain texts and research papers to find out what beauty means in the context of women’s self identity. In our society, women’s beauty has been an issue of prejudice rather than a matter of choice. If men are thought to like slim and sexy girls, women are encouraged to control their diet. So much so that a young girl might even become anorexic! Scholars like Valenti point out that beautiful women are looked at as persons who might naturally remain unaffected by feminist opinions and women’s socio-economic or political movements. Of course, a woman does not need to use “flirty” (Wacoal, paragraph 2) innerwear to feel physically comfortable. How can physical comfort issues be mapped onto sexual attractiveness and appearance? Is beauty all about sexuality? Women’s awareness around their own selves must encompass a comprehensive understanding of comfort, security, and satisfaction. Generally, these factors have nothing to do with beautification. In the book Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings (edited by Shaw and Lee), the necessity of “a woman-only space” (35) has been explicitly mentioned. Such a space can be utilized to address issues around grievances, discomfort, and health problems like obesity, breast cancer, etc. that are indubitably more important than beauty care. Wacoal’s btempt’d is crafted to bypass those more important issues. The lingerie product line is almost all about encouraging a woman to look beautiful. And of course, she must be very scantily dressed for this male dominated market oriented purpose. Otherwise, how can she fulfill the boyish fantasy of a guy when he screams on a girl saying, “Show me your tits!”? (Valenti, 7) Conclusion Attaching extra importance (no matter overtly or covertly) to physical beauty is nothing but a shameless attempt to assign a “heightened value to nonprocreative heterosexuality” (Meyerowitz, 9). Consequently, the space created by Wacoal’s btempt’d product line and dedicated showrooms ultimately leads to unfortunate objectification of young girls. It undermines the issues regarding basic physical comfort of young women by jumbling up external looks and internal feelings. The slim and sexy models (mostly blondes) depict what a man would look for in his girlfriend or wife. So men are actually more than welcome in a Wacoal showroom. Contrary to the company’s claims, the socio-economic and visual space as created by btempt’d, is all about preparing a girl mentally for becoming stereotypically beautiful as defined by her male companions. Works Cited "About Us - Our bras, panties, shapewear and coordinating daywear are designed to enhance a woman’s beauty and self image." Wacoal. 1 Jan. 2013. Web. 23 June 2013. . Meyerowitz, Joanne. "Women, cheesecake, and borderline material: Responses to girlie pictures in the mid-twentieth-century U.S." Journal of Women's History 8 (1996): 9-35. Print. Shaw, Susan M., and Janet Lee. Women's Voices, Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2011. Print. Valenti, Jessica. Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters. New York: Seal Press, 2007. Print. Read More