I had heard a couple of people speak about the Wrangler ad campaign for S/S 2011, mainly around the time when the Manchester and London rioting was at it’s peak, considering it’s completely unintentional yet highly insensitive content. It was only today that I actually saw an image from the latest ‘STUNT’ campaign after scrolling through somebody’s Tumblr blog, seeing the image above and wondering what horrific incident it had been capturing. I was shocked to see Wranglers, WE ARE ANIMALS slogan emblazoned across it (pardon the pun).
More images from the We Are Animals, STUNT campaign for S/S ’11
The We Are Animals campaign has been a continuous advertising concept of Wranglers for a few years now, which toys with the idea of reverting humans back to their raw, animalistic state, defying technologic intervention and modernity. I actually really, really liked the Fall 2009 images shot by Ryan McGinley (pictured below) which depicted this notion of animalism beautifully and artistically but for me, Wrangler have spoilt it with the STUNT collection. The images are something I’d expect to see splashed across the front pages of a tabloid to satisfy the mass media’s hunger for suffering, not promoting a prolific clothing brand.
Images from the We Are Animals Fall 09 collection, shot by Ryan McGinley.
Having said all that, this video I found on YouTube about shooting the campaign is interesting. All credit to Cass Bird for her work on STUNT, she’s an extremely talented photographer; it’s just the concept that doesn’t quite sit right with me.