# something interesting



## ConservativeFellow (Dec 27, 2008)

https://www.brooksbrothers.com/IWCatSectionView.process?IWAction=Load&Merchant_Id=1&Section_Id=678

Brooks now displays half of their models as African-American. I have no problem with this at all, just interesting to note and follow the way brooks positions and markets itself through the years.


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## pt10023 (Jan 14, 2008)

That's just one model, who's appeared in the catalog and on the web site for the past few years. He's only portrayed that prominently on the sport coat page, there are other pages where he doesn't appear at all. I don't see this as indicative of any recent change in strategy.


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## Peak and Pine (Sep 12, 2007)

ConservativeFellow said:


> Brooks now displays half of their models as African-American. *I have no problem with this *at all, just interesting to note and follow the way brooks positions and markets itself through the years.


Yeah you do, or you wouldn't be bringing it up.
​


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## Beau (Oct 4, 2007)

What was up with Polo featuring that black guy for so many years?:icon_smile_wink:


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## JayJay (Oct 8, 2007)

Blacks spend money at Brooks and Polo, too, and the companies want their business. Why not encourage more spending through advertising? Makes good sense to me.


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## Miket61 (Mar 1, 2008)

Beau said:


> What was up with Polo featuring that black guy for so many years?:icon_smile_wink:


Tyson Beckford, as Alan Flusser will tell you, is handsome and so very very black that he is able to wear just about anything without it affecting his pallor.

I read, but can no longer find, a blog piece that analyzed a Brooks Christmas catalogue and made catty comments about the depiction of black models. It seemed that the black man was only shown with the other black models, or alone with the white man - as though it was clear that their relationship was business and they never socialized together with their families.

One picture showed a white child inside the house while the black child, obviously well-dressed and wearing an overcoat, peered in the window. I think the idea was that he was calling to the white kid to come out and play, but it could also be interpreted that he was eying their luxurious Caucasian lifestyle with envy.


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## Miket61 (Mar 1, 2008)

pt10023 said:


> That's just one model, who's appeared in the catalog and on the web site for the past few years. He's only portrayed that prominently on the sport coat page, there are other pages where he doesn't appear at all. I don't see this as indicative of any recent change in strategy.


This same gentleman is frequently used by Lord & Taylor as well.


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## Mannix (Nov 24, 2008)

Frankly I do not understand why this topic was even brought up. To the person who started the thread, don't be hatin.


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## ConservativeFellow (Dec 27, 2008)

I'm not hating. I am just noticing the how brooks purposefully markets, like what Mike was pointing out on the christmas ad.


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## jackmccullough (May 10, 2006)

Beau, if you're going to talk politics, take it to the Interchange.

If, as here, you're going to spout bigotry, keep it to yourself or get lost.


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## Taliesin (Sep 24, 2004)

Peak and Pine said:


> Yeah you do, or you wouldn't be bringing it up.
> ​


What an unkind assumption, P&P.


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## Beau (Oct 4, 2007)

jackmccullough said:


> Beau, if you're going to talk politics, take it to the Interchange.
> 
> If, as here, you're going to spout bigotry, keep it to yourself or get lost.


This thread is a joke, not a real commentary on clothing.

Bigotry? Get a grip on yourself. Tell me, how much hate mail did you send to Albert Brooks?


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Beau said:


> What was up with Polo featuring that black guy for so many years?:icon_smile_wink:


I remember that guy,he's in many clothes ads all the time.


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## pt4u67 (Apr 27, 2006)

ConservativeFellow said:


> https://www.brooksbrothers.com/IWCatSectionView.process?IWAction=Load&Merchant_Id=1&Section_Id=678
> 
> Brooks now displays half of their models as African-American. I have no problem with this at all, just interesting to note and follow the way brooks positions and markets itself through the years.


Its not just BB, its everyone. I don't see how and why this is interesting in any way.


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## JibranK (May 28, 2007)

Miket61 said:


> This same gentleman is frequently used by Lord & Taylor as well.


And J.C. Penny.

I wonder which store he uses his employee discount in.


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## Country Irish (Nov 10, 2005)

I believe it is his skin tone that makes him a popular model. The pigment balance allows him to look good in a variety of colors. He is not limited to the Winter color patterns.

Remind me to tell you the story of how I was taken into custody for wearing a shirt that was modeled by a black athlete. That story will get a lot more sleazy that simply taking notice that a model happens to be black.


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

Word has it the eyepatch wearing Van Huesen man is living comfortably in a retirement village in Florida. A famous icon from the 60s, he received his injury when the advertising fad of fathers with daughters in hand led to a scuffle with a overzealous feminist convinced he was a child molester.


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## Miket61 (Mar 1, 2008)

I couldn't find anything out online about the gentleman in the Brooks Brothers, Lord & Taylor, and JCPenney ads, but I did find this...

https://jezebel.com/gossip/today-in...as-wasps-are-mad-for-plaid-331748.php?cpage=2


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## Pentheos (Jun 30, 2008)

Miket61 said:


> I couldn't find anything out online about the gentleman in the Brooks Brothers, Lord & Taylor, and JCPenney ads, but I did find this...
> 
> https://jezebel.com/gossip/today-in...as-wasps-are-mad-for-plaid-331748.php?cpage=2


What a stupid woman.

Runner-up:

"_While I understand that, if it weren't for the ACLU Brooks Brothers wouldn't feature any models of color at all, I have to ask: What self-respecting black person (outside of Carlton Banks and Elvin Tibideaux) would wear this crap?_"

I bet there's some BB in Barry's closet.


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## Lucky Strike (Feb 23, 2006)

Kav said:


> Word has it the eyepatch wearing Van Huesen man is living comfortably in a retirement village in Florida. A famous icon from the 60s, he received his injury when the advertising fad of fathers with daughters in hand led to a scuffle with a overzealous feminist convinced he was a child molester.


Word has it wrong:



Time magazine said:


> Died. Baron George Wrangell, 65, Russian aristocrat and onetime New York Journal-American society columnist, who made advertising history in 1951 when he donned an eyepatch (though he had 20/20 vision) and posed as the original "man in the Hathaway shirt"; of a heart attack; in Manhattan.





Time magazine said:


> As soon as the ad appeared in The New Yorker last fall, all eyes were green in Manhattan's ad alley. "The Man in the Hathaway Shirt" depicted a white-shirted, debonair-looking fellow who was given a peculiar air of distinction by a black patch over his right eye. The ad was the inspiration of British-born David Ogilvy, 41, vice president of Manhattan's Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather, Inc. He got the idea from pictures of ex-Ambassador Lewis Douglas, who has worn a patch ever since he lost the sight of one eye in a fishing accident. (The man in the ad is Baron George Wrangell, émigré nephew of a White Russian general, whose eyes are perfectly good).
> 
> Last week the Advertising Federation of America named Ogilvy its "Young Advertising Man of the Year." This week Ogilvy received a more sincere form of flattery. Manhattan's James McCreery & Co. department store, advertising its "Silf-Skin girdle," depicted a buoyant, smiling young model clad in nothing but a girdle, a halter and an eyepatch.


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## chatsworth osborne jr. (Feb 2, 2008)

*mock-outraged people: we get that you aren't racist either.*

Remember a few years ago when Brooks catalogs had GQ-looking unshaven untucked skells? Thank heavens that phase ended.

You can ackowledge the existance of race and demographics without bias. It's possible that the model was chosen solely on aesthetics, or solely on some marketing agenda. I don't know, but stop pretending that there is some lengthy history of non-white clothing models (for establishment clothing nonetheless) or that we all are incapable of seeing color a la Stephen Colbert.

I was in a Brooks Brothers store that had a sales force 'over-represented' by blacks. They represented the store well and knew the products, but I found it noteworthy (especially given how Abercrombie recently tried to hide their minority employees in the back).


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## Miket61 (Mar 1, 2008)

chatsworth osborne jr. said:


> I was in a Brooks Brothers store that had a sales force 'over-represented' by blacks. They represented the store well and knew the products, but I found it noteworthy (especially given how Abercrombie recently tried to hide their minority employees in the back).


Anthropologie also is not only bad for keeping their black staff in hiding, but in assuming that every black customer is a potential shoplifter.

The Jezebel magazine blog post I linked is clearly meant to be a satire; I've gotten great enjoyment out of the other "Today in Catalogs" entries, which tend to make fun of hippy-chic styles from places like Barney's and Urban Outfitters that are far too expensive for anyone with such a bohemian lifestyle to afford.

At the Louis Vuitton store in Atlanta, they seem to cater to nouveau riche hip-hop celebrities; there are almost no white salespeople, and any questions related to the company's services (custom orders, monogramming) is met with an icy silence followed by a rude dismissal. Across the street at the boutique at Saks, which is also company owned, when I inquired about monogramming the salesperson offered to do it on the spot if I had the piece with me.


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## deandbn (Mar 6, 2006)

Well I'm fascinated. Out here in South Africa that has what they call a democracy, and a constitution, and a black government, and our un-elected prospective president to be has rape and corruption charges pending.

Now why did I tell you that, Oh, as a background to the fact that in our fair democracy whites are not allowed to work in shops, they kinda allow indians and coloureds if they have to, but they are not really properly black. They call these properly black people "previously disadvantaged" and they have a national policy that only "previously disadvantaged" (note the word black does not appear in that description) people can have affirmative action jobs.

Also, in advertising it is quite amusing as well. Whites may only appear in subservient roles such as chaffeur, tea maid, waiter in restaurant, in other words, only in roles where they are shown to be serving "previously disadvantaged" people.


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## JibranK (May 28, 2007)

Yeah well you all stayed buddy-buddy with Jim Crow longer than anyone else.


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## Relayer (Nov 9, 2005)

JibranK said:


> Yeah well you all stayed buddy-buddy with Jim Crow longer than anyone else.


That's a helluva reply, that is.

In other words, good they deserve it!?


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## JibranK (May 28, 2007)

I wouldn't say so. I'm against affirmative action. It's just that many South Africans I know act like Holocaust deniers when it comes to Apartheid. We tend to be a bit more clear about the wrongs of our past in the US.


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## brokencycle (Jan 11, 2008)

Miket61 said:


> I couldn't find anything out online about the gentleman in the Brooks Brothers, Lord & Taylor, and JCPenney ads, but I did find this...
> 
> https://jezebel.com/gossip/today-in...as-wasps-are-mad-for-plaid-331748.php?cpage=2


Funny. Two people can look at the same catlog: one determines there aren't enough black people, and the other notes there are suddenly a bunch.

And here all I noticed was that there was anything that really interested me in that catalog (except a few shirt patterns).


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## Thomas Hart (Dec 1, 2008)

deandbn said:


> Well I'm fascinated. Out here in South Africa that has what they call a democracy, and a constitution, and a black government, and our un-elected prospective president to be has rape and corruption charges pending.
> 
> Now why did I tell you that, Oh, as a background to the fact that in our fair democracy whites are not allowed to work in shops, they kinda allow indians and coloureds if they have to, but they are not really properly black. They call these properly black people "previously disadvantaged" and they have a national policy that only "previously disadvantaged" (note the word black does not appear in that description) people can have affirmative action jobs.
> 
> Also, in advertising it is quite amusing as well. Whites may only appear in subservient roles such as chaffeur, tea maid, waiter in restaurant, in other words, only in roles where they are shown to be serving "previously disadvantaged" people.


 It would not take a genius to figure out that 'previously disadvantaged' people might be a tad bit upset.


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## deandbn (Mar 6, 2006)

Thomas Hart said:


> It would not take a genius to figure out that 'previously disadvantaged' people might be a tad bit upset.


I agree that they are upset, they run the most violent society on earth.

However the point i was actually alluding to in my previous post was that you guys in USA have it good with very little discrimination.


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## JibranK (May 28, 2007)

Oh, also, most white South Africans I've met love talking about 'coloureds'. It seems like this one is not an exception.


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## Relayer (Nov 9, 2005)

JibranK said:


> Oh, also, most white South Africans I've met love talking about 'coloureds'. It seems like this one is not an exception.


You seem to be quite anxious to brand this fellow who you know nothing of.

I did some poking around various sites on the web and the word "coloured" does not seem at all the carry the same negative impact that "colored" does in America. It seems to be a term acceptable to and used by the very people to whom it refers.

Wikipedia refers thusly: _*Coloured*_- (South Africa) a community of mixed origin, including Khoikhoi and Asian slaves, not derogatory but the normal term for this community.

Just because it has become an unacceptable term here in the US (or other places), doesn't make it so everywhere. Maybe you could give the man the benefit of the doubt. Does he have a bad history on this site or with you in particular?


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## JibranK (May 28, 2007)

It's not him. My sister used to get picked on and called 'coloured' by South Africans making the same points that he was making. I got a bit carried away and I'm sorry.


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