Andrej Pejic, a 20-year-old male model, wears a push-up bra in an advertising campaign for Dutch company HEMA.
To prove that its new mega push-up bra can upgrade any woman at least two cup sizes, Holland’s economy department store chain HEMA launched a campaign this week featuring the magical support garments on Australian model Andrej Pejic — a 20-year-old man.
Pejic may be pretty with long, elegant limbs, but he is naturally flat-chested, making the HEMA bra appear even more remarkable. Imagine what it could do for you, Pejic seems to say, as he peers doe-eyed from billboards and posters throughout Amsterdam.
The secret, of course, lies beneath his figure-hugging dress.
It was not achieved with any tricks, explains Judy Op Het Veld, HEMA’s manager of corporate communications. Rather, the department store’s 20€ mega push-up bras have “pillows” in each cup to add volume. They are, in a word, falsies.
Pejic has been capturing attention lately as a model for such top international designers as Jean Paul Gaultier and Marc Jacobs. He travelled to Toronto this fall to model for local designers Arthur Mendonca and Pink Tartan by Kimberley Newport-Mimran during LG Fashion Week.
And Op Het Veld confirms the executives at HEMA are thrilled with the reaction. The campaign, she says, had been kept a secret right up to the day the billboards were unveiled. “Only a few people in the marketing department and the CEO knew about it,” she says.
“We decided just to put his name in the corner of the billboard with no slogan. We wanted the PR to do its work, and it did — brilliantly. If we mentioned it was a man it wouldn’t be surprising. Now it makes people curious. We could have found a female model with a beautiful body, but we wanted to do something different.”
Op Het Veld says the company leaked a news release just in time for the unveiling. The release teased: Not only women grow two cup sizes with this new bra, even men grow an impressive cleavage.”
Jetty Ferwerda, a freelance fashion journalist based in Amsterdam, says the posters have only caused a stir among those in the know — and most Dutch people, she says, are unaware the beautiful lingerie model is actually a young man.
“Most Dutch people don’t even know it’s a man,” she says. “The billboard has his name on it but most people wouldn’t recognize Andrej as being a man’s name,” she adds. “There is no slogan with the ad, just a beautiful picture with a subtle décolleté. It has been all over the news though since the billboards went up Tuesday.”
The story has gone viral on Facebook and Twitter, capturing rare international attention for the European department store chain.
Women around the world are wondering if the bra — apparently capable of making a bust-less man seem womanly — could do the same for them.
In Toronto a handful of women weighed in:
Saleswoman Latoya Butters, 22, was not digging it. “This is a woman’s thing. I understand what they’re doing. But it shouldn’t be modelled on a man. They should just get a girl with little boobs.”
But restaurant manager Valerie Cook, 34, thought it was cool. “On behalf of women who don’t have a lot to work with I think it’s fun.” Cook discounts the “miracle” factor. “I think you’re really just buying a pair of falsies.”
Friends Oresta Shulakewych, 28, and Emily Tan, 23, both in sales, were intrigued by the marketing angle.
“That company has created a buzz,” says Shulakewych. “And that’s the point of marketing,” she adds.
“It would make me recognize the brand sooner and then perhaps I’d be intrigued enough to investigate the product,” she says.
But would she be enticed to buy a bra that had been modelled by a man? “I’d have to try one on. Bras are very particular.”
Tan agrees.
“It wouldn’t bother me particularly — because it was modelled on a man — but I’m a pretty liberal person. What I love about it is how such a simple gesture has been able to capture so much attention.”
Vasilia Panagakos, owner of the two Avec Plaisir luxury lingerie boutiques in Toronto says she loves the campaign.
“How cheeky. How innovative,” she beamed.
“How many times can you show a picture of a woman with a large bust? You know she’s padded and there are pins in the back making everything look perfect. Then the image is photoshopped. From that point of view, who are we kidding?”
Panagakos loves the “silliness” of the campaign.
“We know it’s a false image and it’s true that certain women have no cleavage. So many girls between 18 and 25 have no cleavage, but they come in and tell us how they want to look like Victoria’s Secret models. But mostly her body just doesn’t work that way,” says Panagakos.
“Sometimes I think we are too serious especially here in North America,” says Panagakos.
“I think European women have more of a sense of humour about their bodies. I think they’d have a chuckle. In North America, a campaign like that might not work. If you did go down that road you’d have to explain it more — then the joke would be lost.”
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