Check out these shots from the new Marc Jacobs ad campaign for Fall, featuring none other than (male) model Cole Mohr working the designer’s latest sartorial offerings…for women.

Do you find these ads progressive and provocative, playing on our notions of androgyny and femininity vs. masculinity? Or do you simply find it offensive that a major designer of women’s fashion felt that his clothes look best on a man? Personally, I don’t have a problem with the gender bending aspects of the ad, but I do find Jacobs’ choice of a male model to be the latest in a long line of slights against "real" women by the fashion industry. Magazines are already filled with images of prepubescent girls with no figure to speak of modeling clothes that, presumably, are being marketed to women who are well out of their teens - in fact, save for the masculine face, Mohr really does have the body of a typical high-fashion model. We’ve been told for decades that womanly curves interfere with the "lines" of a dress and that dangerously thin runway models are chosen because their stick-straight bodies allow the clothes to "hang" better. I say, if you’re designing for women, shouldn’t your clothes flatter a woman’s body? What kind of designer are you if a little boobs or booty get in the way of the "lines" of your piece? Isn’t it time that women demand a little more love from an industry that aims to tell them what’s in, who’s beautiful and how they should look?

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