The Colors! The Fabrics! The Robots!

A casual search accidentally leads to this time-vault discovery of Pepsi's 1986 foray into the world of fashion. I don't recall dudes wearing leg-warmers, but maybe these guys are into the whole Flashdance scene. Guy on far right looks to be about finished molesting the woman next to him.

Stuffed Shirt

I Don't Understand World Trade

This shirt has an MSRP of $40. I got it for $7. While I feel good about finding a durable all-cotton shirt at that price, I can't help but feel someone is getting screwed in the deal. Is it the 90% female labor force in Bangladesh that made it and then carefully packaged it with all this fancy trash? It can't be the shipper who got it here on a slow boat with a skeleton crew. Is it Izod, a company with enough money to secure naming rights on an arena in New Jersey? Is it the retailer, marking this down to make room for more? Someone is losing money here and I need a course in business economics.

click for ridiculous size

Whatever. What do I care? Bangladesh's #1 crop is cotton, their #1 export is garments and the US is their #1 customer. Everybody's happy.

And the merchants of the earth will weep
when no one’s buying their cargo anymore

Cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls
Fine linen, purple, silk, and scarlet cloth
PC, PDA, HDTV
and everything down at the Dollar Store

Yeah.

That Elusive Bible College Demo

Matching sweaters? Check.
Matching white pants? Check.
Matching white socks? Check.
Matching white Keds^®? Check.

We're all set, Nancy! Let's go out to the woods on our bicycles and study the Bible on a split rail fence.

A quick check of the Keds website reveals they still have that iconic blue rubber logo. And judging by their new campaign, Be True, they know just who they want in a customer - who they've always had - very clean white chicks between the ages of 20 and 40 who want to be adventurous, but don't really want to be adventurous.

Image via.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Not sure what sort of strange goings on are going on here in this 1907 ad for Hart Schaffner & Marx Good Clothes Makers, but the young lad looks less than pleased to be carving the Jack O'Lantern for the stern and sharp-dressed man. But you gotta love a company that lays it out so plainly: Good Clothes Makers.

Copy reads: Three great campaigns going on- Politics, fun, clothes. You'll be right in clothes, if our name's in them.

Man, I don't get it.

I know many of you are holding back on sick captions.

Silverman Laughs at GAP Ads

Copyranter has been slamming GAP's use of celebrities in its ads, rightfully pointing out that this continued trend is not helping the retailer bounce back from lagging sales. (Never mind the failed RED campaign.)

But GAP recently used Sarah Silverman in a couple of ads. With a simple expression, Silverman turns the celebrity game on its ear. Can't find the actual ad, but this is the image used in one, which labels Silverman as "Comedian, Aspiring Supermodel." Click it for a better look. See another here.

If more of the celebrities used in these crappy GAP ads could do something besides the "Oops, you caught me in a candid moment, laughing and pretending not to be pretentious" pose, (Thank you, Forrest Whitaker & Steven Spielberg) or the "pensive and thoughtful regular person who wants to communicate to you" pose, GAP might get some mileage out of these ads. "Hey, Look! It's Chris Rock making a whacky face." I get it. He's a funny man. How about Chris Rock pretending to be a campy, super-70s fashion model? Or one of those hollow-cheeked skinny boys of the Dolce Gabbana variety? THAT would be funny.

I don't care that John Mayer wears the Sweater Vest, or that Lucy Liu wears the Little Black Sweater Dress, or that Liev Schreiber wears the Haberdashery Shirt. And judging from the pictures of these folks, they were pretty put out by having to come down to the studio to pose for GAP. At least Silverman had some fun on this shoot, giving the photographer a picture that simultaneously laughs at the vapid, heroine chic look of much of what passes for fashion photography while modeling the clothing admirably.

Granted, Silverman is a comedian and can get away with this, whereas Lucy Liu's publicist probably won't let her ham it up in this sort of fashion parody. Maybe GAP should stick to comedians.

GAP is in trouble, and throwing money at big celebrities isn't helping them. At least Silverman gave it a twist.