By Cake Staff:
Women get shoved into certain gender brackets all too easily and ‘lady’ is one of them. They are ‘ladies’ only if they conform to a certain standard of behaviour – of dressing, talking, walking and more. But Swedish clothing company H&M’s new video takes the word ‘Lady,’ pulls all the fluff out of it, and deconstructs it. By showing [envoke_twitter_link]women who are as far from the stereotypical definition of ‘lady’ as possible[/envoke_twitter_link], it takes the word and shoves it back down the patriarchal mindset it crawled out of.
Also the entire range of women involved would put some highly acclaimed mainstream TV shows to shame (looking at you “Sherlock“). Lauren Hutton, a 72 year old model who has appeared on Vogue‘s cover more than 28 times. Jillian Hervey, American singer and one half of the duo Lion Babe; Hari Nef, American transgender model and many more.
It’s amazing to see the female body be represented in so many different ways, because women’s bodies are a lot more than just the one type we see on TV all the time. (For the curious, it’s white and thin. It’s always white and thin).
[envoke_twitter_link]Women’s clothing companies have the unfortunate habit of catering to a certain body type[/envoke_twitter_link], and portraying that certain body type as ideal via advertisements. So it’s deeply encouraging to see a multinational retail company like H&M put its weight behind a video like this, representing real women. But that’s not all! It also shows the same women being confident and assertive in their own spaces – be it workplace, a karaoke bar or just chilling at home, including some other moments that are sure to surprise you. Over these images of confident, assertive women the music and lyrics, by the neo soul duo Lion Babe, go: “I can leave her all alone, she’ll be okay alone…”
And yeah, she will be.