Cover Girls Untucked

Not every cover girl has to shave his 5 o’clock shadow before his close-up. Drag queens make for a hairy exception.

American Apparel is known for its Internet rant inducing advertising and unconventional clothing. The brand’s latest ad campaign is no different. Featuring three new, limited edition t-shirts, the brand relied on three veterans of the Logo TV show, Ru Paul’s Drag Race, as the full-figured and padded brand ambassadors.

Willam, Courtney Act and Alaska 5000 are three famed drag queens who, in their shirts, billboards and accompanying music video (seen below), are causing eyebrows of all stencils, shapes and colors to rise. This slew of t-shirts follows in the footsteps of the previous campaign, “Support Artists, Support Ethical Manufacturing”.  

Alaska 5000, Courtney Act and Willam for American Apparel. Courtesy of Daily Mail.

Laden in the latex and flashy garb that is customary for the brand, the three drag queens have nudged their twiggy, femme counterparts to the background. Thanks to tall stilettos and even taller hair, the drag queens make for a somewhat seamless switch from your regular blonde beauty.

When you think of a homogeneous society, it’s doubtful that any mainstream American thinks of homosexual subcultures. Beginning with the acculturation processes that European immigrants underwent so willingly in their trans-continental voyages to this nation, Americans have endured pressures to conform into standard silhouettes belonging to man and to woman. Yet, the holistic view of America and its co-cultures, like the LGBT identities, recognizes a more rigid silhouette of gender. The new American Apparel Ad Girls, though their voyages to spokesperson status were not trans-continental, serve as the antithesis to the symphony and uniformity that the token American abides by. Willam, Courtney and Alaska put a kink in the assimilated silhouettes accepted for gender, filling the female silhouette better than many biologically female individuals might.

Equipped with the armor of butt pads and a tight tuck, these queens fight the idea that product success and dominant identities in advertising are the single-known recipe for marketing. Instead, the these "girls" give heed to the consumerist revelations that loom within specialized marketing opportunities. Contributing intersecting identities as LGBT individuals, biologically sexed men and gender-normative women, this sexualized trio provided a platform for ethical business and marginalized co-cultures in a campaign that incorporated social justice techniques as a fringe benefit.

Whether it is because they are men or because they turn heads as women, the American Apparel Ad Girls exemplify a rare instance of leveraging member of both straight and queer persons as a result of their ads. Appearing fully clothed in the ads and on the shirts, as mentioned in Daily Mail Online, the cover girls were able to turn the stigmatized idea of androgyny on its dated, balding head to appeal to a demographic that is inclusive of several intersecting social identities.

Originally, 500 of each queen’s t-shirt were produced. In the wake of the very viral ad campaign and in-store signings, however, American Apparel announced that the shorts would go into production once again to meet the market’s high demand.

Of all co-cultures, the drag queen culture has remained subdued in the American underground despite the loud outfit choices and not-so-coy word choice that each queen rattles off. American Apparel charged ahead in this campaign, lending their ad space to be filled with jaw lines and cultural perspectives of a different angle. As the queens shared in their interview with Huffington Post, being seen and being acknowledged is something that every person wishes for—no matter the identities they carry.

"Every little boy dreams of being on a baseball card -- other than the ones that dream Linda Evangelista-esque dreams of modeling like this," Willam said.

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