River Island challenges social stereotypes in new campaign

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Feb 6, 2018

River Island has launched a major advertising campaign celebrating diversity and challenging stereotypes. Running across TV, social media and press, the campaign calls on the public to leave labels to clothes, not people.

The campaign sees several models wear the brand’s SS18 collection as they dance around to break free from gendered, cultural, racial and political labels.

A model wears both men’s and women’s fashion, embodying the ‘100% Gender Free’ movement, while a body confidence activist appears with the message ‘Do Not Shrink’. A lesbian couple are represented with the line ‘Do Not Separate’, and a British-born, Pakistani model wears a pink denim jacket as she looks to the camera with the tag ‘Do Not Stereotype’.

Josie Cartridge, Customer Director at River Island said: “We are celebrating the individuality and diversity of our brand and customers; we believe labels belong on clothes, not people.”

The campaign was created by Studio Blvd and shot by renowned photographer Richard Burbridge with director 'Lacey'.

“River Island has always inspired people to express their individuality through their clothes, we wanted to take the brand a step further and get River Island to stand for something beyond fashion. Gender labels, cultural labels, racial labels, political labels, LGBTQIAP+ labels have been dominating cultural conversations in the UK and beyond. We encouraged River Island to join the conversation and celebrate the individual in their own unique way, using the tongue-in-cheek lingo of laundry labels sewn in their garments,” said Alistair Green, CSO at  Studio Blvd.

The SS18 ‘Labels Are For Clothes’ campaign launched on Tuesday.