One week into the social-media maelstrom created by Sydney Sweeney slipping into her great jeans—while talking about her great genes—American Eagle broke its deafening silence by issuing a statement on social media late Friday afternoon.
“‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans,” the company said. “Her jeans. Her story.”
Spelling means everything in this case, since the dust that the ad kicked up centered around whether the use of the homophone was a thinly veiled endorsement of a debunked theory of genetic desirability.
As ADWEEK reported on July 29, the ad’s juxtaposition of Sweeney’s line, “My body’s composition is determined by my genes,” and the narrated slogan “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” prompted some critics to charge that the ad was nostalgic for eugenics, a discredited belief—though popular in 1920s and ’30s America—that society could be bettered through selective breeding.
UNLOCK FULL ACCESS
Subscribe and get full access to the news, insights, and expertise that keep industry professionals ahead of the curve.
VIEW ALL SUBSCRIPTION OPTIONS
