Marc Jacobs & Transgender Advertising

Marc Jacobs is not the first nor the last to use transgender themes for advertising. Here's one from the now defunct Clothestime clothes stores:

I liked that ad, they used a very convincing TG person and got the point across. I hope this ad didn't kill their store.

And I'm not going to rag on Marc too much, he had designed tee shirts for the Human Rights Campaign (albeit with his name interspersed within the design), but I believe we as transgendered are being used as "edgy". His homepage opens to a drag review video, so I guess he's on some sort of transgender bender.

Here's two picture ads I found in Lucky Magazine:





To me the dresses don't look all that bad, especially when I look at them modeled by a woman, they look much better. When they are modeled by the male model Cole Mohr and photographed by Juergen Teller, they don't do anything for me.

So I guess my questions should are: Is Marc just trying to be "edgy"? Is this just creative license? Does he think if he uses a male model that us TG folk will beat a path to his door?

Something tells me it's the former and not the later, as I am not enamored by the ads. But on the positive side, he is bending the gender rules in the mainstream media. Since I found these ads in Lucky Magazine (which is geared for 16-24 year old GG's), maybe this audience will be more "open" to this idea and don't see us as threatening. I sure hope so.

-Tracy