Sizeism

Levi's launched the Curve ID jeans line in August 2010, but the advertising hasn't really seemed to fit with the stated goal of the product line. It's designed to fit women's proportions, rather than their size. This should eliminate the choice women make between the gaping waist or bagginess elsewhere.

Unfortunately for Levi's, many of their ads have only focused on women of one size. Even the "curvy" women in the ad are size 6s. I don't have a problem with women who are size 6s, or women who are size 16s. The problem is that the ads and the lines talk about custom fits for women of all shapes and sizes, but the ads don't reflect that. It's a problem with the ad agency, not the product or the models.

In the last Levi's ad I posted, the models are all "plus-sized" with the largest being a size 16. In the real world, those are average women. I am glad they have one ad showing women in larger sizes, but wish they weren't relegated to separate ads.

I'm not the only one to wish for diversity of size in the ads. Some have compared it to the Dove "Real Beauty" ad campaign that uses real women of all ages, sizes and skin colors to promote their products. It's still not perfect, but it's much closer.