This advertisement for the men’s tailoring company Duncan Quinn is both disturbing and offensive. It first appeared in 2008 causing much anger and resentment and quickly became known as the “strangler” ad.
The primary figure is, of course, the man: dressed in one of Duncan Quinn’s suits with the shirt collar slightly askew, he is the incarnation of the designer’s phrase “everyone’s part gentleman part rogue”, though the term seems a little mild in this case. Although his torso is still turned to the body in front of him, his clean-shaven face is directed towards the camera, staring at the viewer with a smirk. His posture is casual, holding the tie that strangled his victim loosely in one hand whilst almost posing for the photo. He appears oblivious to the horrific scene, that seems to have taken place on the hood of an expensive car. The setting also lends to the appearance of debauchery and libertinism.
The second figure is the woman. She is laid on her back with her face yanked backwards by the tie, and the position of her arms and legs suggests that she had tried to lift herself up to loosen the pressure around her neck, before hitting her head and bleeding onto the car bonnet. She is dressed only in white lace lingerie, and the fact that her face is forcefully hidden from view accentuates the impression that she is nothing but a sex object, placed there to attract the attention of possible clients.
The entire scene is disgusting and shocking: the presence of the well dressed ‘gentleman’ sneering over his victim and the woman dragged violently onto the car are pornographic and completely irrelevant to the product supposedly being advertised. The only message that might be interpreted from this image is that Duncan Quinn suits enhance men’s superiority over women, to the point where she is a disposable object only there for him to relieve his aggression and sexual impulses. Quinn told interviewer Jill Di Donato that inspiration for his design work comes from “movies and music, cops and robbers”. Perhaps in this image, he was trying to create a James Bond feel: it’s centred on a well-dressed man surrounded by expensive automobiles. But everything about this advertisement just screams violence and abuse. Mary Wollstonecraft, a late eighteenth-century writer and advocate of women’s rights, condemns the female subjugation to man in her famous book ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Women’: “Rousseau declares that a woman should never, for a moment, feel herself independent, that she should be governed by fear to exercise her natural cunning, and made a coquettish slave in order to render her a more alluring object of desire, a sweeter companion to man, whenever he chooses to relax himself.”
Furthermore, in addition to the offensive and degrading figure of the woman, the way the man is portrayed could also cause resentment: such an image naturally arouses feminist groups and journalists, and once again sparks the campaign against men as the ‘dominating’ sex. Duncan Quinn seems to be promoting his suits as a key to unlocking the “rogue” inside every man, consequently directing people’s attention to cases of abuse, at the expense of the innocent.
Of course, this advertisement is ethically unacceptable. It is offensive to both sexes and as a world-class designer brand, Duncan Quinn has a corporate responsibility for the respect and protection of people’s rights.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
‘The Art of Style According to Duncan Quinn’ video interview with Jill Di Donato, Culture Trip website, updated 23rd May 2017 [accessed 4th December 2017] https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/new-york/articles/the-art-of-style-according-to-duncan-quinn-2/
Wollstonecraft M. (1792) A Vindication of the Rights of Women (Chapter 2 §24), London, Printed for J. Johnson