Jaden Smith was born a precocious child destined to tweet out some of the deepest wisdom this side of a fortune cookie. But a couple dodgy quotes doesn’t a bad person make. What’s with all the backlash over his latest Louis Vuitton campaign?
On March 18, Louis Vuitton began promoting its Archlight 2.0, the latest iteration of its signature chunky running shoe that Jaden himself wore for a good long while (in between New Balances, naturally).
Jaden, Louis Vuitton’s first male-identifying womenswear ambassador, co-starred in the debut campaign with Chloë Grace Moretz and football player Sam Li but only Jaden drew commenter’s ire.
The actual shoes being showcased — a streamlining of the original Louis Vuitton Archlight and a chunky loafer that’s actually quite Prada — are in the discourse only on the posts showcasing the other talent.
The vibe appears to be informed by people upset about seeing Jaden wearing a leather blouse top. Seriously, that’s it. And yet commenters are clutching their pearls en masse.
Top comments include empty sentiments like “Nothing about it looks high fashion” and “Everything has gone to crap… quality design and class…” Insightful stuff!
“Wonder if Louis Vuitton will make anything for actual Masculine MEN this season,” one particular intellectual wondered, ignoring two facts: that Louis Vuitton menswear collections exist separate of the womenswear collections and how embarrassing it is to reveal your own insecurities in a brand’s comment section.
Indeed, some of the complaints are weirdly personal, as though these people are taking Jaden’s role in the Louis Vuitton campaign as a personal attack.
The clothes aren’t even that out there for Jaden. This is one of Jaden’s tamer looks, actually, and hardly an eyebrow-raiser.
Now, it’s fine to not like a campaign and it’s fine to dislike a celebrity but the amount of outrage that stirred by this Louis Vuitton ad is still pretty out-there. We’re talking over 9,400 comments on one of Jaden’s videos, versus fewer than 300 for the posts.
Louis Vuitton has highlighted Jaden in other Instagram uploads and womenswear campaigns with little to no overt overreaction, so this Archlight campaign is a total outlier.
It’s a sad sign to see all of these people who get bizarrely offended when someone wears clothing that doesn’t conform to gender norms, though. Quoth one of my favorite cartoon characters: “It don’t matter.” Chill out, grow up, move on, etc.
Also in the comments, there’s a repeating joke of referencing something Jaden said in 2022 (“Can we please talk about the political and economical state of the world?”) but that’s fine because, yes, Jaden Smith does say pseudo-intellectual things online.
We all know this and even Jaden knows this. It’s all good.
But that’s one thing whereas getting overly sensitive about Jaden wearing clothes that challenge the status quo is an entirely different thing.
Relax, folks, it’s just clothes. They can’t hurt you.
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