Tibor Kalman had gotten sick again, it was devastating.
He asked me if I had a job to go to, I said I didn’t, apart from an advertising agency which I was reluctant to do. But In classic Tibor fashion he said that only those with nothing to lose had choices. I wasn’t one of those people.
On the plane to Holland to work for Wieden & Kennedy I realized that I knew nothing about advertising. So I proposed an experiment. If I cut the product out of an advert the rest must be the advertising.
When I looked at the results, it dawned on me. The ad for H&M said shoes, but it wasn't about shoes. Advertising was about co-opting sexuality.
As John Berger said in ‘Ways of Seeing’ “publicity images steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her for the price of the product
I vowed never to make an advert like it.