The frustratingly (for Apple at least) non-copyrightable iNoun marketing fad has been going strong for a while—strong enough that I, for one, am beginning to wish Apple could copyright the thing, just to limit the range of products that would take up the name (and limit them in part to the perfectly post-ironically named iPod). The latest instance, at best reasonable only in that it perfectly exemplifies our unreasonable times, takes the form of Wacoal’s new $50 “iBra.”

The “i” thing in general is a somewhat appreciable (for its post-Cartesian twist, of course) but nonetheless totally silly gimmick that, hip as it may be among marketing people, is getting a little old to the rest of us. And yet otherwise-self-respecting-grown-up after otherwise-self-respecting-grown-up decides to brand their product with this (ironically) ubiquotous phrase. But silliness and fad-slavishness aside, what’s unreasonable (if classic) about the iBra campaign is its attempt at cooption of ideas I, for one, really care about through the interjection of an utterly mainstream product, which continues to sell itself as an accessory to conventional sexuality, into debates about technology, bodies, and metaphysics.

Wacoal’s shameless iBra campaign begins with a question. “What happens,” the marketers pose, “when technology finally understands a woman?” Whoa. It’s certainly a good question, but, apart from totally epiphenomenally, I really doubt that the answer is coming from Wacoal in the form of this bra. Attempting to further prove themselves hip to the latest fads in pomo theory, the advertisers continue to explain that the bra has “no stiches” (no traces of the hands of the makers) and is “seamless.” That last bit is kind of cute — legitimate theoretical arguments about seamlessness, metaphysics, technology, traction, and resistance aside, most people would probably agree that, at the very least, one wants one’s underwear to be seamless. And of course, if any theoretical discussion of seamlessness is going to happen in the New Economy, it’s going to take place around lingerie advertisements rather than around arguments for striation in books like Deleuze’s. But still. You’re Wacoal, and even if, by virtue of our times alone, we’re all post-Marxists, your $50 bra is not an answer to these questions.

(Watch the movie advertising the thing, and you’ll see what there are already hints of in the picture above: a peculiar combination of digitized vhs cuts, looking quite a bit like the old thing but done up just enough to have been infeasible before digital editing, and wafting-smoke-like graphics with a low-volume arabesque sound track to match.)

[YES the most unreasonable thing about this post is how seriously it takes itself. But given which column it’s in, what did you expect?]

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 25th, 2005 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Unreasonable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.