Diesel keeps making ads that get the people talking and the retailer's latest attempt is no different.
After turning heads with ads that featured androgynous and plus-size models, the company released some of the first images from their spring/summer 2014 campaign and one of the photos features edgy fashion blogger Jillian Mercado who runs the hip fashion & trends website, Manufactured1987.com.
While using fashion bloggers in advertisements is nothing new (Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist starred in a Gap campaign and Leandra Medine of Man Repeller posed for Tibi), there is one special element about Jillian: she's in a wheelchair.
Mercado, who was diagnosed with spastic muscular dystrophy, uses the chair to her advantage while posing fiercely wearing a hot denim-on-denim look alongside artist James Astronaut.
Styled by artistic director Nicola Formichetti and shot by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, the ad proves that you don't have to be a typical model to look gorgeous and sell clothes.
"It’s never easy for her to move from point A to point B, but she’s totally fearless and has really been an inspiration to me,” Formichetti said. “You don’t have to be a conventional model type to represent a brand."
The 23-year-old New Yorker, who studied merchandising at the Fashion Institute of Technology and interned at Allure magazine, told the Daily Beast last year that being in a wheelchair hasn't stopped her drive to work in an industry that is known for worshiping certain body types.
"I knew I was throwing myself into the fire when I wanted to work in fashion," she said. "I work equally as hard as everyone else does in this industry, and my chair doesn't give me permission to slack off. My passion is equal to yours -- I just come with a chair that moves."
You go, girl!
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