Hot summer trend: Using naked people to sell stuff?

The Hollister hotties (Photo credit: David Lat)

At the Not-So Private Parts, I occasionally discuss the private parts (e.g., See Friday’s article on a Nudist wine-and-cheese party). Today, I’m touching on the naked body again.

Nudity’s been on my mind lately, likely because of the half-naked men that have been positioned on True/Slant’s block for the last couple of weeks. A new Hollister has opened at the corner of Broadway and Houston and the store’s big attention grabber has been to have two hunky “lifeguards” patrolling the clothing store’s entrance all day. All they wear are low-slung red shorts, sunscreen on their noses, flip flops and sunglasses if the day warrants them.

A friend of mine who appreciates tanned muscles and beautiful men has started wandering Broadway with some frequency and uploaded mobile photos to Facebook. See right.

Using naked people to sell stuff is nothing new. There are ads with scantily clad young things on many a city billboard and magazine page. But there seems to be a mini-trend in New York this summer to use REAL naked people rather than photos. Last month, in Times Square, I came across a gaggle of beautiful women, clothed only in thongs and body paint.

I was walking through Times Square with a high school journalist, in search of buskers for a story she was writing on street performers. Instead of buskers though, we found “busty.”

Two beautiful women in thongs were surrounded by a pack of New Yorkers and tourists. They were naked from the waist up, wearing only painted black designs on their breasts and stomachs. It takes quite a scene to shock a New Yorker. This one worked.

New Yorkers and tourists alike stood around with mobile phones, camcorders, and digital cameras to capture the public nudity. I took out my camera as well to document the moment:

A group of police officers stood by as well, attracted by the mob, but there were no public exposure concerns. It’s actually not illegal for women to go shirtless in New York. A young guy circulated through the crowd offering postcards with the web address for the graphic artist responsible for the designs on the women’s bodies.

What excited the crowd most though was when the two painted models approached three young women in the mob and invited them to participate. I’m not sure if this was staged, or if the women were paid, but before I knew it, these young women were shyly stripping (if those two words can be paired) and waiting in line to be painted.

The tour buses passing by have probably never had a better view of Times Square.

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Seeing nudity or partial nudity on billboards has lost some of its shock value. We’re so inundated with images of men and women in skimpy underwear that it’s a bit blase now. But seeing real people (even if they look like models) exposed in person is still attention grabbing. Anecdotally, I can say that the foot traffic on Broadway in front of Hollister has increased. And a graphic artist painting a normal canvas would certainly not have attracted the crowds in Times Square that the female canvases did.

Yet, nudity doesn’t translate from buzz to bucks for this blogger. I didn’t get a postcard for the artist and I haven’t yet set foot in the Hollister. But there are certainly other satisfied customers out there:

The technique worked for this customer. Note Hollister bag in hand. (Photo credit: David Lat)