The Campaign That Blew Up
Sydney Sweeney in American Eagle's fall campaign. (American Eagle)
American Eagle’s latest campaign, titled “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” leaned on a pun so slick it backfired unexpectedly. In one video, Sweeney says: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring … My jeans are blue.” Cut to: the tagline, “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans.”
What the ad actually did
The campaign leaned on a “genes/jeans” bit across video and stills, with Sweeney tossing off textbook language about inheritance before winking that her “jeans are blue.” Critics argued the line echoed a century of “good genes” rhetoric, long tied to eugenics and white supremacist hierarchies. American Eagle denied any such intent and doubled down in a public statement that the campaign “is and always was about the jeans,” after days of backlash.
Growing in controversy, this denim ad blended into the partisan realm. The Guardian confirmed Sweeney registered as a Republican in Florida in mid-2024, a fact that quickly became political news. Then came President Trump, publicly praising the campaign as “the HOTTEST ad out there,” stating that "being WOKE is for losers."
Despite a short-lived 10–24% stock bump, institutions like BofA downgraded American Eagle, warning the brand’s reality is razor-thin margins, stiff tariffs, lagging sales growth, and an uphill climb to relevance post‑campaign.
Denim has never been apolitical
Jeans were born as labor gear, patented in 1873 for durability, then re-coded as rebellion by Brando and Dean and policed by school dress codes in the 1950s. In the 1960s civil rights movement, activists adopted denim and overalls to reject respectability politics and signal solidarity with working class Black Southerners. During the Cold War, blue jeans became contraband chic across the Eastern Bloc, shorthand for Western freedom. The garment itself is a language.
Journalists traced the wording’s historical baggage, and commentary compared the cheeky tone to a canonical controversy: Brooke Shields’s 1980 Calvin Klein line, “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins.” Denim marketing has been here before, and it was provocative then for a reason. It was about sex, youth, controversy, and controversy sells. Fast forward, and now a lousy pun denim ad ignites debate on race, genetics, gender, and belonging.
The “denim wars” that followed
Did other labels “capitalize” on the noise? Campaigns do not materialize overnight, but the reception absolutely does. Within weeks, Gap’s “Better in Denim” dropped with KATSEYE, and Lucky Brand unveiled an Addison Rae collaboration. Media framed the moment as a three-way jeans showdown. These were already in the works, yet the Sweeney discourse primed audiences to read every denim ad as commentary. That is how culture works.
Bottom line
The Sydney Sweeney x American Eagle campaign worked only if you define “worked” as ignition, not persuasion. It set off a national argument, put competitors in a favorable spotlight, and reminded us that jeans are in fact very political. Brands cannot wish away politics. They can either learn the language they are speaking or get dragged by it, just like American Eagle did.
But to understand why the outrage landed so forcefully, you have to step back and see the through line: jeans have never been neutral. They have always been political, carrying with them the contradictions of labor, rebellion, and identity.