The first time I saw an American Apparel ad I was 14 and genuinely thought I’d stumbled across porn in the middle of a magazine.
Technically, it was an ad for a basic cotton bodysuit. Realistically, it was a girl splayed out on a hardwood floor, no bra, knees up. It definitely caught my attention more than what was on the previous page (can’t remember what it was).

Which, of course, is the point.

American Apparel didn’t invent sex-sells advertising, but it absolutely filthified it. I mean they really took it too a different level, what you're seeing here is nothing compared to the worse (or best depending on how you view them). At its peak in 2014, the brand was pulling in $634M a year, off the back of pixelated crotch shots, porn stars in tube socks, and mannequins with visible pubes. (What is that abt?)
All rolled out across storefronts like it was completely normal to advertise hoodies with upskirt angles. The UK even had to ban seven of their campaigns in just two years.

And yet, it worked.

The clothes were basic. T-shirts. Hoodies. The odd bodysuit. But the brand? Iconic. People didn’t want the garment; they wanted what it represented: the lifestyle. The edge. The unapologetic horniness of a group of 20-somethings who only slept with each other and lived entirely on PBR and moral ambiguity.

At the time, it was genius. Recognition rates were sky high. One survey found 60% of under-30s could ID the brand just from its photography. Sex got them seen. Controversy kept them there.

Until it didn’t.

By 2015, they were bankrupt.
So what changed?

Culture did. Feminism got louder. #MeToo arrived. And the American Apparel formula (voyeuristic camera angles and sexual innuendos) stopped feeling provocative. It started feeling incriminating.
Women were always the brand’s biggest customer base. But the ads? Created by a man with a seriously questionable record. Founder and CEO, Charney was pushed out in 2014 after multiple allegations of harassment and coercion. He was never convicted, but the pattern was clear.

In 2017, a meta-analysis of 78 studies and over 11,000 participants measured whether sexual ads actually worked. Researchers used something called the “probability of superiority” which essentially asks: what are the odds someone will rate the sexual ad more positively than the non-sexual one?
A 50% score means no effect at all.
Sexual ads got 64.8% for attention. People definitely noticed them. But brand recall only reached 53.6%. And purchase intent? Just 50.4%. Basically nothing. Men leaned positive, with a 60.6% preference for sexual ads. But women dropped all the way down to 35.2%. That means nearly two-thirds of the time, women actually preferred the non-sexual version. But as the saying goes, science only takes you so far and this data is only half the truth.

Because newer brands still use sex to sell and always will. Skims, Savage X, Calvin Klein, Nude Project, etc. The list is endless. They didn’t stop being sexy. They just updated the visuals to fit the cultural mood. Less voyeur. More agency.

Sex does sell quite well in the fashion and beauty industry but only when it matches the buyer’s self-image. When it aligns with power, status and identity. That’s why Calvin Klein still thrives. Why Skims recently blew past $4B, and why Nude Project's popularity is showing no signs of stopping.

So, sex does sell?
Yes. When it’s your brand’s kind of sex.

If you’re selling £12 socks and your model has her hand down her pants, you’d better be ready to defend the art direction.

The point isn’t to avoid sex.
It’s to make sure the story you’re telling is the one your buyer wants to be seen in.
Because the sexiest thing a brand can do? Know exactly who it’s turning on, and why.