In July 2025, American Eagle launched a campaign with actress Sydney Sweeney built around the tagline “Great Jeans.” Following its distribution, the advertisement quickly gained traction, directing many customers to believe American Eagle intended to promote Eurocentric features because of the homophones “genes” and “jeans.” Less than one month later, clothing competitor Gap released a diversity-driven campaign “Better in Denim,” with global group KATSEYE, igniting what industry watchers describe as a full-fledged “Denim War.”
Released on July 23, American Eagle’s Fall 2025 collection campaign, “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” was a brand-driven collaboration with popular Euphoria actress Sydney Sweeney. In the advertisement, Sweeney, White-American and 28, flaunts the “Sydney Jean” and the “Sydney Jacket,” which sold out just one week and one day after their release, respectively. Staring into the camera, she whispers: “Jeans are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.” Sparking controversy, the full video was eventually removed from all American Eagle social media accounts.
photo by Adil Kanal ’28
The Sydney Sweeney campaign resulted in an estimated 750,000 new customers and boosted the company’s Instagram following by almost 320,000 in six weeks, according to Craig Bommers, American Eagle’s Chief Marketing Officer. The official American Eagle account gained over 40 billion social media impressions in the weeks that followed the video’s release. Despite this social media engagement, foot traffic in stores went down 3.9% during the week of July 27 and 9% down during the week of August 3, evidence that digital activity does not always translate to sales.
On August 19, 2025, Gap collaborated with rising global group KATSEYE. The group consists of six female members, ages 17 to 23: Yoonchae, Megan, Lara, Daniela, Manon and Sophia, who formed as a musical group on Netflix’s competition show Dream Academy in 2023. Contrasting with American Eagle’s campaign, the Gap advertisement features women with roots from around the world. Yoonchae is Korean, Megan is Singaporean-Chinese-American, Lara is Indian-American, Daniela is Venezuelan-Cuban-American, Manon is Ghanian-Swiss-Italian and Sophia is Filipina. Labeled “Better in Denim,” the campaign video features the six women dancing in front of diverse background dancers to Kelis’s 2003 nostalgic hit song “Milkshake.”
In just three days, the Gap and KATSEYE campaign accumulated 400 million views and 8 billion impressions across all social media platforms. On TikTok, the campaign video, garnering over 142.1M views and 5.9M likes, became the number one search during launch week and remains Gap’s most liked post. One week after the campaign’s launch, Gap had a 2.8% increase in foot traffic and an 8.5% increase during the second week.
Jojo Chubb ’28 and Maddie Ting ’28, are both KATSEYE fans. “I look up to them because they’re a global girl group,” Ting said. “So I can relate to them in a sense, especially Megan, she’s half Chinese.” Chubb shared similar feelings. “Something I really appreciated is Megan and Lara, they’re really big advocates for the LGBTQ+ community,” she said. “I’ve never really seen that from any girl group that’s been created in the K-Pop system.” When talking about the Gap advertisement, Ting and Chubb both voiced a desire to see more diverse figures in media campaigns from other brands. “We should have more diverse groups like KATSEYE,” Ting said. Chubb added, “It makes you really proud to be whoever you are.”
Leader of FM, a Lick-Wilmerding High School space to support and uplift female students of color, Simone Hare ’26 provided a similar perspective. “[Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans] just felt very catered towards the male gaze and people who see her as very sexually appealing,” Hare said. “I think with the Gap ad on a completely different spectrum here…I know a lot of younger girls of color were saying how they felt that they see themselves spotlighted in a campaign, especially after one like [Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans] comes out.”
Co-leader Soluna Ibarra-Tacdol ’26 agreed. “Sydney Sweeney’s ad felt more exclusionary…whereas this one [Better in Denim] was, like…anyone can wear these jeans,” she said.
Ibarra-Tacdol also drew parallels to one of Sweeney’s past campaigns. “I think the male gaze part was the biggest for me, especially with the soap that she made with her bath water…that made me uncomfortable,” she said, referring to Sweeney and Dr. Squatch’s collaboration selling soap infused with Sweeney’s bathwater, which was released on June 5, 2025. When thinking back to this advertisement, Ibarra-Tacdol found both campaigns similar. “Seeing this [jeans campaign], where it’s sexualized, it also brought [the bathwater campaign] back,” she said.
“When I was looking at the reaction videos, people were bringing up eugenics, which was crazy,” Ibarra-Tacdol said. Coined in 1883, Merriam-Webster defines the term as “the practice or advocacy of controlled, selective breeding of human populations to improve the populations’ genetic composition.” Many consumers believe American Eagle intended to imply that Sweeney has “good genes” because of her Eurocentric features.
Following the American Eagle campaign, creators—including celebrities, like Doja Cat—began mockingly lip-syncing the ad’s audio. Similarly, after the Gap campaign’s release, creators rushed to learn the “Milkshake” dance featured in the advertisement. Social media consumers also contrasted the advertisements. “The only reason Gap got any attention is because people think it’s a clapback to AE (American Eagle). That means AE wins,” one creator said. Another disagreed. “Sydney ran, but KATSEYE was faster.”
These two contrasting campaigns, in this case, regarding racial representation, were not the start of the “Denim Wars” and they most definitely will not be the end. Amid a polarized political backdrop, how major brands—like American Eagle and Gap—choose to represent themselves globally has never been more significant.
