This July, American Eagle launched its Fall 2025 campaign featuring a series of short video ads starring Sydney Sweeney under the tagline: “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans, And Now You Can, Too!” The campaign’s primary 30-second ad has already garnered 4.3 million views on Youtube — part of a clear strategy to cement American Eagle’s status “as the #1 jeans brand for Gen Z.”

In a collection of reels and retro aesthetic edits set against a nostalgic backdrop of grainy footage, filtered soft light and analog tech, the campaign features Sweeney in soft, sexually suggestive positions. This includes the actress wiping grease on her back pockets after inspecting her Mustang engine, lying beside a German shepherd puppy on the floor while filming herself with a vintage camcorder, or posing in front of a retro film recorder, as if auditioning. It’s flirty, sultry and intentionally referential. The aesthetic leans heavily on a curated nostalgic oversexualized image of Americana and old Hollywood. In these cases. think denim, trucks, natural beauty, “girl next door” charm.

In her Dr. Squatch body wash ads, Sweeney presents her sexuality as transactional. She uses her body as a tool to capture attention in exchange for consumer engagement. That same performance carries over to the American Eagle campaign, but with a more overt and provocative edge. In one ad, she stands upright and states, “My body’s composition is determined by my genes” as the camera lingers on her cleavage before she coyly instructs the viewer to look up in a flirtatious deflection that underscores how the gaze is both invited and scolded. In the case of this ad the message is to reinforce a carefully crafted tension of nostalgia for an old Hollywood. Think Marlene Monroe, Anne Nicole Smith, or Jayne Mansfield.

The most controversial ad of the campaign, though, gestures to Calvin Klein’s infamous 1980 denim campaign featuring a then-15-year-old Brooke Shields. In the original commercial, Shields is filmed struggling to lift her jeans over her hips, as she lays on the ground reciting to the camera: “The secret of life lies hidden in the genetic code.”  

Fast forward to the American Eagle version, where Sweeny lies on the ground in a cropped denim jacket as the camera slides from her waist to her face. She seductively teases: “Genes are passed down from parent to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My genes (jeans) are blue.”