How do you advertise lingerie and swimwear in a country so conservative that only photographs of fully-clothed women are tolerated in newspapers and magazines?

In Saudi Arabia, censors use felt pens to daub over any bare flesh in foreign publications before they are allowed to hit the newsstands. Even bottles of wine are blanked out – alcohol is also taboo.

Now an inspired ad agency in Jeddah has met the creative challenge by playing on the censorship rules to promote a range of lingerie and beachwear.

Photographs of delectable foreign models are featured with their bare flesh crudely inked over – but leaving their intimate apparel proudly displayed. The pen of the supposed censor serves to highlight the product.

“Cover anything but the lingerie,” runs one slogan. “Edit anything but the bra,” says another. All the ads are in English.

Mazen Hassan, the creative director of the agency involved, Memac Ogilvy & Mather, admitted the idea was “risqué”. But he told The Scotsman: “The public and the client like it.”

The campaign, hailed by advertising insiders as “transforming censorship into art”, was launched in Saudi magazines to promote the opening in Jeddah of Change – “an international upscale brand providing quality lingerie, swimwear and homewear”. The boutique, open only to women, has an all-female staff.

Lingerie has become something of a women’s rights issue in Saudi Arabia. The authorities have yet to implement fully a decision made four years ago by Ghazi Algosaibi, the labour minister, to replace salesmen with women in lingerie shops. The idea was to create more jobs for the underemployed but well- educated fairer sex. But it also addressed a bizarre contradiction in Saudi society: women are forbidden to meet strange men in public, yet had to buy their most private clothing items from male sales staff. Unsurprisingly, many bashful wives gave their cup sizes to their husbands and sent them to shop for their bras and panties instead.

However, Mr Algosaibi’s efforts to get more women into the workplace fell foul of highly conservative clerics who believe their place is in the home alone. The Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdel-Aziz, declared the minister’s proposals as “steps towards immorality and hellfire”.
- Source: Michael Theodoulou, The Scotsman, June 19, 2008 — Excerpted by Trendy-Lingerie