Christopher Esber responds after backlash to bikini campaign images

Christopher Esber has responded after a recent swimwear campaign ignited conversation around the continued glamorisation of sun tanning.

Australian designer Christopher Esber has responded after a recent swimwear campaign ignited conversation around the continued glamorisation and promotion of sun tanning.

Images posted to the brand’s Instagram on January 12 showed pieces from its Resort 23 Swimwear collection, worn by models with stark tanlines.

The post was removed from the designer’s account on Monday, with a spokeswoman telling news.com.au on Friday the intention was not to promote sun tanning.

“Christopher Esber acknowledges how the nature of the campaign images shared has negatively affected our customers with the messaging it conveys,” she said.

“We understand the severity of what the images represent and do not condone the glamorisation of tanning, or the promotion of sun tanning.

“We have removed the images off all platforms effective immediately and to take full responsibility for this creative choice.”

Images from Christopher Esber’s Resort 23 Swimwear collection. Picture: Instagram

The post, from January 12, was removed ‘effective immediately’. Picture: Instagram

Attention was drawn to the photos earlier this week, with multiple people – among them former Married At First Sight contestant Domenica Calarco – sharing the campaign imagery to their own accounts. Calarco wrote that the eponymous label’s “glamorising of THIS kind of culture makes me feel sick”.

“I don’t care if this is makeup. It’s just not cool. @christopheresber fan of the brand and have been for years. But I feel deeply that this campaign should be taken down.”

Call Time On Melanoma founder Lisa Patulny, who drew attention to the shoot on her own social media, told news.com.au on Tuesday the campaign imagery “would have been just as beautiful without the model’s tan lines, and the clothes just as desirable”.

“The choice to include them as part of the creative was a mistake,” she added.

“Do I think Christopher Esber was intentionally trying to usher back in Australia’s ‘golden age of tanning’? No.

“It’s more that for some people, that era has never ended. That tells me that we need to work harder at sharing sun safety awareness in ways that resonate with young people.”

Former Married At First Sight contestant Domenica Calarco wrote the images ‘make me feel sick’. Picture: Instagram

Each year in Australia, skin cancers account for 80 per cent of all newly-diagnosed cancers. Yet Patulny said she was “not surprised” that images like these could still pass muster.

“Despite the work that’s been done in this space by sun-safe influencers and brands, there are still many that are ignorant of the real-world impacts of promoting sun tanning,” she said.

“I believe brands who do this are complicit in promoting sun tanning culture and the melanoma and skin cancer deaths it directly causes. When a brand has influence, it must also have responsibility for its messaging.”

While Australia has a significant beach culture, “when you share images of your swimwear on models with tan lines you are directly contributing to and influencing the standard of beauty”, Patulny explained.

“We have spent decades believing that tan lines are attractive because that’s how they have been portrayed to us in movies, on TV, in magazines, on celebrities, and now on social media.

“We need to see that the opposite can be true,” she said.