Skimpy lingerie ad featuring female Olympians sparks outrage

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Many people have their knickers in a twist after a lingerie brand’s latest ad campaign features three British female athletes in black bras and lacy underwear.

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Bra brand Bluebella is feeling the heat for their campaign “Strong Is Beautiful,” which features Celia Quansah, Ellie Boatman and Jasmine Joyce from Great Britain’s Olympic rugby team in some of the brand’s best-sellers.

“We want to celebrate and normalize the beauty of strong and powerful female bodies, bodies that have historically been ignored by the fashion industry and stigmatised by society,” the clothing company wrote on Instagram, captioning a video of the three women showing off their strength and athleticism while wearing next to nothing.⁠
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“Our #StrongIsBeautiful campaign was born out of the fact that girls give up sports more readily than boys, partly because society does not equate the look of a strong female body with being beautiful or feminine,” the brand continued. “If young women do not equate strength with feminine beauty, it is a problem far beyond sport.”

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It’s the ninth year the company has been running the campaign featuring world-class athletes.

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While some fans relished the “refreshing” change and the spotlight on “beautiful” and “muscular” women’s bodies, many others criticized the “terrible” campaign for “sexualizing” athletes.

Tennis legend Martina Navratilova called the ad “regressive,” while former long-distance runner Mara Yamauchi labelled the ad “exploitative, demeaning, sexist, regressive rubbish,” according to the Telegraph.

She added: “Of course, the intended audience is men. Portraying women as sex objects will not encourage teenage girls into sport.”

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Team Great Britain distances itself from the controversy, according to the Independent, issuing a statement that said they are not “involved or affiliated in any way.”

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Women in Sport, the organization whose work is cited by Bluebella as one of the reasons for its campaign, also blasted the brand.

“Today a new campaign was released by a lingerie brand using images of female Rugby Sevens players in highly sexualized underwear to ‘inspire’ teenage girls in sport,” it wrote on X. “Women in Sport is very uncomfortable that we have been mentioned in this campaign without our knowledge.”

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The post continued: “We don’t need women to look pretty on the pitch, we need brands and the media to showcase their strength, resilience and skills.”

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