‘I dream in #mycalvins’: The Improbable Neoclassicism of Justin Bieber

Calvin Klein’s Spring 2016 advertising campaign featured musician Justin Bieber in three key images. One finds him posing next to a classical sculpture. Beneath the tagline ‘I flaunt in #mycalvins’, Bieber leans against the female nude, echoing her pose. However, Bieber’s seeming disdain for the sculpture next to him appears to reject nostalgia and the physical ideals of the past, even as it evokes them. Williams argues that the images of Bieber belong to a well-established trope of ‘divinising’ ancient / modern celebrity framings, but in an unusually complex and problematised form. He contextualises the images of Bieber’s body and their online reception within the star’s public and explores the fascinating relationship to the past it illuminates through its very improbability.