When a woman in a bikini walks seductively towards the camera and the logo of J.K. Cement appears on screen, the connection is difficult to find. There is no story connecting the woman to cement nor any character she is playing. She is there to capture attention. That was 2010.

A Chinese electric-scooter brand, Luyuan, uses a young woman in low-angle shots that focus on her thighs and shows her lying across a scooter with her legs on the handlebars. This is 2026.

If attention is the new economy, advertising discovered that economy long before the digital age. In the 1880s, cigarette packs carried illustrated cards featuring provocative women in lingerie. In the 1950s and 1960s, American airline advertising used attractive female flight attendants and models as part of the fantasy of flying.

More than a century later, the products have changed. The media have changed. But women as an attention tool remained constant.

What is more disturbing, however, is that when this objectification is questioned, the conversation often shifts to the woman’s rights and freedom. When critics and feminist groups launched the #WomenAreMoreThanMeat campaign against Charlotte McKinney’s Carl’s Jr. burger advertisement, in which she walked through a farmers’ market creating the illusion that she was naked, McKinney defended the campaign, saying she felt empowered by it and credited the advertisement with opening doors for her in Hollywood.

From asking why a woman’s body was used to sell something to asking whether anyone has the right to question what she wears, the objectification of women in advertising has developed its own vocabulary. The Kriti Sanon–GIVA jewellery ad brings that vocabulary into sharp focus. The ad featured Sanon in a bralette while tying a rakhi to her brother, drawing criticism over whether the styling was appropriate for the occasion. In response, the language of women’s autonomy and freedom was invoked to push back against the criticism.

As an advertising professional, however, I cannot look at the campaign simply as a question of a woman’s personal choice of clothes. I see it first as a branding decision.

Having worked in advertising for more than a decade and closely observed, guided and executed shoots for brands featuring celebrities, I know that what a celebrity wears in a commercial is rarely an individual decision. It is usually the result of a creative process involving the brand, agency, celebrity, stylist and, often, the agency’s own creative team. The clothes are part of the communication. So, in an advertisement, the question of a celebrity’s personal choice of clothing is never really the point.

This video was not a glimpse into Kriti Sanon’s private Raksha Bandhan celebration at home. Had it been, she would have every right to choose what she wanted to wear for the occasion, and nobody has any right to dictate that choice.

But this was an advertisement. Here, the outfit was a styling decision made by a brand to construct a particular image of a woman for a particular festival, and that choice was met with strong resistance from a section of its own audience.

The criticism was not about a woman being forbidden from wearing a bralette. It was about a bralette being chosen as the visual language for a Raksha Bandhan narrative, while Sanon was tying a Rakhi to her brother. The controversy, therefore, was not simply about moral policing. It was about cultural context and the cultural disconnect created when a brand borrows a festival to sell its products without adequately understanding the sentiments associated with it.

A quick search on Instagram for “Raksha Bandhan festival look” reveals independent designers showcasing their collections, large platforms such as Myntra and Tata CLiQ curating festive edits, fashion influencers recommending their favourite looks, and fashion curators putting together Raksha Bandhan collections and styling guides. Across this vast spectrum, from accessible festive wear to internationally recognised brands such as Raw Mango and Anita Dongre, the bralette is not the moodboard for any Raksha Bandhan festival edit.

GIVA was not obliged to follow a fashion trend and has all liberty to experiment and create its own unique outfit. If the bralette was a deliberate departure, what did that departure add to the story?

A bralette would hardly seem out of place at a resort party, a friend’s wedding, an awards function or a fashion campaign. If GIVA had used the same outfit in a different storyline, like Kriti Sanon enjoying a night out with friends, attending a party, or simply modelling jewellery, there wouldn’t have been any such controversy. The problem was not the garment but its pairing with the occasion and the story.

When selecting an outfit for a model or celebrity in a product shoot, we first determine what the outfit is meant to do within the communication. Is it used to enhance the product? Give the celebrity a story-specific identity? Establish a character? Serve the storytelling? Or simply provide a visual backdrop against which the product can stand out.

I remember styling a renowned actress for a melamine dinnerware shoot where the wardrobe was mapped to the product category and occasion. For the everyday dinnerware range, we went with a warm, lived-in wardrobe to establish a homely, everyday setting. For the office-party range, the styling moved towards a sharper, formal look, while the festive range called for a slightly more embellished wardrobe.

The wardrobe was always treated as a supporting element within the visual hierarchy. We looked at the colour palette, silhouette, occasion cues and overall frame composition to ensure that the styling complemented the product rather than competed with it.

And here is another problem with the creative choice: how many of us noticed the jewellery before noticing the outfit?

From my creative lens, I found the visual hierarchy questionable. The muted palette itself was not a bad idea. In fact, stripping away bright colours can be an excellent way of allowing jewellery to become the visual focus. White and monochrome create a clean canvas for gold, silver and pearls. If the creative team was deliberately rejecting the bright, festive palette usually associated with Indian celebrations in favour of minimalism, that could have been a sophisticated choice.

But here, the outfit was visually loud, drawing attention to the body and silhouette rather than directing the eye towards the jewellery. The clothes became the primary focus, and the product became secondary.

If the intention was monochromatic minimalism, Chanel’s J12 campaigns featuring Margot Robbie, Ali MacGraw, and other celebrities demonstrate how a restrained visual palette can create a powerful frame around the product.

And that is what makes the GIVA choice even more puzzling. The delicate jewellery could have been paired with a striking but less body-centric silhouette like a V-neck, a deep round neck, a sculptural contemporary outfit, or any number of inventive designs that retained the monochrome aesthetic while allowing the jewellery to remain the protagonist.

A similar debate erupted recently in the United States when actor Sydney Sweeney appeared nearly nude, using sports equipment to cover parts of her body, in an advertisement for sports prediction platform Novig. The campaign drew strong criticism from female athletes who argued that it sexualised women’s sport. Four-time Olympic gold medallist Ariarne Titmus asked: “How do we live in a world where monetising a woman’s body and sexualising women’s sport is still a thing?”

The important question here, too, was not whether Sweeney had the autonomy to appear nude. A woman's autonomy does not automatically absolve a brand of responsibility for how it chooses to commercialise her image.

Kriti Sanon has worn bikinis and revealing outfits in other contexts, without anything approaching this level of controversy.

Going bold or sensual is not inherently wrong. It can be a legitimate form of creative expression, and brands have every right to experiment with fashion, sensuality and the physicality of a model or celebrity. Campaigns such as Blenders Pride Fashion Tour have used Priyanka Chopra in bold, glamorous and fashion-forward ways where sensuality is part of the aesthetic language of the campaign. The issue, therefore, is not boldness itself, but whether the styling fits to the product, narrative and context.

The objection in the GIVA case was not simply to a woman showing her body; it was to the decision to make that particular body-centric styling part of a Raksha Bandhan advertisement.

If a brand wants to capitalise on the festival market through a celebrity, both the brand and the celebrity need to be conscious of the cultural significance of the festival, the sensitivities of its audience, and the traditions deeply rooted in it. Criticism of that cultural disconnect cannot be dismissed by invoking “women's autonomy” or accusing the audience of misogyny.

Comments labelling Kriti as “not sanskari” or judging her character are certainly misogynistic. But there is a difference between criticising a commercial creative decision and policing the woman at its centre. Questioning whether a bralette was appropriate for a Raksha Bandhan advertisement is not the same as calling Kriti immoral or “unsanskari.” Women’s autonomy is important, but it should not become a convenient defence against legitimate criticism of a brand’s creative choices.

About the Author: Nirali Vaidya is an advertising professional, writer and screenwriter with over a decade of experience in brand communication. A former physiotherapist who worked with the Mumbai Cricket Association, she later moved into advertising and writing, bringing a multidisciplinary perspective shaped by medicine, literature, art and cinema. She is also the screenplay writer of the German feature film The Concertmaster, which won Best Feature Film at the Berlin Lift-Off Film Festival. She now writes and creates long-form critical essays on literature, art history, and political thought. She reviews contemporary and canonical fiction, examines art movements and their cultural histories, and traces the ideas that shape how societies organise power, wealth, and belief.