The Denim Ad Controversy: Sydney Sweeney v.s. Katseye Public Perception

The 2025 feud between the girls in denim has begun. Within less than one month of each other, major clothing lines partnered with both Sydney Sweeney & emerging girl group, Katseye to promote their denim lines, which lead to unexpected competition this summer. Sweeney is a young, famous actress, known for many popular movies and television shows like Anyone but You, Euphoria, and Everything Sucks. Katseye is a musical group consisting of six women: Sophia, Manon, Daniela, Lara, Megan, and Yoonchae. They’re known for their musical and entertainment involvement, such as their albums, Gnarly, SIS (Soft Is Strong), and Beautiful Chaos, as well as the survival show, The Debut: Dream Academy.

The 2025 feud between the girls in denim has begun. Within less than one month of each other, major clothing lines partnered with both Sydney Sweeney & emerging girl group, Katseye to promote their denim lines, which lead to unexpected competition this summer. Sweeney is a young, famous actress, known for many popular movies and television shows like Anyone but You, Euphoria, and Everything Sucks. Katseye is a musical group consisting of six women: Sophia, Manon, Daniela, Lara, Megan, and Yoonchae. They’re known for their musical and entertainment involvement, such as their albums, Gnarly, SIS (Soft Is Strong), and Beautiful Chaos, as well as the survival show, The Debut: Dream Academy.

American Eagle & Sydney Sweeney: The Denim CONTROVERSY

American Eagle collaborated with Sweeney to promote their ad titled “Good Jeans,” which was released on July 23, 2025. The advertisement quickly faced controversy, highlighting the sexualization of the famous actress, upon her own will. In this recent American Eagle ad, she talks about her ‘good genes’ and her ‘good jeans’ in efforts to catch the attention of viewers and synch the similarities between these two concepts. The audience was left very confused and embarrassed for them, considering her monologue was inaccurate and sounded silly while she discussed the process of genes. 

Unfortunately, this wasn’t Sweeney’s first scandal; followed shortly by her partnership with Dr. Squatch, promoting her ‘bath water’ ideation. This product was catered towards her male audience as the primary customers, while the women were left distraught and taken aback by her behavior. Sweeney, throughout her career, has always caught the male gaze because of her physical appearance, but it seems as of late, those are her new focused intentions that she keeps carrying on with.

GAP & Katseye: The Denim Redemption

Just a few weeks later on Aug. 19, 2025, Katseye collaborated with GAP on a project titled “Better in Denim,” which also got a lot of attention from the media. But in a more positive and successful manner. Viewers and fans of the group were satisfied with many different aspects of this ad, including diversity, creativity, and pure entertainment. This advertisement included dancing by the group, as well as many backup dancers, in a synchronized fashion, to the song Milkshake by Kelis. People were also happy with the song choice due to its cultural background and Black representation. This was one of GAP’s more successful promotions. According to CEO Today Magazine, GAP had gained over 20 million views in just three days. These results led to a 14% increase in sales for the company. Furthermore, the popularity of the ad and the dance done during it created a new TikTok trend of people doing the same dance featured in the ad. 

Katseye, throughout their careers, typically had an audience of young girls and those who face diversity and cultural barriers. There is nothing inherently right or wrong with either of these intentions; however, some opinions are stronger and more popular than others, and it seems as if Katseye takes the win with this year’s denim ad competition.

The drama between the women were created by the public, and not necessarily themselves. People saw this as a fun, silly way to showcase their work and compare the two. As people’s opinions started becoming strong and popular, the more people would side with them to make those statements known. It seems as Katseye’s ad was perceived better due to the general opinion of the female audience. When it comes to certain instances in pop culture, women and men have different preferences and opinions. Because these ads were a female oriented group, Katseye took the lead due to its ‘empowering women’ and diversity showcase. While, on the other hand, Sweeney focused on capturing her male audience and capitalizing on her looks once again as she’d done in previous scandals.

• advertisement
• American Eagle
• denim
• GAP
• Katseye
• social media
• Sydney Sweeney