Back in October I posted Kenneth Cole’s casting call for Sikh models. Just yesterday my brother-in-law texted me with a photo of the ad which covers the entire storefront of their 5th Ave flagship store, so the model is almost 20 feet tall. The model in the ad is Sonny Caberwal, a Duke and Georgetown Law grad who runs Tavalon, a high-end hipster tea “lounge” whose opening we covered earlier. Both the ad and the video below are from the Kenneth Cole website.
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Here’s the blurb for the ad campaign:
Kenneth Cole, one of the world’s leading fashion designers, has launched a worldwide campaign to mark the brand’s 25th anniversary. The focus of his ad campaign is that “we all walk in different shoes”. [Link]
Most of the reaction to it in the Sikh blogosphere has been … well, positively gleeful (chortle, kvell, rejoicing). The one hesitant note comes from the new Sikh group blog The Langar Hall which wonders:
Something else makes me uncomfortable about this ad. Is something that’s supposed to be a symbol of high ideals, if not sacred itself (a sardar’s appearance), being commodified? If it is, is it inevitable that everything will one day be commodified?… [Link]
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To Reema, I reply – ooooh baby, exotify me, commodify me. I can handle it 
. [And actually, as somebody who has been photographed a fair amount for similar reasons, I will admit it gets weird at times, but c’mon, doesn’t Sonny look fly 20 feet tall in Rockefeller Center?]
I doubt that this is meant to commodify people. The videos of people actually help greatly to dispel that type of thinking, and it’s about high time that Sikh men are recognized and acknowledged in society — besides, Sonny’s a cutie. 😉
Awesome. Considering the appalling number of hate crimes against Sikhs here in Northern California and throughout the US, I’m glad to see this guy (and the campaign) not only celebrating difference, which could be seen as commodification, but also acknowledging that the consequences of looking or behaving differently aren’t always positive. I was a little confused about his name. He identifies himself as Sonny Caberwal, but the link to sikhchic identified him as Sandeep Singh. Am I missing something?
V are all models?
He is Sandeep (Sonny) Singh Caberwal. Sikhchic is making a point of calling him by his given name and dropping his caste name. It’s funny, as a Sikh I didn’t even hear the difference until you pointed it out.
Ennis, are you telling us that you’re secretly a male model?
Have you ever wondered if there was more to life, other than being really, really, ridiculously good looking?
how does the blue steel work out with a dhari?
I think it’s a great ad. It’s LONG overdue. I hope it catches on. And yes, I bet Sonny looks fly 20 feet tall.
whoooooooooooot! he is fwwine 😉
ennis, arent you forgetting something? just the other day, you were railing against Bobby (Piyush) Jindal for being white-washed and using an american name. It doesnt seem like you have a problem with Sonny (Sandeep) Caberwal, for using an American name or being exoticized by the white man! hmm. makes me wonder, if your previous post was just to rail against republicans.
sonny is actually a very common nickname in punjab… if that helps. i think one could argue that some of waris ahluwalia’s characters are exotifications of the turbanned man… but in this case sonny caberwal is talking about himself as he sees himself on his own terms. he isn’t reading a script of someone else’s interpretation of the turban and his turban appears quite natural– not costumed or unlike how he normally might appear on his way to work or elsewhere. also in regards to commodification… how much money is kenneth cole going to bring in with this campaign specifically due to the turban? i doubt very much, as the kenneth cole brand is ubiquitous and doesn’t necessarily need this campaign to sustain itself… rather the brand is seeking to lend the power of its name in bringing some alternate voices into mainstream conversation.
if we need to be reactionary, i think there are a zillion other causes we could put that energy towards. this campaign doesn’t diminish from the dignity of the turban, or sikhs. at the same time, i can understand some of the uneasiness with putting all these “pet” causes like disciminated post-9/11 minorities, hiv, and the homeless on display, comes across as “fashionable” objectification but having only seen sonny’s video, i’d say he appears like he was in control of portraying himself and his turban the way he wanted. perhaps the dismay would be better targetted at the larger trend of selling causes or imagining complex social issues can be solved at the department store cash register a la gap’s red campaign?
btw, the video is no longer showing up on this post for me…?
Clearly this Kenneth Cole ad is terrific (obvious from all the ooh-ing and aah-ing from the global community). Nonetheless, I think Reema does well to open up this dialogue and she makes a very poignant point by using the kuffiyeh scarf as an example of how easily something can become a fashion statement… but unfortunately everyone seems to have glossed over that…
Let the ooh-ing and aah-ing continue.
Please don’t tell us you’re Vikram Chatwal. I will be highly disappointed… 😛
All i was commenting about, was the double standard that ennis is displaying. I could care less if sandeep caberwal changed his name to Cletus McFinkleberry. In fact, more props to him, if he wants to have a name like that. But lets just try not to villify people just for the sake of partisan reasons, as ennis tried to do in his previous post.
Being exotified and commodified in India as a foreigner, yeah, it does get damn annoying. However, if there is any way I can make money off of it (myself), I will.
he’s super cute.
A name like what? What’re you saying about my name?
thanks for explaining, Ennis!
Saywhat, you’re either trolling or you didn’t read my original comments on this subject, but either way I’m only going to answer you once.
Piyush ==> Bobby because of the Brady bunch. Sandeep ==> Sonny because Sonny is the most common Punjabi nickname for Sandeep. The first is an act of assimilation the second is not.
More importantly, I always saw Piyush’s name games (Slade Ryan Jindal for third child) are being merely circumstantial evidence. Far more important is how Jindal is acting, which is to treat browns as inferior because he doesn’t want to be associated with them. As you can see, Caberwal has no problem at all being publicly identified as brown.
This whole name thing is a red herring w.r.t. Caberwal. You can think what you want.
Can we please not veer away from the main issue.
Ennis, answer the damn question.
In the spirt of Trent Reznor.
“I want to Commodify you like an animal!!”
sonny/sunny is one of the most common nicknames for sikh guys in india. and this sunny is particularly extremely handsome!!!! thanks for this post!
There is no way Kenneth Cole would select a sikh who was dark and with an accent. Kenneth cole wants to appear open minded, global, edgey/exotic but not fobbish, and intelligently sophisticated.
This dude is lacking melanin, devoid of ethnic accent, carefully distinguishes himself from the perceived uncivilized and fundies, and has a career that suggests self possibility, mystery blah blah blah.
transcendental commodification in other words.
i enjoyed his hesitations when he mentioned muslims. even he felt like a fraud.
If Kenneth Cole had the balls to walk in other shoes and think different, they should post this ad in narrow minded geographies instead of liberal NY.
What does everyone think about the need to mispronounce Sikh as “seekh” because the actual pronunciation sounds too much like the English word “sick”. I hate having to mispronounce Sikh just to avoid that confusion, or negative association. Still there seems to be no way around it. I wonder if Sonny viewed it as dilemma. The high profile of this ad makes it important because he really is representing Sikhs and Sikhism to a lot of people out there.
However, I don’t know why he pronounced MuSlim, “muZ-lim”. There is no need or excuse for that. If Barack Obama can say muSlim, so can you!
hottie spotted…but wtf is up with all the negative comments? Seems like it’s impossible to please some people…
The guys on here are jealous it’s not them…..
Thinking about it now, i do not remember Sikh models being used in Indian media that often.
On a related , possibly tangent note , upthread Ennis mentioned…
There is the book out called ‘The Konkans’ by Tony D’Souza. American mother, Catholic Indian father. On his website he does confess to wilfully passing for Italian (because he is fair-skinned and he felt little affinity to the largely Punjabi-Bengali-Gujarati ABDs he grew up alongisde) and how his father’s death (he even discusses how dark his father was) really changed him in many ways.
ennis, i dont understand why you insist on taking an ethno-centric perspective. So because, Sonny decides to act brown and Bobby doesnt, somehow, sonny is a better person that bobby?
I haven’t seen the video (yet) but going by the picture, he’s certainly not devoid of melanin. Looks quite brown to me.
Is ‘Caberwal” just a different spelling of ‘Sabharwal’?
For the rest of you who might be confused by saywhat’s questions, here’s what I have said previously
which was a reference to:
This second quote was hyperlinked to the first, so anybody who had a question could see a fuller exposition of my position. Jindal’s efforts to distance himself from desis has meant that he has not treated all people equally in LA, which is a big black mark in my book.
Don’t think it’s that big a deal, but I thought I’d point out that Kenneth Cole didn’t select a traditional (ie fully observant) Sikh. From Sonny’s blog (http://caberwal.blogspot.com):
“Driving home, we stopped to think about how much our lives have transformed over even the past even three months- there’s just no time for us to go out and drink hard like we used to (frequently) do, because we need to get up as early as we can to continue trying to chip away at the 10,000 things that need to get done, and actually be productive. When we do make it out, we’re a tired, lightweight version of ourselves that our previous selves would have openly mocked. I’m not saying one way is better than the other or judging, but its just really strange to consciously realize that you’ve made a significant lifestyle adjustment. Walking by people stumbling between bars made me feel both a fondness for the routine of a carefree and cavalier attitude that comes with that behavior a few nights a week, and a slight remorse for all the wasted and forgotten time of a hazy evening or painful next day. But I guess it was fun as hell, and a learning experience in its own way, so I can’t say I regret anything.”
Judging from smegma’s comments, NY’s not so liberal after all.
Moving on, change doesn’t happen in a day. This may be an ‘imperfect’ ad to many – some of these comments remind me of the complaints raised in the Sikh community when the characters in Bend it like Beckham drank and talked to the picture of Guru Nanak more than they read the actual Granth. This is a chance for Sikhs to be visible w/ folks who don’t know them. If one person, even if its a woman who rocks those hideous Vera Bradley bags, can relate to a Sikh or knows more about the faith’s existence, it’s a big deal. And if this model doesn’t exhibit the lifestyle or talk in the mannerisms you want, so be it. At the end of the day, it’s an ad for clothes. He’s not trying to be in the SGPC or run for office.
It’s a step. Hopefully there’ll be many more.
I treat the word “Sikh” the same way I treat my name – When I use the word with anyone who may not know the word, I pronounce it properly ,and if anyone has a question, I help them learn it and/or spell it for them. I let them know that they may hear people pronounce it “Seekh”, but that “Seekh” is anglicized, and the correct way is “Sikh”. You drop knowledge on them and prepare them to hear it both ways.
The mispronounciation of “Sikh” bothers me, so I just pronounce it correctly (short i, aspirated k) 🙂 It does sound different than “sick” if you hit the last consonant sound, but also, having grown up in an area with a grip of Sikhs, I think people are ready to learn how to pronounce it correctly. The other option is to do what my mom says — “A seekh is a skewer, a sikh is a student” 🙂
I hadn’t thought of the color dynamics of the model (although Sonny I’m sure appears “lighter than normal” because of the intense lighting job). I like this ad, I think it’s tasteful, I don’t think it’s overly exotic. The latter is also due, in large part, to Kenneth Cole’s history of pathbreaking ads. Had he had a history of picking taking unknown images or people and then spinning their appearance for profitability I’d probably feel different, but he has history of inverting things, and I like it. [I still, of course, appreciate Reema’s perspective]
For those who aren’t familiar with Punjabi nicknames, Sonny is super common, along with Baby, Buntu/Bunty, Bunny, Billoo, Dimple, Jolly, Lovely, Happy, etc., etc. Get a group of Punjus together, and it’s like the 7 Dwarves.
You literally just named 3 of my Chachas/Thayas…
29 Amitabh : Not just the spelling; if you listen closely he does call himself “kaberwal”. Reminds me of the Monty Python skit where a customer at a travel agency can’t pronounce the letter ‘c’ and substitutes ‘b’ instead, as in : “I saw your advert in the buller supplement”. The travel agent suggests that he replace the letter ‘c’ with ‘k’, upon which he says, “You mean buller with a k? … Kuller? … Oh!” Perhaps the alliteration of Sonny Sabharval was too much for him to handle. What exactly is the politics of mangling names among ABDs? I have always bristled at suggestions that I Americanize my name.
23 Punjaban : Many years before 9/11 I read that Arab intellectuals were quite fed up of the persistence of Izzlam, Muzzlim and Moslem (among others) in the West! I believe the overuse of ‘z’ for ‘s’ is an affection imported from England where it started as a disease of upper-class twits. I suspect Sonny also says Eye-rack, Eye-ran and Kabool.
I spoke my peace in The Langar Hall.
Jindal is engaged in a classic bit of triangulation. Jindal can garner more votes by being perceived as anti-Desi. However, face it. By his successful election he has opened the gates for Desis across America. Unless he becomes an axe-murderer he is an inspirational figure. A hundred years from now Jindal will be remembered as congressman Dilip Singh of California — a trailblazer.
Embracing Sandeep Singh Caberwal and slamming Jindal is a double standard by Ennis in my view. Sonny is selling a palatable version of a Sikh model, and Bobby is selling the same as a Indian politician.
Jindal is giving bad public service by not treating his constituents equally, just because some of them happen to be brown. In doing so, he’s going out of his way to avoid reminding people that he is desi himself.
Caberwal did none of those things. He stood up and spoke about his own identity, he didn’t hide it. He didn’t take his turban off and pull his hair back in a pony tail. He didn’t play down his differences. He’s 20 foot tall in his turban and his beard and he’s testifying.
I can’t see how Jindal is a palatable Indian politician (given that he wants nothing to do with India – Dilip Singh over 40 years ago was more forthright about his associations), and I can’t see what Caberwal is doing to hide his identity and distance himself from others in the way that Jindal has.
Really, I can’t see the comparison you’re making.
His family name isn’t “Sabharval” – it actually is Caberwal. He and his parents have been active in the Sikh community for a number of years.
Holy crap! I know Sonny! Heh, he’s actually a good friend of one of my good friends…small world!
That’s awesome.
Am I the only one who found the “Hey, we’re monotheistic” and “Don’t hurt us, we’re not THEM” insertions/subtext troublesome?
no
Rahul,
I hear what you are saying and I do find some merit in the criticism. However, I think the last 20 seconds more than make up for it. Second, he is accurately stating a truth about the religion and how most non-desis view Sikhs. Third, most people in NYC will only see the billboard and not the video. Some will know that Sonny is a Sikh, others will not, some will take the time to investigate. I suspect most will not. The billboard speaks to racial profiling. For those who don’t take the time to investigate, if it causes some people to adjust or consider their views about muslims or racial profiling in general, as a result viewing the billboard, then its a net positive effect for muslims as well.
Maybe I should have stayed as pithy as Khoofia and simply said, No.
JJ, fair enough but these accurate truths were not chosen in a vacuum. Just to play devil’s advocate, why not talk about the five K’s that every Sikh must wear – and to be completely provocative, mention the fact that a Kirpan is part of an observant Sikh’s attire? It would have been fine if the distinction between Muslims had been stated in the context of “Now I know what they must go through every day”, rather than focus on the difference. I bring it up because the delineation and separation from Muslims has been front and center in almost all the responses to hate crimes on Sikhs in the past 5 years, and while it is natural, it is a bit disappointing.
Your point about the billboard is a good one, though.
(And I thought khoofia was agreeing with me, but maybe I wasn’t seeing properly through the swirling swath of negations in the phrases.)
45 · Rahul said
Maybe he did and it was edited out. I assume that Caberwal did not produce the video, so I’m not sure how much responsibility you can foist upon him.
That might be, my intent is not to blame Caberwal and tried to write my comment without that seeming to be the case, but I guess this sentence was ambiguous at best.
Your right, I misread that. I have to buy another Elements of Style to deal with all those negations. 😉
It’s a good point. I’m willing to put this under the constraints of advertising. How to get out a message that reaches a broad market. This maybe my cynical side again, but I don’t think most people are interested in learning about the 5K’s in a shoe commercial that’s already asking them to consider their views on racial profiling. The attention span just isn’t there. Baby steps.
I would have preferred this as well. Part of me does wonder though, if Sikhs aren’t disproportionately attacked or harassed due to their appearance than most muslims in the U.S. who don’t adopt a more orthodox dress. (i.e. long beard or head covering). I think Sikhs are most commonly confused with fundy Islamists, (Taliban) not progressive or non-fundy Muslims who might be embraced by the public at large, which makes public confusion as to the appearance of Sikhs as a “threat” even greater. This in no way should give credence to the idea that Sikhs should change their appearance to blend in, that would be as Sonny suggest be trading it away. If people wish to give up the kesh, that’s their choice but I don’t believe this should be the reason.
I’m not sure this is accurate. Most of the responses I’ve heard or seen, (for example from the Sikh Coalition) has decried any act of harassment and not focused on the delineation, per se. As for individuals who speak about the delineation, they may be trying to convey the differences between extremist Islam and the Sikh faith, and doing so clumsily. We can’t expect everyone to convey the nuance that you or I might seek. Heck, I’m not capable of nuance on most occasions and may not have done so on this post. To those who speak to that delineation out of fear, I would find it disappointing as well, but I “get” why some do it. And to coin a phrase, I’m leery of judging it without having walked a mile in their shoes.
No telling what he was asked off-camera. His bit sounds like a response to something like this: “Hey, um, Sonny, tell us about your look and how you’re different from say the taliban.” I imagine Sikhs in the U.S. often have to answer questions of that ignorant ilk.
As for the ad – it looks smart, but did they stick sunglasses on him because he looks like a sweet-faced child otherwise? Now this is one fashionably-dressed sardar. (Love those two-toned numbers on his feet!)
I am sorry if I misrepresented things, but I was going off of a few statements that I’d seen. I’ll see if I can find them, but probably the most prominent one is a movie made by a Sikh woman about hate crimes against Sikhs (don’t remember the name now) and its associated coverage on CNN. The coverage on CNN focused on the ignorance aspect of the hate crimes on Sikhs, as did all the excerpts of the movie that I saw (haven’t seen the full movie).