I know you're probably confused by the title of this article, but it's true. This week a property magnate has made headlines by put a 42-foot-high image of his new wife on a building that he owns in New York after divorcing his former wife in December.
Harry Macklowe, a real estate developer married Patricia Landeau on Tuesday last week, whose face is now emblazoned on the side of 432 Park Avenue in New York. 'Since I wasn’t getting married during the summer in the Hamptons,' Mr. Macklowe explained 'I wasn’t able to hire an airplane with a banner to go up and down the shoreline. I thought: ‘I own a building. Why don’t I just hang a banner from my own building?’ also adding 'My wife looks gorgeous, and I love the picture of me.' (welcoming us, in the process to hitherto unchartered depths of pettiness).
However we can't help but think the real reason for erecting a giant advertisement of Macklowe's new relationship isn't quite so humble: When his contentious divorce was finalised last year Mr. Macklowe was ordered to split $2 Billion worth of assets with his ex-wife, including a pricey artwork inventory with works by Picasso and Andy Warhol. Since the image has been put up on the building, which is owned by Macklowe it has been confirmed that his ex-wife Linda Macklowe will not be required to go through with the planned purchase of the apartment which the images are covering, while she was originally contracted to buy the property a court granted her an exit deal.
Getting a sense of deja vu? Of course you are. Because while this might be the first time somebody has gone to these extremes to 'revenge post'; scaling-up the advertising for how 'over' your ex you are is nothing new, (unsurprisingly) the Kardashians got to it long before when Khloe Kardashian debuted the concept of the 'revenge body'.
Who could forget when she splashed feet-high images of her re-engineered physique on advertising billboards for the Protein World advertising campaign? At the time of said campaign (something many people weren't too happy about - owing to the concern that the advertised 30 day 'challenge' promoted competitive slimming and dieting), Khloe also launched a series of exercise and diet programs called 'Revenge Body': concreting the previously-unexploited commercial opportunity presented by the end of a marriage or partnership and the scramble to find bragging-assets to prove how much better off you are without your ex.
'If you are sad about your boyfriend breaking up with you, let me teach you tools on how to deal with that.' Khloe enthused in a 2017 interview with US Cosmopolitan, while in an interview with E she added how 'Fresh, excit[ed] and empower[ed]' she was. And lo: we all witnessed the birth of the branded break-up straight from the Kardashian's mouth.
If you want to see the effect it's had? Look no further than our own feeds: chances are that if you haven't at least once in your life orchestrated an - insert fire emoji - revenge selfie to publicly trounce your ex you've probably spent an chunk of time curating one for a friend in the quest for the perfect blend of candid/carefree/'better off without you' (extra points for the Thank, U Next caption).
But while revenge-posting in itself is a bit embarrassing in hindsight but essentially harmless (and it goes without saying - no-one should ever feel as though they have to lose weight in order to prove their worth in a relationship), at a point where it comes to men erecting images of their new wives on buildings isn't it entering the tricky territory of positioning women as status symbols, or objects?
Since the image has been put up ,The New York Times reported that Macklowe has confirmed that he's had male friends approach him to have their wives images splashed on sky-rise buildings while another female friend emailed to say ‘I want my husband to do this for me for Valentine’s Day,' confirming once and for all that the concept of the 'revenge post' is fact developing into another toxic way to objectify women whilst - let's face it - not really making us feel that much better in the process.
And while, yes, while uploading a revenge post is arguably satisfying - at the point where women are being turned into billboard-advertisements for wealth and status, perhaps this is one trend we should think about putting to bed for 2019?