featuring Lara Stone. Talking Perfume says:This is a "mix of tradition and sensuality: an inspiring and joyful vision of what it means to be a woman today"? Really? First of all, this model, who is 26, look like she's barely 18 in this photo (if that). She's made-up in a smeary eyed, heroin chic style, vacantly gazing out at the viewer with slightly parted pouty lips. She's weirdly laying on the ground in her classic black mini-dress, playing with her hair. In what has got to be a truly weird photoshopping choice, her chest seems to be weirdly extended so that you see tons of cleavage free bare skin behind the giant perfume bottle, with only a hint of the top of her dress dipped down and peeking out between the bottle and her right forearm. I mean, seriously -- look at those proportions. There is no way that she somehow does not have breasts, and her childishly flat chest just goes on and on forever. IT'S PHOTOSHOPPED. The top of that dress and her natural curves would normally appear roughly at the line of the top of that bottle cap. It's not there. It's like they gave her a double mastectomy or merely the chest line of an 8-12 year old girl. And while I hate her passivity in the image, as though she has nothing to do but lie around waiting for you while she hugs her perfume bottle and plays with her hair, it's this weird appeal to pedophilia that is giving me the giant creepers right now.Prada Infusion d’Iris: Since its arrival in 2007, Infusion d’Iris has redefined the rules of contemporary perfumery through its delicately balanced mix of tradition and sensuality: an inspiring and joyful vision of what it means to be a woman today. Infusion d’Iris captured the attention of the market, opening up a new space within the Prada Parfums portfolio for fresher scents, within the context of Prada’s vision of timeless heritage fused with uncompromising modernity. Now, Prada Parfums has launched a new advertizing campaign that brings these qualities into a fresh alignment.
Shot by Steven Meisel, creator of many of Prada’s most striking images, and featuring model Lara Stone, this print media campaign creates a compelling vision of the unique qualities that make Infusion d’Iris an inspiring, unforgettable experience.
Lara Stone lies on a marble check floor, the same emblematic floor found in the original Prada store at Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. Her gaze, both alluring and inquiring, holds our attention for a moment, but soon our eyes are irresistibly drawn to the object before her: an outsize flacon of Infusion d’Iris.
Sensual and evocative, this image reconnects the viewer to Prada’s heritage represented by the historic Prada crest that graces the bottle of Infusion d’Iris, the true protagonist of this campaign.
A celebration of the timeless Prada heritage, brought into a sharp contemporary focus.
And this happens all the time. Take a look at that creepy Marc Jacob's Daisy 
ad again. These ads seem to play to the idea that very young virginal girls are particularly sexually alluring. While this plays to certain stereotypes, it also tends to hypersexualize young girls for the viewing pleasure of men. I look at ads like this, and I don't have to wonder why we have a human trafficking problem in this country (to say nothing of the situation globally) or that so many of the victims are young girls being trafficked for sex work.(FN1)(FN2)These ads just perpetuate this fascination with the "barely legal" set, normalizing the sexualization of those who are far from being able to defend themselves psychologically, emotionally, or physically from sexual predators by taking adults and creating the appearance of childlike physical attributes, clothing, etc.I think there are plenty of times when we tend to overreact when it comes to this. I for one had no problems with Miley Cyrus taking a photo for Annie Leibovitz and Vanity Fair
in which she was seemingly wrapped in a sheet. I generally think of Miley's photo as being one she chose to do as part of an artistic endeavor, and that the photo was supposed to be accompanying an article about her professional accomplishments and talent. (FN3) This, on the other hand, tends to exist purely to play to prurient interests in order to sell a perfume that I otherwise like. The fact that the model is decided of age IRL makes it even more creepy in my opinion, because it had to be a purposeful artistic choice to make her look like a child, not the byproduct of photographing someone who happens to be sixteen. Nothing about making this 26 year old woman appear barely legal entices me to buy more Infusion d'Iris, though, because when I look at that photo, I do not think "inspiring and joyful" OR "woman." *I* am a woman. I know lots of women. None of us would look forward to having our clevage photoshopped away so we could once again look twelve. And as for "[h]er gaze, both alluring and inquiring, holds our attention for a moment, but soon our eyes are irresistibly drawn to the object before her: an outsize flacon of Infusion d’Iris," I find her zombie stare way more distracting than the overly giant bottle of perfume. 
And let's talk about the overly giant bottle for a minute. I've been reading Chandler Burr's The Perfect Scent
, and as far as I can tell, the industry spends tons of money on package and bottle design and market-testing. They have created some truly lovely, unique, clever, and whimsical bottles. Daisy, for example, has a way cute bottle design. Why can't we focus on the bottles in these ads? Why can we photograph the actual perfume, perhaps in the kind of setting that was meant to have inspired the scent itself? Maybe this is simplistic, but I personally am more interested in the kinds of story-telling and imagery I get from Christopher Brosius's website descriptions of his scents than I am seeing some way-too-skinny model or celeb posed, half nude, with no bottle of scent in sight. Tell me something about the perfume! That Prada ad tells me a lot of things ("vacant, empty, sad object-person, starving and so desperate for approval she'll turn herself inside out to be what you want" comes to mind), none of which I associate with the actual scent of Infusion d'Iris, and none of which I'd want associated with myself.For other posts in this series, see:
~ Gender, Language, and Scent
~ Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 1: Perfume, Advertising, And the Male Gaze
~ Some More Thoughts on "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" and Advertising of Scents for 'Men'
~ Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 2: Sex/Erotica and the Male Gaze in Perfume Advertising
~ Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics, Pt. 3: The Exotic and how it relates to the Male Gaze and Majority View in Perfume Advertising
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FN1 Of the 600,000-800,000 people trafficked across international borders each year, 70 percent are female and 50 percent are children. The majority of these victims are forced into the commercial sex trade. (U.S. Department of State. 2004. Trafficking in Persons Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/ncvrw/2005/pg5l.html [Viewed April 6, 2010].
FN2 For a global study on human trafficking issues and how the present different around the globe, I recommend the US State Dept.'s "Trafficking in Persons report," http://www.humantrafficking.org/uploads/publications/2007_TIP_Report.pdf [Viewed April 6, 2010].
FN3 I fully realize that a WHOLE LOT of feminists think that Cyrus's VF layout was deeply exploitative and plays into the same stereotypes I'm criticizing here. But I tend to agree with Leibovitz, in that I think the photo looks almost like a classic painting in the style of François Boucher or other Rococo semi-nudes/nudes, while this photo of an acutal of age woman, dressed, cosmetic-ed, and photoshopped to look younger is weirdly exploitative. I'm open to discussing this, though.
5 comments:
So, as ever, a most outstanding post. You get straight to the heart of the absurdity of the PId'I campaign-- what is "unique", "inspiring," "unforgettable," or anything else about a lovely young woman lying on the floor, marble or otherwise, looking fetching to sell a product. She could be selling just about any old damned fool thing. I'm right with you on CB's concoctions-- tell me a story about your scent-- not some hackneyed image of vapid glamor.
However... You open an interesting can of worms with the image of Miley, and where it sits in the spectrum of "artistic expression." I, for one, don't need to justify the desire of a young woman to want to look good and have glamorous photos taken of herself by linking the image to older aesthetic traditions. That points to the logic where a woman is acting within acceptable bounds based on the acceptability of the image she projects, or in other words: Watch out! Don't look like a slut!
Not to take away from the power of images and the messages they send out into the world. But how about this: Do young women, or any women for that matter, have the "right" to pose themselves and feel themselves to be sexual creatures, both objects and subjects of desire? At what point "should" a woman cover herself up? Is because female beauty been so twisted, exploited, and commodified, individual women should eschew it? I know there are those who think they/we should, that the whole idea of beauty is too problematic to be saved, but I am not one of them.
Rita, the truth is that, when I first saw the photo, I told my partner that some day she'd treasure this beautiful photo she had of herself done by an incredible photographer, and that I wish I had a similar picture of myself capturing me in my youthful beauty. I didn't see the problem with any of the photos in the spread, period.
But I do think that Annie Leibovitz statement about her intention in creating an image in a "classic" style is a point well taken. This is the artist, she's telling you about the traditions she intended to be calling back to, and I think that has a way to contextualize any piece of art. And that's it in the end. There's art and there's advertising. Sometimes things can be both, but I think it's worth noting the difference when we, as feminists, go about our critique.
Did you mean heroin chic? I think you did. Right?
Uff da. Hey, you're not going after the blog here; your laser is pointed directly at the jugular of the Prada illustration. Clearly so.
While I find it somewhat refreshing that the kohl-eyed model is actually seemingly conscious on the floor (remember all of those crime scene-esque pics that were around for a while? some even with clothes askew in a way that could be interpreted as the result of a non-consentual encounter?), your points are well taken.
The contrast with Brosius' copy is at the nexis of a an important question in how to market perfume: do you sell what it smells like, the story of the smell, or a story that you then attach the product to? Stories can be powerful; that tired (and contested) chestnut about Marilyn Monroe saying all she wore to bed was a drop of No. 5 being a great example of something that has nothing to do with the olfactory experience being attached to the sales pitch.
An aside: I opened up your blog today and had a Holy Cr@9! moment. I JUST NOW wrote about Prada Infusion d'Iris. Had no idea that either Talking Perfume nor you had it up for today. I hadn't even thought about Id'I for months, but it came to me as the result of wracking my brain in search of the right scent for a particular occasion. Weird.
As for the Miley photos...on this one, I'm going to take a step away from agreeing with you. There are all kinds of ways to take art photos...AND venues in which to present them. Annie Leibowitz notwithstanding...and I generally like her, so I'll not make any comments here about whether or not she might be more inclined to compromise her principles during this time of personal financial issues...Vanity Fair is all about tasteful titillation. I love reading that magazine; it's like People, for folks who have a high school level vocabulary and are inclined to actually read. But it offers all kinds of sumptuous visual enticements, and to put a 15 year old girl between the covers means to put her in that company.
Whatever the intent of the photographer.
(Once again, thanks for getting me thinking. :) )
ScentScelf, yes I meant 'heroin' the drug. Tricky Es! (Also, me posting at 2am not helping.) And yes, I do remember the crime scene photo ads. They were worse, though given the whole zombified-I-eat-brains-because-I-lack-one-of-my-own gaze the Prada model has, not by much imo.
Like I said, I think there's a big split on the Miley Cyrus photos, and that educated minds can differ. I think your point about their purpose re: Vanity Fair is well taken.
Thanks for reading!
I have to admit that the whole concept of perfume advertising goes somewhat over my head. I don't subscribe to women's mags, I don't live in a place where I see billboards for specific consumer goods, I don't shop at the mall much, and I don't watch a lot of TV. If I've laid eyes on a perfume ad, odds are I've seen it on a 'fume blog, and the angle is usually, "But what are the notes?"
I'd like to think that I'm less affected by perfume ads than the average fragrance consumer. But maybe I'm not - because I did see that Old Spice ad ("I'm on a horse!") and found it a clever sendup of romance-novel images. Did I go buy my SO some Old Spice? Nope.
I am really disturbed by what appears to be the sexualization of children, through using young-looking adult models in sensual settings. I was complaining all over NST recently about the photo ad for Guerlain's new Aqua Allegoria Flora Nymphea, with its preteen-looking partially-nude model and its ladypart-looking flowers. I found it immensely creepy.
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