Smells like Christmas Spirit

As I type this with frozen fingers and even more frozen feet, I’m sure you, like me, are sick of being assaulted by a neverending stream of perfume adverts at this time of year.

I love Christmas. I love the food, I love the goodwill, I even love bad presents. But I’ve never bought perfume on the back of a Christmas advert. For all the things that Christmas is, sexy is not one of them. There’s nothing amorous about me having shovelled down my umpteenth helping of turkey, sat infront of a “best of” TV show while present wrappings adorn the sofa. So why the fascination with the year on year adverts, and why do so many get it so wrong?

Here’s a selection of the best and the worst supposedly enchanting scents you can buy for a loved one this Christmas.

We start off with Dolce & Gabbana’s Rose The One. Scarlett Johannson nonchalantly drapes herself across a bed, with only a smattering of clothes and a bowl of strawberries for company.

The message is “It’s funny what you forget, but you never forget The One”. 30 repeat viewings later, and ironically I’ve forgotten what I was watching.

Next up Chanel No. 5’s typically overblown advertising campaign. Following Catherine Deneuve and Nicole Kidman is Audrey Tautou. Pouting, wide eyed and with an undeniable beauté Française, Tautou is the perfect match for the fragrance. I’ve always loved Chanel’s throw the kitchen sink attitude to advertising, and this lives up to expectation, delivering a gloriously lush and heart-warming short film that is at odds with other brands smug efforts.

Gucci by Gucci has to be one of the worst advertising campaigns of yuletide. I’ve probably shattered a million girl’s hearts with this savage attack on James “Angel Eyes” Franco, but there you go. Franco assures us that “You’re running with me. The world is changing. I will be the same”.  Despite this clear admission that he’s a fusty old conservative set in his ways, Franco still does nothing throughout the whole 30 second run except stalk around dark corridors that look like offcuts from the Bourne trilogy. His frankly piss poor attempt at being dark and mysterious falls flat on his face, and remember, this is from a man who thought Spiderman 3 was a good idea.

Bad, bad, bad.

What’s interesting about perfume and aftershave adverts is that it’s very difficult to sell a product you can’t see in action. Sell a Ferrari? Show a clip of it driving very fast. Sell a DIY kit? Show a clip of me chasing down kids with a chainsaw. You get the idea. Perfume isn’t a visual medium, and until we’re all plugged into our TV’s by virtual reality it shall remain so.

So instead what we have is associations of glamour. You too can have chiselled cheekbones and a barrel-like chest like Matthew McConaughey! Just buy The One, by Dolce & Gabbana! And so the great British public are once again, slaves to the charms of celebrity and falsified glamour. Fashion has been victim this to years. Just because something looks good on Kate Moss, does not mean it’ll look good on you on your way to the corner shop…

Still, it’s not all bad. When you’re feeling worse for wear on boxing day, rest assured that all the adverts will have vanished from the schedules, only to be replaced by Boxing Day sales. Who knew that a sofa was such a must-have buy the day after Christmas?

Joseph Stashko-Adamaszek

Share this post with others:

Tags: Celebrity, Christmas

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 11:55 am and is filed under Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.