Meet the Staff: The Sketchbook
· Blog Home
· Profile
· MySpace
· Contact Us
· FAQ/TOS
Older Articles
· Beauty Notes: this 'n' that
· Beauty Notes: Parfumerie Generale Ilang Ivohibe
· Fantasy Web Find of the Day: Corso Como "Mary" Boo...
· Lookbook: Red Lipstick
· Beauty Notes: Parfumerie Generale Iris Taïzo
· Beauty Notes: Parfumerie Generale Bois Blond
· Lookbook: Smoky Eyes
· Beauty Notes: perfumes part 8
· Parfumerie Generale Ether de Lilas (Blanc sur Feui...
· Terminology: White, Grey, & Black (COLOR)
Comments
· September 24, 2007 3:01 PM by
Colleen Shirazi
· September 24, 2007 3:17 PM by
Dain
· September 24, 2007 6:10 PM by
Dain
· September 24, 2007 6:30 PM by
Colleen Shirazi
· September 24, 2007 7:43 PM by
Colleen Shirazi
· September 24, 2007 7:57 PM by
Dain
· September 24, 2007 10:36 PM by
Colleen Shirazi
· September 24, 2007 10:37 PM by
Colleen Shirazi
Archives
· Beauty Blog (2003-2004)
· Fashion Blog (archive)
· New Releases Blog (archive)
· Beauty Articles (archive)
· April 2005
· May 2005
· June 2005
· July 2005
· August 2005
· September 2005
· October 2005
· November 2005
· December 2005
· January 2006
· February 2006
· March 2006
· April 2006
· May 2006
· June 2006
· July 2006
· August 2006
· September 2006
· October 2006
· November 2006
· December 2006
· January 2007
· February 2007
· March 2007
· April 2007
· May 2007
· June 2007
· July 2007
· August 2007
· September 2007
· October 2007
· November 2007
· December 2007
· January 2008
· February 2008
· March 2008
· April 2008
· May 2008
· June 2008
· July 2008
Recent blog posts:
Links
Barneys
refinery29
The Sartorialist
Jargol
Perfume Shrine
Ambre Gris
Polyvore
The Fashioniste
The Powder Group
LA-Story.com
Dain's Literary Attempts
Colleen's Beading Blog
Colleen's Adult Acne Blog
The Beauty Blog Network
Eponym Blog Directory.
TBF Project:Blog
Posted by Dain, Monday, September 24, 2007 1:37 PM (Eastern)
I was snooping around the internet, and found this discussion about the ads for the upcoming Tom Ford for Men on Perfume Smellin' Things. Tom Ford was once the creative mastermind behind the Gucci Group, but left to forge his own path (to gloss over much corporate todo). Gucci's loss was perhaps the fashion world's loss, for with him gone, all sex appeal seems to have drained from the sartorial consciousness. I've been watching New York Fashion Week, and I refuse to cover it because it's not worth mentioning (and in any case, it's been done a million times better by a million other blogs). Zac Posen had a good show, and I found the purity of Calvin Klein refreshing (but it won't sell). Everything else is really, really, really fucking boring; exponentially banal intensifiers are the only way to describe my ennui. There was plenty of pretty, but designer clothing should be extraordinary; if I want "pretty" I will go to A.P.C. thankyouverymuch and not line your pockets thankyouverymuch. I'll admit, one man's absence isn't sufficient explanation. It doesn't help the taste in models these days favors the awkward and fragile and alien of feature. I like Gemma Ward, but a whole stable of eerily (as opposed to classically) attractive faces is a bit much. You can dress them in architectural tailoring, or demure frills, but sex appeal fails to compute.
Sex appeal is Tom Ford's signature, to a delightful degree. Vulgarity is healthy; conservatism is good for the body but not for the soul. Gucci Rush was a sweaty haze of orgasmic blurs under red lights. You weren't exactly sure what was happening, but you kind of wished it was happening to you. The so-called infamous Vanity Fair cover, which Rachel McAdams refused to participate in, in which Keira Knightly and Scarlett Johansen pose nude with the fully clothed Tom Ford. I thought that one was a little boring. Naked celebrities, eh. Celebrities do that all the time, or nearly, for an extra 15 minutes of fame. The controversial Opium ad in which Sophie Dahl sprawls naked clutching her tit, I loved that one, thought it was beautiful, like a painting.
My personal favorite is this:
I'm all for sharp criticism of cultural mores, particularly this stifling atmosphere of conservatism in America. There are a number of things I'd detest and would love to rip to shit. I'm going to do that now. Stila, once the ne plus ultra of sophisticated shimmer, has entirely lost its integrity (and you can't blame this one on EL—Bobbi Brown is still excellent, and I really don't mind MAC, but I never used much MAC in the first place). Who the hell decided that Daria Werbowy was a friggin' supermodel? She's like the non-alcoholic version of Gisele. (I really hope it wasn't Steven Meisel.) Sex and the City is for dumb pathetic women who wish they had fabulous shoes, great careers, and lots of orgasms. Damn show drives me nuts. It's junk food people think is gourmet. Every so-called intellectual I know mind-masturbates to Ulysses. And Justin Timberlake can sexyback all he damn pleases, all his songs are masterfully mixed with three variations on lyrics: "giiiirrrrl", "dance", and the occasional "I got cheated on and that makes me angry". God, get over yourself, prick.
Just needed to get that off my chest.
Speaking of chests, let's return to the origin.
Well, it's supposed to be provocative, gutsy...
Oh, I'm provoked all right. Who wouldn't be provoked if someone took a dump on taste? "Ooo... lookatme I'm Tom Ford, I'm so fabulous and high-class I can get away with bullshit and people will fall to their knees and say, mm... smells like 'spring daisies and cinnamon'! That man, he is a GENIUS!" By the way, Black Orchid smelled more or less like Rush, you runny nose of an egotrip.
The perfume bottle is a penis...
Bah, that's a metaphor that a MORON could come with.
No, see, that's why she's all greased up and pressing her breasts together, the bottle stopper is phallic, see? And her mouth is open to catch the...
PERFUME-BOTTLE TITTY FUCK?!
There's no need to use such language!
YOU MEAN LANGUAGE THAT MATCHES THE IMAGE?!
Labels: culture notes, perfume, tom ford
subscribe
in a reader
September 24, 2007 3:01 PM,
Eh...none of this is new. It looks new, but I remember more controversy over Brooke Shields' jeans ads for Calvin Klein...which didn't show anything. Just Shields saying a couple of lines...Guess what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.
Shields was 15 at the time (she's my age)...if they had picked a model even a few years older, there would have been no controversy at all.
So you're thinking, bleh, those look like fake porn ads...but everyone has high speed Internet access these days. There's very little they haven't already seen. If they'd brought out those ads in 1980, instead of the Shields one, they'd probably have ended up in court, right next to Larry Flynt. But now it's like eh...if it's that good, it really should sell itself.
September 24, 2007 3:17 PM,
Oldest trick in the book. That's what I object to. It's like, wow, he's doing something new, something gutsy, and it's like... nooo... there's nothing clever or innovative at all.
September 24, 2007 6:10 PM,
This post has been removed by the author.
September 24, 2007 6:30 PM,
Yeah...I'm not seeing much revolution going on here. It would be far more radical to work "free birth control for all" into the motif, but this is just plain Wisconsin cheese.
I've had that happen before too. I think it will eventually show, but I've also gone in and republished the individual post to get the comment to show.
September 24, 2007 7:43 PM,
Hmmm...I liked Sex and the City.
I never watched it regularly (don't have HBO, for one thing)...and I don't care for the sanitized version. But I have seen a few episodes and liked them.
I'm too old to appreciate the fashions and frills...and you're thinking, eh, you have to make a mint to be able to afford living in New York City anyway. That part of it was just silly to me, the "Hollywood budget" where no one seems to work themselves to death, yet there's loads of money floating around.
What I liked was a show with four female leads, who weren't idiots, and didn't feel obligated to drown themselves in the village pond for having sex without being married. It's probably the age gap, but I barely noticed what they wore (except Sarah Jessica Parker's character, if only because people don't tend to dress in an "individual" way out here). I just thought it was kind of neat, they didn't marry the first guy who came along, they had careers, there was more to their lives than, ah, vacuuming.
September 24, 2007 7:57 PM,
That is a good point. Only a few decades ago, women couldn't do the things the SATC girls could do without feeling like they were being uppity sluts. Doesn't that make them inspirational? My answer is no... As degradation goes, it is better than before, but now it's by choice... I'll illustrate my meaning in the next post.
September 24, 2007 10:36 PM,
Weeellll...I'm not thinking of them as role models exactly. It's like the Hollywood budget; I saw enough of the show to see them with a different guy practically every week. It's highly unreal.
But keep in mind the kind of tv show I grew up with. Most of the shows were centered around guys. All of the girls knew all of the shows that had female leads and watched them all, no matter how old the show was.
So you had Mary Tyler Moore, That Girl, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Flying Nun, then the "newer" shows such as The Bionic Woman, Charlie's Angels, One Day At a Time...I cherished those shows.
I can't really pick apart the behavior of the women in Sex and the City, I don't think they had to be saintly any more than men have to be saintly.
As far as the retail therapy aspect, I can agree that isn't particularly great, but men have had their expensive toys for eons...men have been doing retail therapy since forever. It's just that their version of it is established, and our version, however people may feel about it, is new.
September 24, 2007 10:37 PM,
I'm sorry...every time I see that booby-and-perfume pic, I start laughing. lol
Post a comment (NO SPAM)
Links to this post:
Create a Link