Marc Jacobs is a fine specimen of a man, agreed? He’s got a ripped bod, super cool tattoos and is basically a David LaChapelle dream boy, oh, and one of today’s most prolific and successful designers.
We’ve already seen almost every inch of Marc for the Stephen Sprouse x Louis Vuitton campaign, with his body resembling a pink LV graffiti leopard. So the statement there was clear – ‘stop thinking of me as geeky, awkward, drugged up Marc. My body is a temple, and what a place to worship! In a non-arrogant, ironic way, mind you.’
This brings me on to the reason for such Marc dissection – his new mens fragrance, Bang. If it wasn’t all over the internet, I’d guess that the Bang campaign was an April Fool’s joke. The only resemblance to the Marc Jacobs brand as we know it is naked Marc, with ‘come hither’ eyes, covering up Little Marc with the bulletproof bottle. It seems to have been inspired by the image of a Yves Saint Laurent taken by Jeanloup Sieff for his 1971 fragrance, Pour Homme.
This new direction come as a bit of a surprise, as the Marc Jacobs fragrances seemed to be targeting the younger, NYLON generation, with Lola, Daisy and this summer’s Splash fragrances inspired by macaroons in a Paris patisserie. Of course, the men need a bit of MJ love and Bang is the first Marc Jacobs men’s fragrance in over a decade. Marc Jacobs Men is cool and understated, but a little uninspiring compared to its sister fragrances, but is the male population ready for the raw, in-your-face sexuality of Bang?
Gone are the innocent days of Sofia Coppola languishing in a pool filled with gardenias, but everything about Bang just screams sex. Not the kind of alluring, intoxicating sex of Purple Diary, Gucci or YSL Opium, but the kind of bawdiness of a Carry On film. Even the name Bang suggest crappy, back seat sex and doesn’t the female model look like she’s been sprayed with some man fluids?!
On the the fragrance itself – the bottle is futuristic Thierry Mugler and is supposed to look all scrunchy, like a bullet has hit it in the centre. The perfume does actually sound delicious and spicy with notes of black, pink and white peppercorns, wood, vetiver, white moss, patchouli and the rather odd sounding benzoin and elemi resinoid (perfume addicts will know about these, but to me they sound strangely like American prescription drugs).
I don’t want to take too much of a stern, serious approach to the campaign, as Marc Jacobs brings a lot of humour and fun to fashion and has the right to take his label in any direction he wants. It’s bold and confrontational, much like his more recent collections and it will be interesting to see if such a tongue-in-cheek campaign will make it a major hit with its target demographic of young, style-conscious guys, or if it will be seen as too gimmicky.
So, are you loving Marc’s fearless, playful campaign, or does it make you want to grab Sofia and stage an intervention? Who does the advertising speak to and will they be down with it? Comments please!