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[1] Keira Knightley for Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle advertisement (2001)

Perfume is a luxury cosmetic that is not essential to a daily routine but acts an addition to the status the consumer holds. Perfume “for him” and “for her” are tailored specifically through advertising to create a desirable persona to attract others to them. Perfume brands have a variety of ways to market to their buyers, often contributing to gender performance through film and photographs depicting an ideal form of the self. Using these tactics influence the buyer to choose scents based on how they want to be perceived by other people. The choice of words and perfume packaging aids in self-description or who they familiarize themselves with based on the faces for their chosen perfumes.

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[2] Old Spice commercial featuring Isaiah Mustafa (2010)

Old Spice and Hyper Masculinity

Men’s cologne advertisements are more assertive, playing into the masculinity that exists within the patriarchy. As seen in the above Old Spice commercial, the monologue that is presented reinforces hyper masculinity that has been expected by male members of society to conform to. Actor and spokesperson for Old Spice, Isaiah Mustafa, sells this product by telling men that their ladies will leave them for the “man your man could smell like”. Like many male cologne advertisements, Mustafa is depicted in both a cleansing ritual and a moment of seduction. The act of cleansing, followed by using Old Spice’s body sprays, increase the masculinity and sexual attractiveness.

The assertive ideology of men is prominent in this advertisement. Seeing a male that fits into the ‘ideal man’ can be an intimidation tactic. When Mustafa says, “He could smell like me” while the camera pans out to his body, this insinuates that men need to be muscular and attractive in order to grab the attention of the female. This also implies that if a male does not look like this, on top of using the product, women will leave them for men who look like Mustafa. Male perfume advertisements often show the “increase of masculinity of the carrier and make him irresistible to women” (Petersson McIntrye, 2013). Male consumers associate their colognes and perfumes to make them into more seductive humans as an attempt to eroticize their own bodies.

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[3] Parfum Chanel’s Gabrielle film, featuring Kristen Stewart (2017)

Chanel and the ‘Powerful’ Feminine Body

Chanel has become one of the world’s leading fashion brands that has liberated women to move from feminine constraints and has popularized casual chic as a replacement. Chanel’s numerous perfume lines do not stray away from their fashion ideology.

All of Chanel’s perfume advertisements are labelled as a “film” for each fragrance, implying that there is artistic thought and a story behind each scent. By giving the female actors in these commercials a story and character development, they are not sexualized or using the perfume to seduce men. As seen in the above film for Chanel’s Gabrielle perfume, this was inspired by Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, founder of Chanel, who was self-ruling and advocated for women to be women they want to be. 

Having actress Kristen Stewart, who is known for her leading roles in Twilight (2008) and Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) and has been nominated for numerous awards, shows the power and success that a female can have if they follow this “self-ruling” ideology that the Chanel brand carries. Stewart, who identifies as a bisexual, shows inclusiveness and diverse representation in the brand, marketing towards the queer community as well. The viewer sees Stewart literally breaking away from satin fabric that acts as a delicate, but physical barrier between her and the rest of the world, running and breaking a glass wall (made of larger versions of the Gabrielle perfume). This homage to Coco Chanel discusses the power a woman has while still maintaining gracefulness and femininity.

I must acknowledge an integral part of Chanel history that both directly and indirectly affected Parfums Chanel as a company and their idea of a “powerful woman”. There has been controversy around Coco Chanel’s personal affiliations to the Nazis during World War II. Using her Aryan status, Chanel tried to sue to gain full control of Parfums Chanel back from Pierre Werthejmer, a Jewish man.  Her views were supposedly shaped by her association with the elites as well as her years as a child in a convent. Although her anti-Semite views and her ties as a Nazi agent are highly inappropriate, racist, and do not justify the company’s branding towards “powerful women”, Chanel was still a woman in the early 1940’s whose political stance gave her power and respect amongst the radical German groups. It should be noted that her comeback in 1954 was not supported by the French due to her connections to the war, and that the collection was entirely financed by Wertheimer himself.

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[4] Moschino’s FRESH! CouturePerfume advertisement featuring model Linda Evangelista (2015)

Moschino and the Critique of the Feminine

Moschino, the brand originally created in 1983 by Franco Moschino, is known for their innovation, criticisms towards the fashion industry, and social awareness campaigns.

Canadian model, Linda Evangelista, whose modelling career was mainly during 1984-1987 had returned from her hiatus in 2001and has appeared luxury brand ad campaigns since. In October of 2015, she appears in the above Moschino perfume advertisement. Moschino’s FRESH! Couture perfume mocks the classic “1950’s housewife” stereotype. With Evangelista laying under a literal glass ceiling in a short pinup style hairdo and makeup, she wipes the glass clean using Moschino’s window cleaner shaped bottle, a parody of Windex. The script that plays in the background uses short phrases like “Ooo! Pretty bottle!” and “It sparkles!” which emphasizes the idea that women are attracted to ‘shiny objects’. Based on their other social commentary that is present throughout their brand, Moschino is critiquing feminine expectations in contrast to the modern woman today. An advertisement like this could also be considered a culture jam – critiquing patriarchal ideologies of the female at home.

The design for Moschino’s Fresh! Couture bottle presents itself as a unisex scent. The packing’s design is a simple, Windex shaped bottle, rather than a classic slim, curvature bottle that perfumes often come in. This perfume is a standout in the market due to the conventions of imagery, such as its text and its blue coloring, that are combined to create packaging that does not immediately signal to the gender it is aiming towards (Petersson McIntrye, 2013). Moschino’s lack of gender association in their packaging can be seen as the company making scents “for women”, but also for their male consumers if they enjoy the scent of the perfume. The description of their perfume “The ironic fun of the bottle makes the aspirational accessible to us all” is a nod towards gender fluidity and the social awareness that the company is known for.

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[5] Commodity’s Gender Neutral Advertisement (2018)

Commodity and Gender Neutrality

Commodity is a relatively new fragrance brand, launching in 2015. Ignoring the traditional routes of the perfume industry, their marketing consists of minimalist packaging and unisex scents. On their website, the scents are not divided by gender or called ‘perfume’ or ‘cologne’. Instead, Commodity refers to their products simply as “fragrance”.  Throughout the website, the last sentence of each fragrance description as “for him, for her and for you” (Commodity, 2018). The fragrance notes and descriptions use emotive language to evoke a feeling that the buyer might get when smelling or using the perfume, but do not use words that indicate arousal or sexualize the scent itself.

As summarized by scholar Sarah Cleary, marketing perfumes should “correlate feelings and moods to tangible objects linking possible unattainable things within those that are attainable” (Cleary, 2016). All of Commodity’s fragrances are named after tangible items such as Book, Leather, Gin and Wool. Immediately, there is a correlation to the name and what the consumer would expect the fragrance notes to be inside the bottle. The packaging itself is a round bottle, with a basic font and a neutral colored label. Commodity does not have any video advertisements, nor do the photos (that are not tagged from their ‘community’ Instagram feed) depict male or female users using the product. There is simply a photo that shows two bodies together, still unable to identify their genders. Their consistency in efforts of branding themselves as “unisex” makes their brand unique to other luxury perfumes.

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[6] Carmen Kass for Dior (1999)

Perfume marketing extends beyond commercials to drive sales of brands. Although some advertisements may be straightforward in their message, like Old Spice, others may use this medium as an artistic and performative outlet. Packaging also plays an important role in attracting and tailoring scents to the consumer – the brands they choose to wear say a lot about the person’s personal taste and the effects of gender performance has on them. The portrayal of both the masculine and feminine can range from a hypersexualized point of view to a stance of power, while gender neutral fragrance lines can create an inclusive environment for all perfume or cologne wearers, still evoking a feeling of luxury.

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Citations

Works Cited

Cleary, S. (2016). The Emperor's New Scent: the Use of Sexualized Flesh in Absent Products. Porn Studies, 465. Commodity. (2018, N/A N/A). Commodity Wool. Retrieved from Commodity: https://us.commodity.co.uk/collections/100ml-black-collection/products/wool Petersson McIntrye, M. (2013). Perfume Packaging, Seduction and Gender. Cultural Unbound Journal of Current Cultural Research, 294-295.

Videos and Images Retrieved From

[1] http://athestyleguide.com/revista/?edicion=4#page/2 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_y38L1RINU [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppYAar8Mba4 [5] https://us.commodity.co.uk/ [6] https://intothegloss.com/2015/10/best-fragrance-campaigns/

Header Image Retrieved From

http://www.prada.com/en/fragrance/woman/candy.html