Karl Lagerfeld designs bottles for Diet Coke

German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, who famously lost 90 pounds in 2001 on a regimen of Diet Coke and steamed vegetables, lent his silhouette to limited-edition, collectable bottles of Diet Coke last year. He's doing it again this summer, as it turns out, with three bottle designs instead of just one. The bottles will be sold individually, but whether or not they'll each be equipped with miniature fur coats this time around has yet to be determined. You'd think employing a special Diet Coke butler would be enough of a tribute to the brand, but I guess the gratitude of a man who can fit into his prom tuxedo again shouldn't be underestimated.

Filed under Coca-Cola, Design, Fashion, Kiefaber
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Calvin Klein billboard secretly curses at you

Some eagle-eyed, right-thinking patriots in lower Manhattan have blown the lid off a subliminal advertising scandal. The offender is this Calvin Klein billboard at East Houston and Lafeyette, which sneakily spells out the word FUCK, if you look closely enough. The C and K are featured in the brand's logo, but you have to hunt a bit for the F and U (which is strange, since FU's usually fly around freely on the streets of New York). The table in the background forms the F. The bikini bottoms of the scantily clad heroin-chic model suggest the letter U. The threat's clear, people! I've long insisted that nefarious subliminal tactics and secret messages permeate mass media, but my colleagues here at AdFreak just laugh and tell me to take the tin foil off my head. Wake up, people! Stare at the six-pack abs of the Old Spice guy—preferably after consuming several six packs—and watch as they morph into the face of the evil one, ruler of the damned! That's right—Sarah Palin, with Isaiah's hunky pecs forming the horns! Play Beatles songs backwards, you'll hear the Rolling Stones! And if you squint and tilt your head at just the right angle, you just might notice some cleverly concealed female buttocks on this casino billboard in New Jersey.

Filed under Calvin Klein, Controversy, Fashion, Gianatasio
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Gaultier lesbian ad not quite what it appears

Fashion advertising is long past being scandalized by little lesbianism. But what if one of the women isn't actually a woman? That's sure to get you some meta buzz, as Jean Paul Gaultier is discovering with his new campaign featuring Victoria's Secret model Karolina Kurkova (left) and androgynous male model Andrej Pejic (right). The campaign is getting lots of attention for its faux sappho, partly because, as the Huffington Post notes, it comes on the heels of a Love magazine cover about androgyny which features Kate Moss kissing transsexual model Lea T. But it takes three to make a trend, so here's hoping GoDaddy.com finds a way to work this concept into the Super Bowl.

Filed under Fashion, Griner, Jean Paul Gaultier
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Model from infamous anorexia ad dead at 28

Isabelle Caro, the French model who starred in a notorious anti-anorexia campaign shot by Oliviero Toscani, has died at age 28, according to the Associated Press. We wrote about that campaign when it broke in 2007. Caro weighed just 68 pounds at the time, and had battled anorexia since age 13. She was interviewed for Jessica Simpson's show The Price of Beauty this past March. See that video below.

Filed under Fashion, Health, Nudd, Obituaries
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Dior helps Ian McKellen lose the wheelchair

This week's unlikely advertising theme: dudes miraculously getting up out of their wheelchairs. It happened in yesterday's stirring Johnnie Walker spot from BBH. And it happens again in this less poignant—and mostly incomprehensible—six-minute short film for Dior by director John Cameron Mitchell and Anonymous Content. The ad stars Marion Cotillard as a burlesque dancer who seduces wheelchair-bound Ian McKellan—and in a not-very-subtle metaphor, brings some spark back to his formerly lifeless legs. Make of the rest of it what you will. It promotes the new Lady Dior bag.

Filed under Celebrity endorsements, Dior, Fashion, Nudd
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Hilfiger TV spots get predictable soundtrack

In July, I described the Hilfigers as looking like a "highly coordinated clan tailgating outside the Vampire Weekend concert." Well, what do you know. What began as a print and Web campaign for Tommy Hilfiger has made its TV debut with, you guessed it, a Vampire Weekend soundtrack. OK, it's not very surprising that the preppiest ad campaign for the preppiest brand would include the preppiest band. But give me my small victories, people.

Filed under Fashion, Griner, Tommy Hilfiger
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Calvin Klein ads banned for promoting rape

Another week, another Calvin Klein ad campaign in trouble. This one, starring Dutch model Lara Stone, has been banned in Australia for being "suggestive of violence and rape." Australia's ad watchdog said the image "was demeaning to women by suggesting that she is a plaything of these men. It also demeans men by implying sexualized violence against women." The gang-rape imagery is most reminiscent of the 2007 ad that got Dolce & Gabbana in so much trouble.

Filed under Australia, Calvin Klein, Controversy, Fashion, Nudd
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Are you really up for meeting the Hilfigers?

Who is this highly coordinated clan tailgating outside the Vampire Weekend concert? Why, it must be the Hilfigers, a fictional family set to star in new ads and online marketing for Tommy Hilfiger. Created by agency Laird + Partners, the 16-character "Meet the Hilfigers" campaign kicks off with 10-page inserts in major magazines such as Vogue, GQ and Vanity Fair. Some of the family members will have Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, etc., which seems a bit much. It's going to take some pretty stellar writing to build an engaging, Wes Anderson-esque character study out of what is essentially just an overcrowded photo shoot.

Filed under Fashion, Griner, Tommy Hilfiger
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Is Ralph Lauren now Photoshopping dogs?

Ralph Lauren, long criticized for Photoshopping humans, is now under fire for allegedly Photoshopping non-humans. At issue is the Camp Polo ad above, which features a Labrador with an unusual-looking head. At first glance, the proportion of the head to the body looks uneven, but as the Daily Mail points out, another ad with the same cast shows the same dog looking pretty normal. Some think it's just the dog's fur poofing out from the shirt, which I agree with, but it's not unreasonable to be skeptical, given the marketer's track record with an overactive Photoshop pen. Besides, anyone who would put a dog in a collared shirt is capable of anything. But the bottom line here is: At least they didn't Photoshop a human penis on the dog.

Filed under Fashion, Kiefaber, Ralph Lauren
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Diesel's 'Be stupid' work too stupid for U.K.

Diesel's "Be stupid" campaign, created by ad agency Anomaly, won a Grand Prix in Outdoor at Cannes last week. But two of the executions won't be seen outdoors, or anywhere else, in the U.K. from now on. The Ad Standards Authority has banned the two ads shown here—one with a woman flashing a surveillance camera, and a second with another woman photographing the inside of her bikinis bottoms—on the grounds that they're indecent and promote anti-social behavior. The Daily Mail has the full story, in which Diesel humorously deconstructs the ads in an effort to defend them. The top ad, the fashion brand said, "tackled society's preoccupation with 24/7 camera surveillance in a light and non-threatening way," while the bottom ad "portrayed a very strong and unexpected image of femininity, aligning it with typically masculine themes." The ASA was having none of it. It said the bottom ad, in particular, was "likely to cause serious offense to many adults because it was clear that she was taking a photograph of her genitalia."

Filed under Anomaly, Controversy, Diesel, Fashion, Nudd
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Fashion ad's pink Hitler has Italy seeing red

Hitler is already a theme this week. This time, a clothing company in Italy put up billboards in Palermo showing the Nazi leader in a pink uniform with a heart armband, and telling young people to "Change style. Don't follow your leader." See the full image here. Isn't the message here compromised a bit by the source? After all, this is a company that tries to dictate what young people should wear. See, this is why Godwin's Law and subsequent corollaries should be taught in the schools. Also, someone out there needs to start a band and name it Pink Hitler.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Filed under Controversy, Europe, Fashion, Hitler, Kiefaber
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Unlikely model aping American Apparel ads

Jes Sachse, a Canadian woman who has a rare genetic disorder called Freeman-Sheldon syndrome, appears in a bunch of American Apparel spoof ads from photographer Holly Norris—part of an art project that seeks to question the way people with disabilities are presented in the media. Norris explains on her website: "I chose American Apparel not just for their notable style, but also for their claims that many of their models are just 'everyday' women who are employees, friends and fans of the company. However, these women fit particular body types. ... Women with disabilities go unrepresented, not only in American Apparel advertising, but also in most of popular culture." Norris got approval from American Apparel itself to run the photos in the Toronto subway, according to the Toronto Star. Of course, Sachse, 25, is hardly an everyday woman herself. She's 4-foot-9, her spine is curved, and her right leg is shorter than her left. Yet she's more comfortable in her own skin than many models. She says of the photos: "I feel like my own sexual confidence is projected through. ... I feel like I look confident in what I'm doing."

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Filed under American Apparel, Canada, Fashion, Nudd, Parody
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Calvin Klein's models better seen, not heard

It's not every day someone forwards you an ad with the question, "You wanna see a bunch of naked cursing dudes?" Um … maybe? Calvin Klein's new X campaign is just that: a bunch of dudes cussing in their underwear. The words are bleeped out, but the abs are on full display. This time, instead of paying for one David Beckham, they got four hot men: Twilight star Kellan Lutz, Japanese footballer Hidetoshi Nakata, Spanish tennis player Fernando Verdasco and True Blood star Mehcad Brooks (click the links to watch their individual videos). Since two of the four star in vampire dramas, I'm going to assume the campaign is trying to get women to buy Calvins for their men. But even with the power of vampires, Calvin's shock shtick is getting old. And when did it switch from sex to foul language? Maybe it didn't—maybe it's supposed to be dirty talk, but It just feels awkward. Aren't models supposed to just sit back and let me gawk at them like the eye candy they are? It's much more difficult to casually objectify them when they're being so in-your-face. All I can say is, thank goodness for the print campaign.

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

Filed under Calvin Klein, Cullers, Fashion, Underwear
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K&G clothes protect you from serious injury

They say the clothes make the man, or woman. Mullen's first work for K&G asserts that cool threads also make ordinary folks "invincible." In one spot, a guy feels confident enough in his new suit to rescue animals from a burning building, take down a nunchucks-wielding martial artist and ride a pogo-stick into traffic … blindfolded. Another ad opens with a suburban mommy type smashing through a second-story window to start her walk around the block, which includes catching an arrow shot by an archery-loving neighbor. He shouldn't be practicing in his driveway. Now, wags might overinterpret and say these people aren't so much invincible as stupid. Lighten up, wags! These spots are diverting, goofy alternatives to the category's usual price-driven knockoffs plucked from adland's bargain bins. Whoa, that last sentence was hot. I feel invincible!

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Fashion, Gianatasio, H&K, Mullen
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Newark outraged by pretty tame Akoo board

This sexually suggestive billboard for clothing label Akoo has stirred up enough controversy in Newark, N.J., that CBS Outdoor has agreed to take it down early. As Gothamist points out, a lot of the indignation seems to have been manufactured, as most people interviewed on the street didn't notice the ad until it was pointed out to them (though then they had plenty of damning views on it). Some are defending the ad by saying it's less explicit than Calvin Klein's SoHo boards, though of course that isn't a real argument for keeping it up. Newark city council president Mildred Crump, whose name is appropriate in an almost Dickensian way relative to this topic, told NJ.com that she's "so sick of people seeing Newark as a place where they can do whatever they want." She can rest assured that no one outside of New Jersey sees Newark that way.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Filed under Akoo, Controversy, Fashion, Kiefaber
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Hip actors do hip video for hip fashion label

Jason Schwartzman and Kirsten Dunst are two hipsters in love in what amounts to a self-consciously indie music video, above, for Opening Ceremony clothing, which provided the stars' wardrobes. I'd never heard of Opening Ceremony until now, but their Web site says they do for fashion what the Olympics did for "creatively merging sports, business and global participation." The other Olympic connection is that this meandering, four-minute, non-linear ad is on par with couples' ice dancing. But at least the company has progressed from 2008, when they let Chloë Sevigny develop a clothing line inspired by high-school nostalgia and her enthusiasm for Depeche Mode. Via Pop Candy.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Filed under Celebrity endorsements, Fashion, Kiefaber, Opening Ceremony
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Prada film almost exactly what you'd expect

[Video is NSFW due to brief nudity.] The fashion world has long sucked all life out of the human form, and so it goes in James Lima's artsy clip for Love magazine and Prada. Though visually intriguing (it was shot using an ultra-high-res digital technique), "The Love Thing" crams almost every industry cliché into its dance-floor-beat-driven 52-second running time (followed by a minute and a half of credits). Too-skinny models, retro/sci-fi imagery, come-hither stares and soft-core strutting abound. It's all there. What's love got to do with it? This is a landscape devoid of passion, a vapid realm where the line between living flesh and CG blurs like lipstick smeared across a video screen.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Fashion, Gianatasio, Magazines, Prada
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Emma Watson's leg MIA in new Burberry ad

This Burberry ad featuring Emma Watson is attracting a lot of attention because Emma's right leg has vanished into hammerspace. Also, rumors persist that the alleged dude next to her is her brother. That's honestly the weirder point to consider, especially since dodgy camera angles and over-enthusiastic editing have been an issue with fashion photography for years now. But if they really want to find Emma's leg, it's probably drinking appletinis with Helen Phillps' leg, Demi Moore's hip, Halle Berry's face, Tiger Woods' racial identity, and everything else that's been lost to the whims of Photoshop. See more ads from the series here. Via BuzzFeed.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Filed under Burberry, Celebrity endorsements, Fashion, Kiefaber
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What's up with Lanvin's skinned red model?

Various blogs have chimed in on the possible meaning and questionable aesthetic of this ad for Paris fashion house Lanvin that seems to show a model without skin. See the full NSFW ad here. Copyranter wonders if it's part of a "nude zombie trend." (Nope. She could be wearing very small pants.) The Cut asks readers if they find the ad "creepy." (Well, the guy in the ad, yes. Such a hopeless poseur.) Live and Uncensored! explains that it's a fashion-industry in-joke. But as a lifelong journalist and critic, I have no interest in facts. My take is the only thing that matters. Clearly, it's an ironic commentary on the frightening skinniness of models (soon they'll have no flesh at all!), and a black-humored nod to the fact that if they stop eating altogether, which some apparently have, they'll wind up dead. Bottom line: If you know a skinny model, buy her a cheeseburger before she winds up turning her whole world inside out.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Controversy, Fashion, Gianatasio
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Wait, ad-agency CEOs have stylists, too?

Perhaps I'm naive, but I always thought that only Hollywood celebrities had stylists. Not so. They're also helping those in the upper echelons of the agency world. Lisa Kline, the wardrobe consultant who gave Sarah Palin her controversial makeover before the Republican National Convention, also works for Deutsch North America CEO Linda Sawyer. In fact, in a profile of the Manhattan fashion consultant, Sawyer serves as a reference for Kline's yeoman's work. "She doesn't impose her style on you, and she just has a great eye," Sawyer tells The New York Times. Kline's other clients include "well-heeled corporate executives and television news personalities, including local and network anchors."

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Filed under Fashion, Morrissey
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BBH staffer's Mrs. O blog, now in book form

Everyone in the ad industry loves stories where agencies do things for themselves rather than clients. The success of these projects can be debated. See Honeyshed. Now, BBH New York is celebrating the fruits of its labor with the release of Mrs. O: The Face of Fashion Democracy, a companion book to the Mrs. O blog that BBH account planner Mary Tomer started last fall to celebrate the style of Michelle Obama. The blog has remained popular. According to Quantcast, it gets about 27,000 visitors a month. Brain Pickings has an interview with Tomer.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Filed under BBH, Fashion, Morrissey, Politics
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Site picks 50 sluttiest American Apparel ads

You know you've been working the slutty angle when someone can look at your advertising history and narrow it down to the 50 sluttiest ads. That's what StyleCrave has done with American Apparel. (The gallery is NSFW, it probably goes without saying.) The occasion is the recent ban on an American Apparel ad in the U.K. for sexualizing a model who appears to be under 16 years old. (The model is actually 23, but looks younger.) The company has bigger problems this week, though, as it's planning to lay off more than a quarter of its factory work force in L.A. amid a probe by U.S. immigration authorities.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

See also:
Gap's new ads seem very American Apparel
American Apparel pays up to settle its lawsuit with Woody Allen

Filed under American Apparel, Fashion, Nudd
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Calvin's orgy ad causes predictable scandal

Calvin Klein doing something risque? I know you're all shocked. But an enormous billboard in New York's SoHo district, which has been up for a month, has people talking again. The controversy concerns a topless young girl lying on top of a bare-chested dude while kissing another dude—total threeway, unless you count the guy lying in the foreground, who obviously passed out before things got really good. I maintain that CK is actually giving SoHo its first relevant PSA: Don't party too hard, or you'll miss out on the group sex. You'd think that after all CK has done in the past people would just go, "That's Calvin for ya, always racy!" and look the other way. But the coverage by CBS's Early Show (with a cameo by our own Barbara Lippert) proves that prepubescent threesomes never get old. But the best part of the clip is the woman who admits that if that's what the jeans do for you, she'll certainly buy a pair. You've come a long way, baby!

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

Filed under Calvin Klein, Controversy, Cullers, Fashion, Threesomes
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Astronauts are the stars in Louis Vuitton ad

Louis Vuitton reaches for the heavens in a new print ad starring astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Sally Ride and Jim Lovell. The three appear in this photo, shot by Annie Leibovitz, sitting on the hood of a old truck, gazing up at the moon, on which Aldrin walked 40 years ago this July 20. There will also be a companion video in which the three reminisce about their space travels. (Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, apparently declined to be involved.) The campaign, by Ogilvy & Mather, marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing and is supposed to be a respectful homage to the astronauts, though the product it's endorsing, the $1,530 Icare travel bag, is named for the Greek hero who flew too close to the sun. Huh. Anyway, this continues LV's strategy of using older spokespeople, like Mikhail Gorbachev and Keith Richards, to entice baby boomers who need fancy handbags to distract from how old they've become themselves. So, they should stop calling Armstrong and get Tony Curtis on the phone.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Filed under Celebrity endorsements, Fashion, Kiefaber, Louis Vuitton
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Admen gussied up for AmEx fashion photos

The middle of a tough recession is an iffy time to model $1,500 Burberry trenchcoats. But ad guys don't get the call from from fashion photographers often, so they have to throw caution to the wind when it happens. Jeff Goodby, above, is one of nine ad guys featured in a fashion spread devoted to "Today's Real Mad Men" in the current issue of the American Express lux magazine Departures (published for Platinum Card and Centurion members only). He joins David Droga, Duncan Marshall, Andrew Essex and Ted Royer of Droga5; Gerry Graf of Saatchi & Saatchi; Brad Kay and Marty Cooke of SS+K; and Benson Hausman of Kraftworks NYC. They're all trying their best to look pensive, intelligent and/or stylish, except for Graf, who's just chuckling, maybe because the watch he's wearing is worth more than entry-level Saatchi staff probably make in a year.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Filed under AmEx, Fashion, Nudd
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