Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Kim Kardashian: the "Voluptuous" New Ad

After bootylicious star Beyonce with her Heat, another celebrity (albeit famous for less creative endeavours) debuts her eponymous celebrity fragrance (will there be no end?), named after her: Kim Kardashian and developed by Lighthouse Beauty. Between that and Carl's Jr salads commercials, the starlet famous for her Keeping up with the Kardashians participation hasn't been idle.

The advertisment has the booylicious Kim dressed in vintage pink lingerie (the push-up bra being a little too modern maybe) and a marabou coat, swinging from a circle-trapeze burlesque-style. I personally think her best feature (her warm softness) is traded for some "hardened" glam-shot in which her face appears a little too austere, perhaps in an effort to lend some retro high-cheekbones and dark-lips-on-white-canvas drama. The trapeze mirrors the smoky bottle ~with some necessary pink on the neck, let's not forget~ bearing her initials; one K mirrored-into the other like the two faces of Janus. On a sidenote, funny how all the Kardashian sisters have names starting with a K! It would be hard to position themselves if they all started producing their own fragrances, but anyway.
Kim Kardashian the fragrance could have been a bootichouli: After all, who better nowadays than realistically curvaceous women to bring back those unabashedly feminine compositions. But no, it will be a white floral instead (yawn?) with a sensual soft base, encompassing jasmine, tuberose and gardenia at the heart and tonka bean coupled with sandalwood for the base. Sounds rather nice, if a little "been there, done that", no? Prices will start from super-affordable $16 for a 0.33-oz. rollerball and up to $65 for a 3.4-oz. spray bottle. The Kim Kardashian fragrance debuts in February, exclusively at Sephora.

What do you think about the advertisement?

Pic courtesy of Stylewatch.

13 comments:

  1. Don't know about the perfume yet (I'm Escada, Gucci and Herrera fan), but the ad is gorgeous. I really like the poster - Kim looks good nowadays. :)

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  2. Anonymous17:57

    Reminds me of the Chanel commercial (can't remember which scent) in which Vanessa Paradis swings on a swing and tweets like a bird (there was an ad like that, no? Or am I just crazy?). Kim one-ups Vanessa with actual feathers.

    Honestly, I think it is a beautiful ad but nothing out of the ordinary. It would not make me stop and stare whilst flipping though a mag.
    Natalia

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  3. Pobe,

    I can't vouch for the perfume either, but I agree that Kim looks good, in that commercial linked (the one for the salads) she's positively steaming!
    It's a nice poster, if a little "sharp". (she reminds me of someone specific there, but I am cracking my head and can't come up with the actual name, urgh....)

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  4. Natalia,

    excellent eye and memory, my dear!!
    Indeed it was for Coco that Vanessa Paradis posed as a little bird (seems so antithetical to its baroque, mature "image", eh?) I always thought that commercial was sheer brilliance...

    As to Kim's ad, it's certainly very pretty, but it doesn't seem really different nowadays, I agree.

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  5. Anonymous23:22

    How could I have underestimated Chanel and Vanessa?! Of course Vanessa had the feathers long before Kim donned them! And on her bum no less! Brilliant!

    And I agree, E, that is a classic commercial I can't help but love.

    Natalia

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  6. Mystic Knot11:18

    I like this advertisement very much - it's very well done.

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  7. N,

    I knew we'd see eye to eye on that Coco commercial. It's brilliant and very playful.

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  8. MK,

    it's old-Holywood-style somehow, I guess this is what appeals to us :-)
    (and ever so slightly Dita von Teese as well!)

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  9. ::rolls eyes:: Puh-leeze...

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  10. Hi E. - Just getting to this, but it looks like I'm going to be the rain on the parade. Woman as sex object - I thought we'd moved beyond that 40 years ago. Guess not.

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  11. SS,

    there's the point of no return: EVERYONE will have a celebritoid scent out, everyone. There's no escape! :P

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  12. Donna,

    I have more or less resigned in what regards that line of thinking: I don't see perfume ever disassociating itself from objectifying women as objects of sexual attraction and consumation *sigh* There were some innovative ads and commercials once upon a time (JPGoude and Mondino did some clever work)and I long for them like you wouldn't imagine, but it's getting lazy nowadays.... So I tend to only judge with aesthetic criteria any more.
    I can certainly see your point though!!

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  13. Something this blatantly "woman as whore" bothers me much more than say, Keira Knightly in the Chanel Coco Mademoiselle ad. I understand what you're saying, but I think that the continuous bombarding us with these ads into complacency is exactly the patricarchy's goal. But I'm a lot older than you are and have fought this fight. I hate to see younger women relinquish hard won ground.

    ReplyDelete

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