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I'm really in love with the new Bvlgari ads shot by Mert & Marcus.
Their old ads with Jessica Stam were beautiful, but Julianne Moore
lends a very different quality to the brand. In Bvlgari's previous ads,
I always felt like Stam's icy look had a very upper class, "don't touch
me" air - as if the ads were saying: "we're Bvlgari and we're probably
too expensive for you". Beautiful but wintry, aloof and distant; as if we
were not meant to connect with the product. It was just something to
be admired from afar. Nothing unusual for a luxury brand, of course.
Julianne's ads have a whole other feel. 'Feel' being the key word, I
think, because I actually feel something when I look at them. They
aren't cold and estranged. They have a mystique that tempts and
teases, and invites you in. The colours are richer, more exotic and
more luxuriant - jewel tones and lustre, textured with embroidery,
velvet and feathers. A friend of mine hated the birds. Apparently,
cockatoos are abundant where she lives, but I think it's all about
context. Her country is not one that luxury brand advertisements
target, and to its intended audience, these cockatoos allude to
an exotic tropical paradise. I just like them coz they're cute. Here,
Julianne has this otherworldly elegance. The class she exudes
is less WASP-ish and more effortless than Stam's - and also more
sensual. She's like a modern day Eve lounging around some luxury
version of paradise where the only woman ever created spends
her days befriending silky-feathered avians on beds of satin and
velvet. Instead of fig leaves, she's dripping in jewels.
...
