Bella donna’s the new face of chic
Kevin Buckley in Milan
Car hooter: BMW’s advertisers see this beak-nosed beauty as Claudia Schiffer’s nemesis.
EPITOMISING the marriage of power and elegance, the machine sweeps into view, silently pulling up next to a deserted outdoor swimming pool.
The glamorous setting is, rather predictably, accentuated by the svelte form of a beautiful young woman draped in a clinging evening dress. As the camera offers a lingering close-up, contrasting her creamy white skin with her long, straight, jet-black hair, her head turns gracefully. And reveals a profile dominated by an large, crooked nose. The visual surprise hits the viewer harder than the car’s price tag would, if it were shown.
In the next scene the same car attracts the gaze of another model. But as she smiles, her lips part to reveal a huge gap between her pearly white front teeth. By the third scene, it is no surprise when the languid figure admiring the car from a phone box pushes open the doors to squint with beautiful, yet severely crossed, eyes.
In Italy, where incessant worship of ‘la bellezza’ comes close to a cloying national obsession, the iconoclastic advert provides perhaps the clearest evidence yet of what many in the fashion and media world see as a new trend toward more realistic images of both men and women.
‘Nothing is perfect’ was the slogan behind the car ad which ended with a close-up of a slight dent inflicted on one of the car’s side panels. Until now brands wanted to be associated with absolute perfection, which was why supermodels found so much employment in advertising outside the fashion industry.
But BMW was confident that its adverts reflected the views held by their target audience.
The gamble paid off. The ads for its new Series 5 model have already won prizes at home and abroad.
Federico Fasolino, producer for BMW, explained the message underpinning the campaign: "Models like Claudia Schiffer are undoubtedly beautiful, but they immediately give an image of unattainable beauty, beyond the reach of both men and women. Women often see other women as competitors, and so they don’t like to see superior women. With these ads, we wanted to show women who are more like real women. To show that you can be beautiful, even if you’re not perfect."
The advert’s British director, Jason Harring, held casting auditions in New York, Paris, London, and Milan to find the right models.
"The model with the large nose we found in New York. She does have a prominent nose, but of course not like you see in the ad. We took existing defects, and exaggerated them," says Fasolino.
Fasolino pointed to the new trend of more believable looks personified by actresses and models such as, Hilary Swank, Chiara Mastroianni, and Juliet Binoche to support the style of the BMW advert. "The days of Claudia Schiffer are over," he said.
A similar style will next month grace the pages of GQ Italia which has a feature on seduction.
Fabrizio Ferri, the photographer who was commissioned to illustrate the feature said that thin models appeared asexual and ill at ease with themselves. "Most of the models were the super thin kind, but one was a woman with a fuller figure. As the models were walking around, naked, during the work, it was really noticeable how differently she behaved."
With image-makers such as Ferri propagating the new
trend, it may well be that Italy could yet be saying
"ciao bella" to the skeletal Barbies of screen and
catwalk. Era ora, about time too.
-- Anonymous, April 22, 2001