Some Fairy Dust, Some Snake Oil

Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

The first time I saw that, I seriously thought it was a parody. Because Van Cleef & Arpels released a fragrance called Feerie not long ago (chock full o' violets -- I did not enjoy) and this is so obviously a riff on that. However. The VC&A packaging and advertising, though a little twee, is of course light years ahead of this in class and taste, but VC&A does not have the career of a famous-for-nothing no-talent with a cosmically-sized need for attention whose "career" they are trying to advance. Seriously, aren't we through with this young woman yet?

I have nothing to say about the fragrance itself -- I haven't smelled it and I don't plan to. Robin's review on Now Smell This is entertaining & informative, so read that instead. I am going to talk about the styling on this ad, which absolutely made my jaw drop. Parlux, the company that owns Paris Hilton's fragrances, announced earnings of well over $150 million last year, yet they apparently could not be talked into spending more than 60 bucks for this ad, and that's including the alarmingly phallic magic wand. The stylist must have shopped exclusively at Rave & the Disney Princess store -- or maybe just a fabric store for those wispy scraps that are posing as some sort of skirt. And what's with the sparkle-studded ribbons winding up her legs? Is this some sort of My Little Pony Does Bondage thing? Baffling. I'm not completely surprised, of course, since Ms. Hilton's personal taste is routinely excruciating, and the marketing for her previous releases was also pretty cheesy, but this is truly some sort of advertising nadir. This is even worse than the Britney Spears one featuring her with the obviously fake bird sitting on her finger and a couple of yards of hospital gauze wrapped around her tube top. (Warning to all starlets hawking vanity perfumes: if they come at you with a tube top, pitch a stadium-sized hissy fit and start screaming for your manager.)

The best bit about this, though, is this article I found on the Interwebs, from someplace called www.thaindian.com. It claims that Paris did not want there to be any airbrushing on the artwork for the campaign, so she "went totally crazy toning up." Yeah, you betcha. No airbrushing there, nosirree. The article also informs us that "Hilton is not only the face but also the brain behind the fragrance."

'Nuff said.