Oh Chanel! You've done it again.

So, it has come to this. And obviously, I can't let such a thing go by without posting it here in all it's contrived, luxury, haute couture, ridiculous glory. Here you have it, Gisele Budchen, supermodel, not riding a not waxed surfboard:



(Note: I cannot find who the surfer - the actual surfer doing surfing - is in this clip. Can you please let me know when you find out! Seems weird they've not said...)

The thing is that it's just so 'bad rad', so beyond reality that it's hardly worth saying much. It feels like watching an action film - those films like X-Men or Iron Man or Pacific Rim, that are so filled to the brim with sexism, racism, homophobia, false history and incredulousness that I really can't be bothered critiquing them, and thus find myself going back for more. This clip is the same in that it's 'So fashion! Much Chanel! Very surf!' that it becomes a parody of itself.

And Chanel is no newcomer to this. They've been making sporting accessories and using surfing to promote their clothes, scents and aesthetic for some time now (those hyperlinks are all to previous posts of mine on this topic). Vogue has been a part of this too, with Steph Gilmore and Laura Enever willing participants in the pose-y oddness of it.


While Cori Schumacher rightly takes a more critical direction on talking about this, this time I see it as another case of co-opting and using the idea of surfing, the image of surfers and surfer girls to sell stuff.* It's gross, sure, but I'm not sure what to make of it - what it might mean. Maybe it's just Baz Luhrmann having another self-indulgent laugh.



I hope you watch this 'behind the scenes' clip because it really is crazy. It reminds me of the guy I wrote about yesterday. I mean, as much as I love listening to guys tell me who "women" are and what we can do - sorry, who "The Chanel Woman" is and what She can do - at some point, it's just funny. Especially when it's this expensive.

Maybe NZ is having a chilling out effect on me, but in the case of this Chanel clip I just found so silly that I laughed. I mean, look at her face while she's getting massively barrelled:


Haha. Stop worrying about your stupid boyfriend and enjoy the moment, character-played-by-Gisele! After all, you're surfing! Right?

Oh, and P.S.:

Grease - You Are The One That I Want from rodrigo fischer on Vimeo.



*The books I link to by Fiona Capp, Kristin Lawler and Krista Comer are all great and you should check them out!


Comments

  1. It's as if someone took Dada absurdism, married it with Situationalism then covered it with a hard candy shell shaped like a Brutalist building then beer batter fried it in the shape of a surf film. I love it. There are so many odd things that make no sense far beyond the "surfing" scenes. I wish more surf filmmakers could be so nonsensically inventive.

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  2. I want to lay down in the sand and lather myself up with this thing and then smoke a cigar. I hate myself for it. So confused.
    BAD RAD makes BAD GERRY.

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  3. It's called, 'The Baz Luhrmann Treatment', Toddy. He is super creative, but his stuff is becoming too much - like I said, as though it's a parody of itself. His films 'Strictly Ballroom' and 'Romeo and Juliet' are so great - you should definitely watch Strictly Ballroom if you haven't already by the way - but when you get to a point that you're talking about this as though it really has any meaning, I think the fun gets lost. Art for arts sake is cool, but I still like his old stuff better than this hyper-commodified new stuff. It's like Luhrmann lite.

    Still super pretty, creative and clever, but.

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  4. This time I don't get your thinking.
    This is marketing. I personally find great that pic with two all dressed up models walking with longboards.
    I've been working in tv and advertising. Every single thing you see on a screen is technically wrong. Doctors, cops, car chasing, guns, love, sex.. sport action.. whatever. Even reality shows are fake.
    So what's the point? They made an over brained ad where the surf part could not be real. What's new?
    Actually they made a great, fantastic job because Id' never had watched it if half of the surf/web world wouldn't be talking about it and the no-wax board. So they reached an audience that wouldn't care about them before. They reached their goal.

    And btw: I misunderstood all the talking about the no-wax part, and hoped to find something to use instead of wax. That's not the case :)
    but there are products made for this purpose. I'm going to try them soon.
    Ciao Fed

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  5. I totally agree with you, Fed! They don't care about surfing - it's just a beautiful 'idea' that they're using to sells their own beautiful stuff. It's so far-fetched and unreal that I actually think it's beautiful, even as I think it's stupid. Haha.

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  6. Apprreciate you blogging this

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