Fragrances: Smile When You Say That

Scandalous, simply scandalous! That seems to be the reaction that many designers want to provoke with their ad campaigns. Raciness has become so routine that Calvin Klein fills his ads with ever greater numbers of nude bodies, as if to make up for declining shock value. But last week a rival, Perry Ellis, managed to create a fuss with a new tactic for selling men’s cologne: a whiff of vulgarity. An Ellis print ad contains a 260-word monologue, in which a model claims to be so fond of the fragrance that he took a bottle from his employer while flashing “my best f— you smile.”Women’s Wear Daily and the New York Times Magazine banned the ad, though the word was not spelled out.

Ellis, for his part, will probably look back on the fuss with his best thank-you smile. The tizzy has no doubt boosted awareness of the ad, which is to appear in six other magazines, including Vanity Fair and Cosmopolitan.