A Comparison of how women and children are represented in fragrance advertisement from the 1920s, 1970 and 2012

Vivavdou (1920 Print Paris)

Mavis

 Mavis decided to advertise their perfume as an exotic perfume which will enter you into the world of Middle Eastern dreams. We see that there is a woman mid jump with a man behind who assists her and it all seems like ballet. The woman is wearing harem pants to emphasize the atmosphere and the romance of the Middle East. Between her and the man there is some sort of fabric, which looks like a Persian carpet.

The writing at the bottom saying ‘Irresistible!’ tells us that you become something that not many men could resist, even the ones in your dreams as this whole text has a strong feeling of dreaminess because the woman is half floating in the air as it doesn’t seem that her cavalier needs much effort to lift her.

The whole image isn’t very clear or direct which is done in order to catch the audience’s attention because they get curious. The presentation of the woman is very athletic, beautiful and she looks as if she is doing this for herself because there isn’t any audience to admire her. The print uses art noveau to give the print a feel of a dream because art noveau tends to have smooth lines and lines that flow one into another and also the image uses many dark colours such as black and very dark so that there could be warm bright colours. 

In the top left corner there are two lamps hanging in the sky which might be leading to the fact that this whole set up is a dream. The lamps are also drawn in the art noveau style so that they go nicely with the other elements of the text. Also the flowing harem pants that the lady is wearing enhance the feeling of the dreaminess of the whole situation.

In the background you can see a typical Arabian market place which enhances the feel of mystique and that this print was copied out of the book of 1001 Nights. On a denotive level.

There are tiny speckles, which look like stars which came off the sky, near the left edge. I believe that they were placed there so that to enhance the feeling of dreaminess, because people think that romantic dreams always have starlight in them, and it suites the night because during the day we can’t see stars.

This also matches with ‘Mad Men’ era which was happening roughly at that time because what this advert is telling that all a woman can dream of is fairy-tale like situations where they find themselves a man who is quite rich and possibly good looking. The man will then support them, as the clown in the picture does, and help them manage their finances and do all the work whilst they stay at home and wait for him to come from work and taste the food they made.

Revlon (1970 Print?)

Moon Drop

The image is shot in monochromatic style, firstly because it was taken in the 1970’s and photo’s normally were black and white and secondly because the moon is normally white, radiant and comes out in the dark of night. So the woman in this image represents the moon that came out in the black night, which is represented by the black background. The woman’s face is very calm, cool and expressionless yet beautiful, like the moon.

The woman is wearing a silver necklace because silver is associated with the moon from folk lore legends and Aztec stories. The woman also looks very elegant and subtle in the text which means that she comes from a rich house hold which indicates that the target market should be quite well off but not overly rich because the woman is wearing silver and not gold jewellery.

The photographer purposefully allowed all of the bottom edge of the picture so that he could fit the black writing on top of it so that it will be visible. The font is in capitals only and looks very bevelled and as if it was cut out on rock. This tells us that the woman’s character is solid, strong and granite like. Also the image of the actual perfume bottle is placed in a separate window to the picture of the woman so that it would be clearly distinguished as it is also monochromic.

The lighting was also picked to the theme because in the moonlight the scene looks very bleak, grey and monochromic which is the style in which the text was shown in. Also in the background we see a flower which gives the whole image a more nature and outside look.

This was the so called ‘Mad Men’ era when women were thought to be inferior and advertising companies constantly released adverts showing them as some may say ‘dumb blondes’. For example the advert below which advertises cigarettes which are apparently ‘thin and rich’ and from the text above we could see the link as the woman is definitely rich if you judge her by her appearance and she is also ‘thin’. I believe that this could’ve been caused by the mad men era because both texts show women as an inanimate object which is owned by a man and all they are made to do is look beautiful and provide their husbands with money and that sometimes they become housewives if the situation gets too tough. I couldn’t help but notice the last line in the text saying ‘because rich is better’ which proves the fact that women are only good if they are rich.

Lacoste (2012 moving image Britain)

Joy of Pink

Lacoste’s target market is young people so they decided to create an advert with a couple of young and pretty girls in a car with some magical ribbons falling from the sky and into their car.

These girls are presented in such a way that they look cool. They are also brave in their gestures. This tells us that they are very self-confident and with a hint of rebellion because they are very open and they aren’t afraid of anything because they know that they aren’t doing anything wrong and they are convinced in their innocence.

The background is very simplistic without too much clattering objects such as trees, hanging washing or rubbish bins which we normally see on the streets at this time of day. This first of all gets all of the audience’s attention to the characters and secondly it creates a feel of clarity and dreaminess out the whole situation. The car in which the girls are in is also white/cream coloured which enhances the effect and the silky ribbons are all pink which allows us to guess the name of the product.