Fumes in the News: Brad Pitt No. 5


Shove off, Catherine Deneuve, Ines de la Fressange and Nicole Kidman, there's a new Chanel No. 5 cover girl in town...well, he's almost as pretty as a girl, anyway. Thespian and throb Brad Pitt has been named the latest face of No. 5, and he's due to shoot the ad this week in London, a convenient commute from the Brangelina clan's new digs in Richmond.

This is the first time in the history of the iconic perfume that a man has been cast to represent the scent in their campaign. For ponderings on this latest way to sprinkle a little more Brad into our lives, read my article in the Guardian here.


Photograph: Frank Baron/ MARK BLINCH/The Guardian/ REUTERS

21 comments:

  1. I'm personally over the moon about this. Not that I'm a huge Pitt fan, but that Chanel has the balls to have a male face. Kitten was so ahead of his time! ;)

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  2. Great article, Greetings from southern California!

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  3. I agree with Carol. This is awesome news!

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  4. So do I. Chanel has balls! (Brad's, actually)

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  5. Sorry. Can't agree with this pick. If Chanel wants to show testicular fortitude, bring back the stunning Catherine Deneuve, now in her sixties. Always stunningly classic and beautiful, she best represents this classic scent.

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  6. I love the article and I'm so enjoying the image. Hats off to both Chanel and Brad. Now I'm trying to come up with a classic male fragrance for Angelina to represent.

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  7. This may be a dumb question, but I will ask anyway... Is he actually the spokeperson as a WEARER of the fragrance, or just a model used in the ads? I hate the term "gender-bending," but in this case, I hope that's the direction Chanel is actually going.

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    1. Well, no-one's see the ads yet (they were shot in London just the other day), so I don't know whether we'll see him sloshing a bottle of No. 5 over himself, Charles Bronson / Mandom-style, or if he'll be presented as the dream lover No. 5-wearing ladies will attract.

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  8. Angelina.... Knize Ten? Aramis? Equipage?

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    1. I could see Angelina in Knize Ten.

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    2. Oh wow, yes. Knize Ten. I hear tell Kiehls Coriander used to be her poison.

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  9. ???

    Brad's no spring chicken. Oh, but then again, neither is No.5, so perhaps they do belong together!

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  10. Replies
    1. How about an honorary French man: Johnny Depp?

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  11. I hated the last chanel perfume advert that I saw (the Keira knightly one, where she wears a beige biking suit, and the camera at one point aims right for her arse crack, and where she then does a silly tease routine on a bed, which seemed to be a drastically wrong interpretation of an 'actual' Chanel quote): it was idiotic and so not what Chanel stood for, that I felt the company should have had more respect for the woman's whose name off of which it makes its money. As much as I am interested in the use of a man for the promotion of the perfume, I am inclined to think that this promo is likely to be equally stupid and a disgrace to the company's creator and perfume's co-creator.

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    1. I suppose it is safer to keep expectations low. But hopefully it will tip in the direction of one of No. 5's friskier ads. Like the freaky-deak Carole Bouquet one:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ4RKmrWBtQ

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    2. It will be interesting to see what tack Chanel takes for the advert. the most likely and most disappointing one would be- spray your ladyself with Chanel NO.5 and you can get Brad Pitt. A more hilarious one would be spray your ladyself with Chanel No.5 and you can do better. But as you point out, the better Chanel adverts tend to be the more surrealistic ones, so let's hope that's what pulled out of the hat, rather than it being a portrayal of chanel no.5 as a component in a staid gender dynamic, blah blah blah.

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    3. I do love the surrealistic ones.

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  12. Eau Premiere or full fat No.5? Also, given that Brad Pitt is allegedly notorious for bad BO, this seems an odd pick, even though the idea of a male face for brand seems a good one. Personally, I'd have thought Jean Dujardin or another French actor, maybe Guillaume Canet, might have been a better choice.

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    1. Full fat. Just looked up Guillaume Canet. He's cute! He reminds me a bit of my husband. But I always say that when I fancy someone other than my husband. It gets me off the hook.

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  13. Yes, I was also delighted to read about this new campaign, in the Daily Mail, I think - a discarded copy on the plane, obviously... ; - )

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