McQueen vs. Cadbury
The Alexander McQueen FW2006 presentation featured a hologram of Kate Moss floating in an ethereal dress. Directed by Baillie Walsh, the angelic visual coincided with Moss’s drug drama.
Cadbury just launched an ad for its delicious Flake bar. The commercial was also directed by Walsh and also features a model floating in an ethereal dress, this time Yulia Lobova in a look by Anthony Price:
There’s a push online for McQueen’s label to sue the hell out of Cadbury (link). I guess people are saying that the visual is so McQueen that chocolate consumers may be confused and mistake Cadbury for the legendary label. Maybe they’ll think Flakes now come in mathematical reptile-print packaging, or that McQueen is launching lobster claw shoes with Flake heels. These kinds of errors might erode McQueen’s prestige in the high end fashion marketplace.
Fashion presentations are important, and it stands to reason that an average chocolate consumer stows these images in an automatic part of the brain, sort of like how you know that a red line through something means no, or that “a” means a. Is Flake gonna provoke an instant association with Kate Moss high/contemplating the afterlife? Did Cadbury lodge Flake in the Alexander McQueen FW06 lobe of the human brain?
I’m not sure we’ll ever really know, since medical fashion research isn’t that developed a field, academically. It’s not that clear that there’s a legal remedy anyway. This uncertainty is definitely not new to fashion, but the people at Cadbury might be learning new things with this campaign.
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