Sunday January 30, 2005

Dior’s newest diva

By REENA GURBAKSH
WHILE celebrity endorsement in fashion and beauty is not a new thing, it certainly seems like more brands are coming to realise just how bankable celebrity-dom is and are slowly succumbing to the pull of famous faces.  

The newest beauty conglomerate to jump on the celebrity bandwagon is none other than LVMH’s Parfums Christian Dior – but the company offers a different reason for choosing famous faces to appear in its newest advertising campaigns. After years of using some of the world’s top models to be the “faces” of their merchandise – Carmen Kaas and Tiiu Quik were the faces of it’s top-selling fragrance, J’adore – the brand reckons that its products have made a strong enough impression in the beauty market and are therefore less likely to be outshone by a celebrity who appears in the advertising campaign.  

In effect, Dior has cleverly chosen celebrities who will star alongside their star product, instead of overshadowing it, therefore making the pairing a mutually beneficial partnership.  

  
Korean star Choi Ji Woo poses for the Dior Snow Pure print advertisement.
The label’s newest addition to its celebrity list is Korean star Choi Ji Woo of The Winter Sonata and Stairway to Heaven fame, who bagged Korea’s Golden Shooting Award for best actress in 2003 and has been likened to the popular French actress, Isabelle Adjani.  

Choi will star in the television and print advertising campaigns for the brand’s Dior Snow Pure skincare line, due to be launched here in March. She becomes the third star – after Kelly Chen and Charlize Theron – to hop onboard.  

Hong Kong superstar Kelly Chen was Dior’s first ever celebrity endorser when she agreed to front the label’s television and print advertising campaign for Parfums Christian Dior’s flagship skincare line in the middle of last year.  

The TV commercial for Capture R60/80, the brand’s top-selling anti-ageing range, was shot in Paris; Chen played the role of an Asian superstar who is besieged by Western paparazzi.  

For the shoot, she wore a Dior couture dress and baubles from Christian Dior Fine Jewellery, but it is said this stylish diva had been a Dior fan long before this partnership.  

  
Charlize Theron is the face of J’adore.
Oscar winning actress Theron came on board at the end of 2004; she stars in a TV commercial and a print campaign for J’adore that was released in the West last Fall and will hit our shores in the middle of this year.  

Theron also is no stranger to the world of this mega brand – she wore a Dior gown and the label’s makeup when she received a Golden Globe last year for the film Monster, and donned Dior haute couture at the Cannes Film festival.  

According to Dior, the choice of Theron was self-evident: The fragrance represents femininity, like that embodied by Hollywood icons like Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly, and the South-African star is widely regarded to be the modern successor to these legends.  

Also, it didn’t hurt that the actress was a fan of the fragrance and had been wearing it for some time before she was chosen to represent it!  

Choi, too, is no stranger to the Dior brand and her selection may be the result of a little more than just her porcelain good looks: This fashionable young star was seated in the front row at the Dior Spring-Summer fashion show in Paris in September where she met Dior’s designer, John Galliano.  

She took to the catwalk herself at the Dior show in Shanghai in December, and created quite a stir with her grace and glamour.  

Dior’s certainly pleased with the newest beauty on board: “We strongly feel that her personality as a respected artist matches the Dior spirit of luxury, glamour and femininity,’’ says Pierre Denis, managing director of Parfums Christian Dior and Dior Couture Asia Pacific.