‘You Smell Amazing; Is That Windex?’ (Said Nobody Ever.)
Looking through The New York Times style section last week, an ad caught my eye. It was a giant bottle of Windex … except it wasn’t. It was Fresh Couture, the latest fragrance from Moschino, which is bottled to look like Windex, red spray top and all.
The ad copy describes Fresh Couture as an “exclusive fragrance with a fantastic scents of humor.” When I looked at this bottle, the scent that immediately came to mind was ammonia. (“Breathtaking” in an entirely different way.)
Moschino’s spring line of fashion and fragrance, including Fresh Couture, is inspired by the glamorous world of … household cleaning products! Or, for a more pretentious explanation, let’s hear from Moschino creative director Jeremy Scott:
“Taking the iconography of a bottle that has no aspirational value and using it as the inspiration for a vessel to contain something so luxurious and haute couture, creates the ultimate dichotomy of high and low.”
As you can imagine, fashion journalists are having a field day with this.
Octavia Lillywhite from the UK’s Daily Mirror writes, “They wanted to make a statement. And they have. The statement is: ‘This is the weirdest concept fragrance ever.'” She goes on to poke fun at an ad with brand spokeswoman Linda Evangelista, who is listlessly wiping a window. “[She] looks tired already and she’s only managed half a pane of glass.”
The New York Daily News‘ Jeanette Settembre is also unimpressed: “This homey scent will make you squeaky clean — just don’t confuse it with your multipurpose spray bottle.”
Now I’m all for brands that don’t take themselves too seriously, but will consumers actually drop $80 for a miniature Windex knockoff? Those who can get past the cheap design and bad puns likely will be disappointed to learn the spray top doesn’t spray. (You actually have to unscrew the cap.) Moschino could have at least followed through with their design functionality …
So we’ll just have to wait and see what happens with sales of Fresh Couture. But in the meantime, it is kind of fun to see models dressed up like feather dusters.