Elle News | Marc Jacobs’ ‘Oh, Lola!’ Ad Banned

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Marc Jacobs’ ‘Oh, Lola!’ Ad Banned

By Alannah Sparks | Posted: Thu 10 Nov 2011

Question: What do Sophie Dahl, Eva Mendes and Dakota Fanning have in common?

Answer: All three women have fronted perfume campaigns that were deemed too racy for public delectation, and were subsequently canned.

Today Dakota joins in a long succession of over-sexed and under-published fashion advertisements that have come under the scrutiny of the Advertising Standards Authority and have subsequently met their bitter end. The campaign in question was shot by Juergen Teller for Marc Jacobs’ newest scent ‘Oh, Lola!’, and it depicts 17 year old Dakota wearing an abbreviated  slip of a candy pink dress and a defiant expression as she holds a large bottle of the perfume between her legs.

So far, so Lolita, right?

While we know Dakota Fanning to be a talented and mature actress who has appeared on our screens in various guises much more sexual than this (anyone see that lesbian kiss scene with co-star Kristen Stewart in the Runaways?), the ASA deemed the advertisement to be dangerously close to promoting the sexualisation of a child, and so despite counter-arguments from Coty that the ad showed absolutely no sexual activity or nudity, the ASA won out and the campaign was scrapped.

The ban proves the power of suggestion in advertising, as previous ads that have fallen foul of the ASA were normally guilty of showing too much flesh. Such was the case with the 2000 YSL Opium ad featuring a pre-weight loss  Sophie Dahl deep in the throes of ecstasy  on a velvet covered floor. The ad – shot by Steven Meisel – received over 700 complaints because of its sexually suggestive nature and was binned. Just as naked but not nearly as brazen was Eva Mendes’ ad for Calvin Klein which shows the naked actress wrapped in clean white bed sheets looking sleepily at the camera. How anyone could be offended by the picture is beyond us, but it was deemed to be ‘too sexy’ for the American audience and so went the way of the dodo.

And then of course there’s Tom Ford. The don of provocative advertising (second only to American Apparel's Dov Charney), Ford has racked up an impressive number of banned advertisements, the most memorable of which involved nothing more than a risqué camera angle, a very naked bottom half of an oiled up model, and the very careful placement of a bottle of Tom Ford for Men perfume. We’ll leave that one up to you to decide whether it’s suitable or not.

Read about the fragrance here...

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via elleuk.com