Thursday 29 March 2018

Moschino takes a leaf out of Jeff Koons’ book

These posters I saw on the railway viaduct over Wentworth Park in Pyrmont. There were other posters of the same type in Newtown on the railway bridge over Enmore Road. They show a new brand of scent for men, but the marketing people are here advertising consumer products using tropes made popular in the art world, first by the pop artists of the 1960s, then by Jeff Koons starting in the 1980s. Sublimating a consumer product such as a floor cleaner and repurposing the packaging to sell a high-end product is a part of the cycle of reimagining and borrowing that has been going on in the art world for the past 50 years. You can now buy a bottle of fragrance to use when you go out to bars and restaurants that is packaged to look like a cleaning product. The reverberations of this innovation are endless. "Clean up your image!" "You wouldn't let your new girlfriend see a dirty floor, so how can you go out tonight without scent on your body?" "Get spick and span!" Everyone is familiar with these floor-cleaner bottles, so the new brand is immediately democratised in the marketplace, despite carrying a high price tag. I saw a 50ml bottle being advertised online for over $130.


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