September 28, 2016

Perfume Video: Prada La Femme and L’Homme

The new Prada La Femme and Prada L’Homme fragrance video stresses that perfume has no gender. It should appeal to “…what you want to be.”

When we first saw the press materials for Prada’s new fragrance duo, Prada L’Home and Prada La Femme, we knew it was going to be beautiful.The four pretty faces tapped to star in the campaign—Dane DeHaan, Ansel Elgort, Mia Goth and Mia Wasikowska—would see to that. We also noticed that they all have a similar look.

It all makes sense now that we’ve seen the campaign. This Prada video is beautiful: Shot in shadows with a focus on black and white, its simplicity is its strength. That the ambassadors all have a similar look contributes to the interchangeable nature of the scents themselves.

The video ends by selling the perfumes along gender lines—La Femme is aligned with Goth and Wasikowska, while L’Homme is aligned with DeHaan and Elgort—the video also suggests a more malleable interpretation. You could go very traditional—a woman spraying a perfume marketed to women. Or, you could mix it up.

According to press materials, the desire with the campaign was to ask the question: Who is the Prada man? Who is the Prada Woman? The suggestion here is that there is no one answer. “We wanted to look at the different aspects of a personality, but always within that portrait framework,” says Miuccia Prada, head designer of the brand. “We wanted to say ‘You are who you are and what you want to be’.”

The music will be entirely recognizable—a cover of the famous Elvis Presley song, “I Can’t Help Falling In Love”, sung by the aptly named band Perfume Genius.