Spike Jonze directs wildest perfume ad ever

3 September 2016
By Fashion Quarterly

Kenzo perfume (main)

The Spike Jonze-directed perfume commercial for ‘Kenzo World’, the new fragrance by Kenzo Parfums, might just be the best anti-perfume ad ever made.

Less a commercial, and more a short film, the clip features dancer and actor Margaret Qualley, daughter of actor, Andie McDowell, in an over-the-top choreographed routine that could best be described as delightfully bonkers

Rest assured you won’t see any caressing of perfume bottles, or stars murmuring softly about the elusive qualities of the fragrance they’re fronting.

Instead, expect a kind of mental mayhem – wild dancing, statue licking and lasers being fired from fingers – that, in its own way, says so much more about the perfume, than any dialogue ever could

Kenzo perfume (H)

Jonze, known for his weird and wonderful work on Being John Malkovich, Her and Where the Wild Things Are, sets Qualley’s performance to the crazy beats of Mutant Brain by Sam Spiegel and Ape Drums.

It is reminiscent of his earlier film clip for Fatboy Slim’s Weapon of Choice featuring Christopher Walken dancing through an empty building.

And the result? A commercial that looks more like a music video and will probably redefine the entire genre from here on out.

That’s what we hope anyway.

But more importantly, do we want to try Kenzo World after seeing this ad?

You bet.

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