SMALLPRINTS:SOME PEOPLE show their appreciation for their partner with a bunch of flowers, or a nice night out in a local restaurant, but when you're Karl Lagerfeld, the expressionless human cyborg and genius head designer at Chanel, you do things a little differently. Behold the life-size chocolate sculpture of Lagerfeld's muse, the French model Baptiste Giabiconi. If the rest of the hotel room looks a bit chocolately to you, then well spotted, the bed, headboard, desk, chair and lamp are all made from 10.5 tonnes of Belgian chocolate along with other decorative elements designed by Lagerfeld and sculpted by the master chocolatier, Patrick Roger.
Giabiconi and Lagerfeld are rarely seen apart these days, since the designer recruited the 21-year-old as the face of Chanel, Fendi and his own epynomous brand.
Earlier this year, Lagerfeld, also a prolific photographer, shot Giabiconi nude for Interview magazine, but this is the first time the model – or any model for that matter – has been sculpted, life-size, out of chocolate.
Of course, with Lagerfeld, there’s an inevitable brand tie-in, and this time it’s with the ice-cream Magnum, which his chocolate muse is holding in a rather unfortunately placed position. Lagerfeld has been directing short films used as commercials for Magnum of late, so obviously a chocolate hotel suite with a nearly naked chocolate man dusted with cocoa powder in (non-chocolate) white underwear was the next logical step.
The sculpture may look good enough to eat, but Lagerfeld won’t be taking a bite out of the chocolate model anytime soon, as he hasn’t consumed any sugar in ten years. In a recent interview with W magazine, he did confess to eating chocolate, but only with his nose, saying: “I like chocolate. I don’t eat it, but I like the smell of it. People can drink with their eyes; I can eat with my nose.”
– Una Mullally
In the pink creative takes on branding breast cancer
NOT A MONTH goes by without another merchandising announcement for breast cancer.
This time, it’s the addition of a Marc Jacobs Fight Like A Girl bag to Brown Thomas’s stock. The cause of breast cancer is one of the most branded causes around, and while the raising of funds for awareness, prevention and research is to be commended, there have been some pretty dubious consumer tie-insover the decades. Bags and t-shirts by top designers are the norm, but here are a few products that probably shouldn’t have made it out of boardroom brainstorming meetings.
1. Last year, Nanny Cam Safety, a company specialising in female self-defense products gave 25 per cent of profits for a month from its pink products to the Feel Your Boobies foundation, including a pink C2 Taser Gun.
2. In 2010, KFC changed the colour of their chicken buckets to pink as part of their Buckets For The Cure campaign, with donations going to local breast cancer education and awareness.
3. 2008 saw Smith and Wesson launch a Breast Cancer Awareness Month pink 9mm pistol, promoted by professional sharpshooter Julie Goloski.
4. Want to fight breast cancer as well as the eye watering that chopping onions cause? Then you’ll want to buy RSVP’s pink Onion Goggles. Just $20, and a “portion” of the proceeds go to the Breast Cancer Foundation.
5. Like cancer awareness and getting drunk? Then presumably you bought the alcopop Mike’s Hard Pink Lemonade. The alcohol company has donated half a million dollars to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Hic.
6. The darts company Fat Cat launched its steel tip Pink Lady breast cancer darts, which featured a pink ribbon on the flight and a printed pink ribbon on their case. Sporty.
– Una Mullally
