Within New Key Words: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Bennett defines desire by its central paradox, in that its very existence is defined similarly in its lack of existence – that is to say, the inability to satiate desires allows for understanding that the search of fulfillment in this can never be achieved, or, can only be achieved temporarily. Drawing on Freud’s psychoanalytic research, Bennet further references that the predicament of desiring an object in infancy, rooted in early physical inability to realize such desires, forms the basis of our later grounds of desire which would imply an infinite condition of demand for something one lacks.  It is on this basis that consumer culture has not only transmuted emotional yearning (such as love or happiness) into commodities but also capitalized on the ‘tension between the promise and reality of desire’. It is within this definition that advertisement can be dissected and understood.

The Opium YSL fragrance advertisement from the 2000s is a highly sexualized visual. Model Sophie Dahl lies naked on a bed of black satin, her tumbling auburn curls and bold makeup, a stark contrast to her unblemished porcelain skin. Wearing nothing but a pair of sparkling gold high heels and gold jewellery, Dahl appears to be in a state of ecstasy. The viewer can assume that she has taken off her clothes and is either waiting for a lover or is infatuated with herself. She presents a fantasy of sorts, a woman of wealth and beauty, entirely confident with her sexual desire for herself. The striking difference between the model and the backdrop presents a vivid and sexualized image of desire. The luxury of what she wears and where she lies adds to the sexual appeal of the image, the contrast is intentionally evident made to further appeal to the viewer. It appears that Dahl portrays a woman who is aware of being watched, but at the same time is so self-absorbed that she disregards the gaze and is only further fuelled by it. The gold lettering at the corner of the ad ‘OPIUM the fragrance from Yves Saint Laurent’ is a subtle yet very recognizable branding of the ad. A personal, intimate scene is portrayed as a hyper-sexualized representation of self-desire and sexuality. A captivating and manipulative illusion, that a fragrance can represent sexual desire, luxury and beauty.

Luxury campaigns featuring top models looking fairly alluring in lavish settings is not new. Unlike photography art, fashion advertising often maintains a focus on human figure, or otherwise implicit representations of it, in order to intrigue viewers and arouse desire. The YSL Opium campaign shows nothing of the fragrance, wherein regardless the product’s major function is inaccessible via vision, draws instead upon fantasy as a means of marketing. According to Guy Debord, the ‘appearing’ of what one possesses is prioritized within the superstructure of capitalism (Debord, 1983, pp. 10-11), as the campaign, outside of marketing the actuality of the product, suggests an illusion of lavishness, sensation and eroticism leading to a pseudo-perfection that’s charm is desperately desired by women. It is a deception that people can acquire an unachievable ‘better self’, even overcome the class distinction, through consumption (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 226), as ‘desire is often regarded as towards objects beyond one’s reach’. Thus, the cycle of purchasing, satisfying oneself and desiring more is ceaseless. The effectiveness of capitalizing off desire is apparent in how the range of commodities on offer can, instead, becomes the shortcoming of commodity consumption. The reality is deemed as an extension of the presented (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002, p. 99), failing to fulfil what people are desiring.

Radical feminist Shulamith Firestone’s analysis of romantic love during the 1970s describes women’s desire as triangulated via the desires of her male counterpart. She describes falling in love to be ‘no more than a process of alteration of male vision- idealisation, mystification, glorification’, wherein her self-induced appeal will later form the principle of her existence to be ‘an all-consuming need for male love and approval to raise her from her class subjugation’.

‘Falling in love is no more than a process of alteration of male vision – idealisation, mystification, glorification – that renders void the women’s class inferiority. However, the woman knows that this idealisation, which she works so hard to produce, is a lie, and that it is only a matter of time before he ‘sees through her’ (Rainer, 2013, p. 386). The woman depicted on the Yves Saint Laurent campaign presents an image inextricably linked to the male gaze. The advert postulates that a woman must become an object worth being desired in order to gain self-worth, and further suggests that buying the perfume would do this. Hence, the complicated relationship between projected desire as a means of self-worth works in accordance with the Freudian notion of desire equivocating a ‘lack’ of self-esteem that patriarchal societies evoke amongst women that can be achieved through possession, and therefore regressively inviting women to become complicit in their own subjugation.

In fact, the central paradox defined early becomes increasingly apparent in the advertisement’s success in creating an environment whereby a woman looking at it must desire to be desired, as inferred by its hyper-sexualized nature. In fact, the advert alludes to the fact that buying this perfume will, in short, make you more appealing to men. Furthermore, the name ‘Opium’ - a drug, taboo and not pure, legal or innocent, ties in with the highly sexualized nature of the image, as well as the subject of female sexuality as a taboo and something wrong, yet also, addictive or sought after. Whilst some have argued that the campaign was empowering to women, including the model in the image Sophie Dahl who said: ‘in fact, I think it is very empowering to women.’ The nature of the image, the pose and more have clearly been made for the male gaze and is an exaggerated ‘pornified’ version of female sexuality, not a natural depiction with any glimpse into the female gaze. Therefore, the subjectivity which is induced further plays to the Freudian notion of desire.

The neurotic anxiety which fuels capitalism, given its provision of leverage for consumer culture, posits that desires can be satiated through material acquisition. It is on this basis that advertisements can market products not through their singularity, but instead via allusions to the lifestyles that can be attained through purchasing. Perhaps one of the most ingenious ways in which advertisements work to sell products through these inferences is that of perfume, not least due to the inability to convey scent through technology or mass media curbed instead by marketing surrounding ideas of sex and sensuality which form the premise of its allure. It is possible, therefore, to view perfume advertisement through a different lens which sheds light on the frankness of such marketing styles, differing greatly from the covert and instead more subconscious advertisement of other extraneous products which present themselves as imperative. In the chosen example of the YSL Opium campaign, there is no attempt to hide the fact that the product is marketed on its aphrodisiac qualities, hyperbolized by the female figure depicted in an overtly sexual stance, her naked body hidden only by her hands. Furthermore, the nominative allusions of the product serve to highlight the addictive qualities of the perfume, which connotes to its lust-inducing effects and hence makes no attempt to mask its function. Furthermore, although it is argued by Bennet that desire can only exist in its paradox, in that the inability to satiate desires makes them just that, this advert makes no attempt to disguise that it is appealing to the most primitive desire of sex, and produces, in a fashion similar to pheromones, behaviour-altering agents which trigger sexual arousal. Therefore, akin to many other perfume advertisements, YSL markets its product as an evolutionary essential product fundamental to sex appeal and may be viewed through its subversion of desire. Instead of the typical marketing approach which attempts to form desires and encourage purchase, the campaign plays to the desires that form within us, and hence uses the innate desire for sex, the life force which motivates most, to sell products with an almost brash frankness.  

References:

Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by R. Nice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Debord, G. (1983) Society of the Spectacle. Translated by K. Knabb. London: Rebel Press.

Horkheimer, M. and Adorno, T. W. (2002) Dialectic of Enlightenment. Edited by G. S. Noerr. Translated by E. Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Meisel, S. and Saint Laurent, Y. (2000). Opium Yves Saint Laurent. Available at: http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/gallery/19779/16/controversial-fashion-ads (Accessed: 28 February 2019).

Rainer, Y. (2013) Feelings are Facts: A Life. Cambridge: The MIT Press.