LOS ANGELES — BCBG Max Azria Group is peeling back the coverage in its new fall campaign — including one ad featuring a model, an oversized red leather bag and not much else.
David Lipman, the head of the creative agency behind St. John Inc. advertising, directed the BCBG New York studio shoot as well as the 30-second television commercial incorporating the ads. Patrick DeMarchelier shot the campaign and Lori Goldstein styled it.
“It was about different moments — the conversation, the darkness of the environment, but the togetherness of spirit — we wanted to convey,” Lipman said. “We’re not trying to shock anybody, but just trying to show young people together.”
BCBG’s advertising has traditionally been sexy and feminine. But this is the first time the company has marketed its clothes with a model who isn’t wearing any.
The company is in a particularly active period. This month it acquired the French sportswear firm Alain Manoukian, which operates 300 stores in Europe, for $78.5 million. BCBG is also in negotiations to purchase Don Algodón, a women’s and men’s ready-to-wear and accessories retailer based in Spain.
The latest campaign takes inspiration from Andy Warhol’s Factory days, when emerging artists and musicians converged at his studio in the Sixties. The series of 22 ads feature model Jessica Stam channeling Nico, the German singer from the rock band Velvet Underground, in a darker, bohemian light with bangs, stick-straight hair and wearing items from both BCBG Max Azria and Max Azria Collection.
Among the images are a sepia-toned dreamy shot of Stam reclining on a bed and wearing a BCBG velvet, smocked dress and green boots and one of her reclining languidly on a velvet chaise in a BCBG black silk georgette blouse, striped cashmere sweater and culottes. Another captures her wearing a deep-blue Max Azria Collection dress, with a male and female model lolling on a bed.
The attention-getter shows Stam nude on a bed and clutching a red leather bag across her chest. Her other hand rests on a man’s head that is positioned in her lap. It is an image that “struck a chord,” said Lubov Azria, creative director at BCBG, and Max Azria’s wife.
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“It wasn’t really planned; it just happened and turned out to be a perfect concept,” she said. “What I love about it is not the naked aspect, but her skin, which is so calm, almost blending in to the bedsheet.”
The timing of the campaign coincides with a new movie, “Factory Girl,” which is to begin shooting this summer. Katie Holmes recently pulled out of playing Warhol’s drug-addicted muse, Edie Sedgwick.
The ads, which have hit Vanity Fair and W (like WWD, owned by Fairchild Publications Inc.), appear in the August issues of Vogue, In Style, Harpers Bazaar, Interview and other publications. The television commercial will air on CBS during the “Fashion Rocks” concert on Sept. 9, Lipman said. He said the budget for the campaign was “well into the millions.”