These advertisements were from a series of ads published in fashion magazines, targeted at the fashion conscious female. Fashion ads are all about cool detachment, but in this fashion-spoofing anti-smoking work from Foote Cone & Belding in Singapore, the detachment and the chill are brought on by death itself - which has caught the model shown here in a curious Civil War battlefield-type pose.
These ads are great! They look just like fashion ads – with stunning Gothic dresses - except the models are all dead. The weird and slightly contorted figures of each model are beautifully adorned in funky and iconic Gothic clothing that are still dark and have gothic feel. A gothic feels which is reiterated by the dead and dry leaves and the messages of doom that accompany each advert.
This is a great ad… Except for one thing! These women, dead and weirdly positioned they may be, are still managing to look really sexy… Did they smoke? Because damn they left behind amazing corpses… Imagine people coming to your funeral and seeing you looking so picture perfect, so nice and pale and delicate…
Hmmm… maybe they should have thought this one through a little more. Maybe they should have included a little dribble of blood coming down the side of a mouth from the lungs they coughed up earlier, or the yellowing fingers and teeth and not to mention the tiny, but unforgivable, ash burns on their designer clothes who created those stunning Gothic prom dresses. Maybe just make them look a little less beautiful in death, and a little uglier in life.
Other headlines in the series of ads published in fashion magazines featuring fancy Gothic dresses : “Lung cancer doesn’t go with Christian Dior” and “Out: cervical cancer. In: tulle.” The ads send viewers to a Web site, Get Fresh, that has a completely different vibe - sunny and cartoony - and includes chatty blogs by ex-smokers.
