Lanvin Vs Chanel

Advertising is a form of marketing communication used to persuade an audience to take or continue some actions. Some of the earliest act of physical advertisements (ads) includes lost and found advertising on papyrus in Ancient Greece and Rome, wall painting or rock art in India, as well as calligraphic signboards and inked papers during the ancient China. The main responsibility of an fashion ad is to sell a product thus in this essay, I will analyse the various signifiers in the campaigns created by Lanvin for their Fall 2009 collection and Chanel for their Fall 2011 collection to prove how one of them could be more effective than the other.

Lanvin, founded by Jeanne Lanvin, is a fashion house that creates countless timeless garments to provide

In the Lanvin photograph, there are two black cats shot with their eyes wide open, one staring distressingly at the same direction with the model, while another one stares straight a head towards the direction below the camera. The expression from the model and the felines seems to suggest that were facing something horrifying and unexplainable. Kristen McMenamy’s pose on the couch suggested that she was trapped in a state of trance and helplessness. Her two feline might signify that they were her companions and she was a lonely cat lady. The term Cat lady in the American pop culture is used to describe romantically challenged or career oriented women. In the American animated sitcom The Simpson, a series of American animated sitcom created to depict middle class American lifestyle, culture and society issues, Crazy Cat Lady is a character described to be a mentally ill woman who is always surrounded with a large number of cats. She routinely screams gibberish and throw her cats at people who walked pass her house. However before she became crazy, she was originally a smart and ambitious young girl who was working towards her goal of being both a lawyer and a doctor. She believes that a woman can do anything. These elements could signify that the photo was created to relate to Lanvin’s target audiences, single mature, sophisticated and career-minded women who know what they want and how to

Steven Meisel, a photographer labeled as “an auteur, in the cinematic interpretation of the world” shot Lanvin’s campaign. His photography styles are imaginary and diverse, incorporating various elements to create a perfect scene to shoot his models. His shoot for Lanvin was done before the occurrence of the cat trend, which “begin on the spring 2010 runways with a parade of arched backs and perky tails at Miu Miu” (Bernard 2013) heels. With Meisel using felines for the campaign before the cat trend started, it shows his creativity in expressing the darkness and his perception of the brand with the help of the