Like an exotic floral mash-up of Willy Wonka's Candy Land (sadly sans oompa loompas) and Alice in Wonderland on LSD, is how we'd best describe the new Dior Addict ad, starring Russian model Sasha Luss.
As Sasha whirls and twirls her way through 'WonDIORland' in a strapless Dior confection, a petal pink lipgloss bringing out her sparkly blue eyes, you feel like you're in the midst of a super hypnotic sugar rush. The 90 second commercial was masterminded by American director Harmony Korine - best known for his bro com *Spring Breakers - and not *perhaps the first person who'd spring to mind to direct a high fashion project for Dior. But Harmony - who has also directed adverts for Budweiser and Havana Club - has really let his creative bird out of the cage with this one, nailing Dior's unique femininity (which is less kitsch now that Raf Simons is at the helm.)
The best bit about the ad is the soundtrack, a song called 'Enter The Ninja' (which we listened to pretty compulsively when it came out in 2010) by the slighty eerie South African twosome Die Antwoord. But then, fragrance adverts sort of are always quite hypnotic and eerie. That's kind of their shtick. You're meant to feel all dozey and dribbly and like you want to spray yourself in some sweet-smelling musk and crawl under a magic tree. Wait, is that just us?
Case in bonkers and eerie point, anyone seen a picture of naked YSL in his own Opium advert in the 70s? Not quite as sexy as Sophie Dahl and her Rubenesque curls, which came several decades later. Then there's Baz Luhrman's Chanel No.5's Moulin Rouge advert (it's actually called No.5 The Film and it's 3 minutes long, fyi) starring Nicole Kidman. It cost $42 million to make and Nicole was paid $12 million pounds for her role in the 'short film'. We've done the hard work for you and can reliably inform you that that works out at almost $67,000 a minute. Wow. Mind you, No.5 does smell nice...
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.