Mavis Vivaudou
(1920s print)
This
advert from the 1920s which advertises the ‘irresistible’ Vivaudou Mavis
perfume features a representation of the target audience: a very elegant high
society woman. The oriental mise-en-scene is key to understanding the
representation of the woman in this advertisement. She is dressed in oriental
fashion, as is seen by her slim, exotic dress and the oriental landscape in the
background. This far eastern theme would have greatly appealed to women in the
1920s because at that time Chinese and other oriental clothing was coming into
fashion. They were seen as being very precious and beautiful items of clothing
because they are from a place that not many people knew about. This meant that
a perfume being advertised as being worn by a woman with exotic and precious
clothing would have greatly appealed to women at the time because of the way
fashion was changing.
The
advert draws on Art Nouveau with its curves, organic lines, natural motifs such
as plants and flowers and its emphasis on beauty. Firstly, the curved shape of
the woman’s back harmonizes with the mountain in the background. The mountain
also looks quite unnaturally pointed, which suggests that the woman in the
advert is in some sort of paradise, meaning that the perfume transports the
person to a paradise in which everything is perfect. The woman stands against a
bank of flowers planted with a delicate flowering shrub and tree against a
flawless blue sky. Secondly, the woman’s dress is incredibly long and over
exaggerated. It is beautifully embroidered with exotic patterns that look far
eastern and extremely detailed. The dress is very desirable and fashionable
because of the way it flows up the woman’s body and almost looks like it is
part of her because of how natural it looks.
Altogether,
the woman is very delicate, restrained and private. She looks like she is in
complete control of herself and her body, she is completely relaxed and almost
looks like she is praying, with her head down and her eyes closed. The woman is
quite a conservative image. She is an idealised picture of a woman, and
although she is completely unrealistic, Vivaudou is saying that wearing Mavis will
make any woman look like that: in a secret, secluded paradise with beautiful
flowers and blossoms.
The
Fabulous Babe Faberge (1970s print)
This
advertisement offers a great contrast to the Mavis advertisement from the 1920s
because it represents the woman in the advert as a much more independent and
fierce person than the woman in the Vivaudou advertisement. We can see this because
the woman is doing an activity that would have previously been seen as a very
manly thing to do. She is performing a karate move on the other person in the
advert. She is showing that she doesn’t need a man to help her in life, she can
make her own decisions and is proving it by fighting the other person in the
advert. The other person is recoiling away from the woman out of the picture,
to show that the woman is the main focus of the advertisement.
The
woman is striking a very masculine pose, which is completely opposite to the
Mavis advert, where the woman is standing in a very elegant position, with her
back curving inwards, linking to the background of the advert, however in this
advertisement the woman does not look elegant at all, but powerful and
dangerous.
The clothes in the two advertisements show this as well because the
Mavis advert has a very elegant and beautifully embroidered oriental dress
which means that the woman wearing it is very rich and is in a high social
class. This advertisement the woman is wearing a Gi, which is a karate robe. It
is much more scruffy and loose than the Mavis dress, which tells the target
audience that they don’t need to be rich or upper class to wear this fragrance,
but they can wear anything comfortable and that they want to wear.
The
Mavis advert uses pastel colours and beautiful landscapes to make the advert
attractive, whereas this advertisement uses very few colours and a very simple
picture without much detail. These things show how women were represented in
the 1970s compared to the 1920s. In the 1970s there was a great change in the
way women were seen, they began to be treated as equals to men thanks to the
civil rights movement. The advertisement would have been seen as a reaction to
this change because it is clearly showing that the woman is the dominant figure
in the situation and shows that a woman can do a man’s jobs just as well as a
man, and maybe even better.
This
advertisement by Faberge is also much less serious than the Mavis print.
Although the woman is striking a very powerful pose, she is smiling and looks
like she is laughing. This suggests that the woman does not take herself
completely seriously and informs the target audience that this fragrance is
much more relaxed and less solemn than the Mavis advert. It shows than anyone
who wears the perfume can do what they want, relax and be comfortable with themselves.
