Thursday, July 08, 2010

Magnus, The Poster Boy

Perhaps this is it. Maybe, just maybe, chess could finally be at the cusp of going mainstream.

The world's number one chess player, Magnus Carlsen, has been signed up as a model for Dutch firm G-Star Raw and will be featured in the denim fashion house's Fall/Winter 2010 advertising campaign. You can see sample shots of Magnus over on ChessVibes.

All well and good for chess, what with all this brilliant PR, as well as for Magnus himself whose bank balance must be just a little bit fatter.

But, I got a problem.

While that other fashion house, Armani, made sports star David Beckham the favourite poster boy for women the world over, G-Star appears to have made our man look like a poster boy for...

...the romulans!



Well, at least this interpretation of the Star Trek character.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You are missing the point by a mile.
So far we have been "thinking" (rather following the footsteps of someone before us) that models need to be beautiful.
So Brad Pitt and Claudia Shiffer look-alikes sell products because the customer wants to look like them. In fact many know that no matter WHAT they wear, this will never be the case. The illusion is shortlived because trying it on (in quite another size) and looking into the mirror is enough.
So this G-star campain is in fact brilliant. Every man looks at this model and will think, hell,that would sure look better on ME!
This would not work quite as well with female examples because everyone wants them to look great, also other women.
My book and course NegoLogic is based on these and other principles. Just look at NegoLogic.com.

Best regards,

Peter Frensdorf