Yves Saint Laurent designer Tom Ford has once again pushed the advertising envelope, signing up French former martial arts champion Samuel de Cubber to pose fully naked to promote the luxury label’s new male fragrance.
"Perfume is worn on the skin, so why hide the body?" argues the designer.
The black and white ad campaign features the hunk in a full-frontal pose wearing nothing, but the YSL M7 fragrance is "really pure", according to Ford. "It's a very academic nude."
It remains to be seen if the pics will spark the controversy seen when model Sophie Dahl posed nude for YSL’s women’s perfume Opium two years ago. The striking advertisements, which depicted the statuesque blonde reclining on a sofa, were banned by the British Advertising Standards Authority for being "too sexually suggestive".
The male nude is the latest in a long line of risqué images associated with the French fashion label, including a 1971 series of photos which featured Yves Saint Laurent himself posing in the buff. "I wanted to subtly remind people that the house of Yves Saint Laurent has always been a front-runner in presenting provocative images," says Ford.
Meanwhile, model Sophie has once again decided to strip off in the name of fashion. London-based shoe designer Patrick Cox told the Daily Telegraph the sexy blonde posed in "a state of tousled undress" for his new campaign, shot by David Lachapelle last week. Says Patrick: "Sophie insisted she was not going to take her clothes off… I told (her): 'Of course you can wear what you like. But maybe if we just pull this strap over your shoulder a bit more…'." He adds: "We got there in the end."
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
