Ever since I was 18 I can think back on my love affair with Vanity Fair. It started when Annie Liebowitz was their lead photographer and their covers were amazing.

For the last few years, we have been supporting the fundraiser at the local middle school and getting every issue of the magazine instead of just the ones that appealed to me on the newsstand. Which was pretty much all of them.

Going through this month’s issue I find a very heavy page promoting Chanel face cream. (I think I can hear their marketing people and chemists shuddering right now…”Dawn! It’s not a cream, but la solution – en Francais).

Ok, they are right and I can almost smell their perfume by just looking at the ad.

The paper stock is as thick and interruptive as fragrance pages usually are (and I might add, someone who over-sprays their Chanel.)

Is it just their habit to use that stock or do they just want the magazine to open to that page every single time?

Yes. Most definitely.

Thinking about this, as I did earlier, would Chanel ever, ever in 1 million years (today, as in 2016) put a sample of their perfume in a magazine ad?

No. Probably not.

Isn’t it just the new fragrances, the line expansions, aka the upstarts who have to do that? Furthermore, is it even representative of what their fragrance; their eau de Parfum even smells like?

I am not sure, that isn’t close to my line of marketing, but it has indeed made me curious and I’d love to know these answers. I just have to laugh a bit that this ad, and this edition, over all the other ones I have ever read, is what made me think all about it.

I know that Vanity Fair was one of the inspirations  that started my love affair with design, creativity, and marketing and I will indulge myself; not with $200 face cream, but the on-going subscription for sure. Honestly, for $12 a year I get the magazine voted ” by Adweek as “The Hottest Magazine of the Year” and “The Hottest Magazine Cover of the Year” which was Caitlyn Jenner’s issue. Now, how can you argue with that?

~ Dawn aka Hat Girl