Questionable Designer Accessories... Why Did They Decide to Put Their Logo on This?

Hermes is a luxury leather goods company, they've made saddles since the early nineteeth century.

The Etro golfbag is disappointingly ugly, it looks like something you'd find in the attic, an impulse buy in the eighties.

That's excactly what I thought. Hermes started with saddles so why stop making them?
 
YSL Releases Cigarette Brand in Russia & Asia

Positive messages up in smoke: How YSL is promoting 'sophisticated' own-label cigarettes in Asia and Russia



By Tamara Abraham


Tobacco advertising is banned in the U.S. and Europe, and smoking indoors is against the law in many of the world's major cities. But in fashion, it appears, the habit is still as fashionable as ever.
Cancer risk seems to be of little concern to Yves Saint Laurent which is promoting and selling cigarettes bearing its designer logo.
The cigarettes, which come in a sleek black box with gold foil, are being marketed towards women in Asia and Russia.

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Le smoking: Yves Saint Laurent is selling and promoting designer cigarettes to women in Asia and Russia markets

They are accompanied by an advertisement featuring a model that looks uncannily like Kate Moss, who came under fierce criticism when she smoked on the Louis Vuitton catwalk earlier this year.
Online retailers, which sell the cigarettes for up to $44 per 200-cigarette pack, reveal that the product first launched in 1989.
Promotional script tells prospective buyers that the label's 'philosophy is to give their cigarettes a classic sophisticated look.'
It continues: 'Creating a sense of appeal to female vanity and thereby making the woman who chose to smoke Yves Saint Laurent cigarettes more attractive than one who smokes another brand or more attractive than a woman who did not smoke at all.'

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Uncomfortable message: A model that looks uncannily like Kate Moss appears in a promotional image for the cigarettes


The message is an uncomfortable one for countries like the UK and the U.S., where the governments invest heavily in anti-smoking messages in order to help prevent the huge number of deaths each year caused by tobacco.
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health said that Yves Saint Laurent should be ashamed of itself.


She told MailOnline: 'Since the advertising ban preventing any advertising promotion or sponsorship by tobacco companies came into force smoking amongst young people has dropped by a third.

'We won’t see Yves St Laurent cigarettes on sale here, as tobacco companies are banned from using brandsharing to promote smoking in the UK, or anywhere in Europe.

'Sadly in Russia and many parts of Asia young people are not yet protected from such tobacco industry tactics, and glamorous brands like YSL can be used to suck them into an addiction that will lead to death and disability.

'YSL should be ashamed of itself.'

Research from the American Lung Association reveals that more than 430,000 people in the U.S. die every year from smoking-related diseases, including those who have heart attacks.

And according to Cancer Research UK, more than a quarter (28 per cent) of all cancer deaths in Britain are caused by smoking.
It added that tobacco is behind around 90 per cent of lung cancer deaths in men and more than 80 per cent of lung cancer deaths in women in the UK.
Yves Saint Laurent, who died in 2008, famously named a 1966 tuxedo for women Le Smoking. It is a design that continues to influence fashion today.
YSL follows in the footsteps of Cartier and Pierre Cardin, which have also given tobacco firms permission to use their logo. (dailymail.co.uk)
 
Seriously? Cigarettes? I agree that YSL should be ashamed of themselves. The last thing a luxury house should be doing is promoting death and cancer.

This is off putting.
 
Numerous design houses licensed their names to such things in Europe decades ago, so YSL cigarettes have always been around, but given that luxury brand awareness is on the increase in China, commercially speaking, it must be the perfect moment to intertwine that with the already-established trend for smoking.
 
Sophisticated cigarettes? Yeah, there's nothing sophisticated or glamorous about black lungs. They should put those pictures alongside their advertising, perhaps that might convince people how bad smoking really is.
 
Oh god. :ermm: How lame, I had hoped they'd get rid of those by now. Can't they find some money to buy back *that* license over 20+ years? :unsure:
 
^ I believe they did when Gucci Group took over. I know they consolidated a lot of YSL's licenses, and I always assumed the old cigarettes were one of them. I could be wrong but I believe this is a new licensing deal.
 
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I think they were always around, maybe not. Maybe those were fakes. Could be, given how allegedly popular Ysl cigs always were in Asian market. If they made a new deal then it's even worse Imo, bad enough luxury conglomerates have alcohol brands in their portfolios (different discussion), but cigarettes are very low. And advertising them = even worse. I always thought of cigarette manufacturing as something dirty/ugly/borderline criminal (by ethical definition not legal), something one doesn't want advertise or even associate name with. :unsure:
 
hideous, its being banned in europe and taking advantage in another part of the globe :yuk:
YSL SHAME ON YOU !
 
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i like it
i'll buy it

i agree. i'm glad everyone gets up and arms about a pack of branded cigarettes when almost every major design house -- from the gorgeous ashtrays at hermes to the obscenely opulent lighters at cartier to the fantastical match stands at ralph lauren to the golden cigar holders from tom ford -- promotes smoking in their own way. also, no one gets lung cancer from smoking a couple of casual cigarettes anymore than anyone gets cirrhosis from a few casual drinks.

addiction in any form is serious and should be treated that way, but let's not mistake a fashionable puff here or there for that.
 
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I'm not sure if other brands selling ashtrays lighters and other stuff promotes smoking per se. They hardly advertise those products as far as I've seen and they are quite common gifts because of the relativity low price, even Hermes ashtrays are cheaper than their frames or agendas or whatever.
 
i agree. i'm glad everyone gets up and arms about a pack of branded cigarettes when almost every major design house -- from the gorgeous ashtrays at hermes to the obscenely opulent lighters at cartier to the fantastical match stands at ralph lauren to the golden cigar holders from tom ford -- promotes smoking in their own way. also, no one gets lung cancer from smoking a couple of casual cigarettes anymore than anyone gets cirrhosis from a few casual drinks.

addiction in any form is serious and should be treated that way, but let's not mistake a fashionable puff here or there for that.
But here's the main difference, at least for me. The items you mentioned can be considered beautiful from an aesthetic standpoint and would be used as decor as well as for the purpose they were designed to serve. And because any of those items could be considered beautiful as an object they don't automatically do anything to cheapen the name of the brand selling them.

These cigarettes are just a cheap, tacky - not to mention disgusting - way of making a buck...to me at least.

Then again you're speaking more of the promotion of smoking via this product, and I don't disagree with you entirely in that respect. Fashion promotes smoking all the time. I mean, you need look no further than my avatar to see that.
 
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I smoke, bad but well, i think this is kind of a licence and some people are making money with YSL name.
BTW, if there is a Chanel bicycle! :lol:
 
ahahah, it's ridiculous i know, but i love the appeal of a beautiful package and beautiful cigarettes. i wish we had them in europe. it's pretentious to smoke ysl but i will definetly try to get one of those beautiful packages if some friend flies to russia.
 
**post edited: reply to a deleted post**

i certainly don't recall anyone getting up in arms when viktor and rolf lent their name to liquor or dior playfully named one of their "addict" beauty products, "IOD."

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style.com
 
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