Perfumed Pop Perfection

Dior: Joy (2018): click here

I. Joy *

Somethings are so perfect they deserve to be acknowledged as such. And the TV ad by Dior for the fragrance Joy, directed by Francis Lawrence and starring the sublimely beautiful Jennifer Lawrence, is one such thing. 

It's visually stunning, as one might expect, as the 28-year-old American actress frolics in a swimming pool with a jellyfish, playfully spits water at the camera, lounges in the sun, and floats beneath the stars, etc.

But - crucially - it also has a magical soundtrack supplied by The Rolling Stones; an irresistable slice of psychedilic pop entitled 'She's a Rainbow' ...

II. She's a Rainbow **

'She's a Rainbow' featured on the (much-maligned at the time, but now critically-acclaimed) album Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967) and was also released as a single in the US (although it wasn't a big hit, peaking at number 25 in the charts). 

Simplistic, repetitive, and, at times, childlike, it's been described as the prettiest and most un-Stoneslike of all songs written by Jagger and Richards, and features a string arrangement by John Paul Jones, piano by Nicky Hopkins, and the magnificent refrain she comes in colours (the title of a single released 12 months earlier by the LA band Love, led by singer-songwriter Arthur Lee).  

I'm not, for obvious reasons, a great fan of The Rolling Stones and although perfumed pop perfection smells less of teen spirit and more of a multi-million dollar licensing deal, I love this hippie-trippy song nevertheless ...

Notes

* Created by François Demachy, Joy incorporates notes of mandarin, zested bergamot, rose, jasmine, and sensual sandalwood. It is intended to be an olfactive interpretation of light and is Dior's first major fragrance launch since J'adore back in 1999. For more details, visit the Dior website: click here.   

Readers might also note that the fragrance's name is not linked to Lawrence's Oscar-nominated role in the 2015 film Joy (dir. David O'Russell); that's simply a happy coincidence. And although Jennifer and Francis Lawrence have frequently worked together, they are not, in fact, related; the shared surname is simply another coincidence.

** 'She's a Rainbow' is something of a favourite not only with Stones fans, but advertising executives, having featured in several other commercials over the years as well as the Dior ad; these inlude one for Apple in 1999, who wanted to promote their colourful i-Mac computers, and, more recently, one for Acura's RDX in 2018. The song is thus what Arthur Daley would call a nice little earner for Mick and Keith, who, unlike some artists, happily embrace commercial licensing of their songs. 

As the Stones continue to play 'She's a Rainbow' live, one assumes it's one of the two songs on Their Satanic Majesties Request that Jagger and Richards still think fondly of, despite both having dismissed the album as basically not very good.

Play: The Rolling Stones, 'She's A Rainbow', from Their Satanic Majesties Request (Decca, 1967): click here to play the full version (with intro) on YouTube courtesy of Universal Music Group.

On the Joy of Flirting and the Experience of Beauty

 Ayaan Hirsi Ali

 

Flirting is one of the great joys of life, which, regardless of intent, is always an innocent form of sexual play at the level of language and gesture; by this, I mean it lacks the consciously cruel and manipulative aspects of teasing.  

People who do not know how to flirt are like those who do not know how to laugh; they lack that insouciance which is so lovely in wild animals and flowering plants and in men and women who intuitively understand the mystery of beauty.

 

For beauty, ultimately, is the key thing: when we flirt, we communicate the happiness that arises out of an experience of beauty. We find others sexy and appealing when we find them beautiful. But, as Lawrence rightly argues, living beauty is not a fixed pattern or a conventional look which comes ready-made or photoshopped. This is why even the most skilled cosmetic surgeons fail to produce a truly beautiful face, despite an almost perfect arrangement of features. And this is why there's nothing flirtatious about a sex doll.

Because beauty is something felt and something which can be shared with others, even the plainest person can be beautiful and flirt successfully. On the other hand, even the most attractive person in the room can seem ugly and undesirable when they lack the warm glow of beauty and don't know how to communicate joy. Only when the sex-glow is missing, writes Lawrence, do people move in ugly coldness like "one of those ghastly living corpses which are unfortunately becoming more numerous in the world ... and whom everybody wants to avoid".

Today, it takes a rare woman to genuinely rouse a sense of loveliness; and a rare man to have the courage to respond to her loveliness and to flirt in a spirit that is neither lewd nor crude, but generous and playfully tender, with perhaps just a touch of irony. Luckily, however, there is an example of such to be found on YouTube and involves a very touching and amusing public encounter between Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Christopher Hitchens; he full of old school charm and she smiling and giggling in an almost coquettish manner.

Perhaps, as well as everything else, flirting is an important sign of freedom ...

Notes: 

Readers interested in viewing the encounter between Hitch and the very beautiful Ayaan Hirsi Ali at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, on Feb 13 2007, should click here.

The line quoted from D. H. Lawrence can be found in the article 'Sex Appeal', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 146.