Thierry Mugler is a French (a real French one, heh? We didn't steal him, I swear) fashion designer, photographer, and has also a fragrance line from his own name, "Thierry Mugler fragrances" (wasn't there my dear friend Georgi who explained in a previous article how a brand could come from a real name?). I'm going to mostly talk about the fragrances.
His major success was "Angel", launched in 1992.
It had many other perfumes based on it. The second "new" fragrance, apart from being my favourite one, was launched in 2005, and was called "Alien". From then, no more new fragrances.
This year, more exacty in March, Thierry Mugler did his come back, whithout a fragrance, but with a website. It was launched as a gift for the woman's day, but it doesn't promote Thierry Mugler, nore his work and his products. A risk-taking? More exactly, a risk-taking 2.0, but maybe not a so stupid one.
The website, http://www.womanity.com/ , is in fact a giant free space for women, where everybody can post: opinions, photos, videos, it's an open-space for free expression. This project could be related to the crowdsourcing marketing, since all women who are posting are creating the content of the website.
Concretely, how does the website work?
It looks like a giant mosaic, where the most recent articles are on the center, are the most visible. The older articles are on corners and sides of your screen, but are still reachable. A giant mosaic which is in constant evolution and changing state. "With an aim to create contents for the website, one story is finished by several women, each of them writing on her page. Contest asks women to give creative ideas for a particular project or cause. The winner will work with Mugler to finish the website." (from the article, see below)
The website exists in 7 different languages, and has Balistik Arts and MSN as partners. Another option is the filter of the website: you can filter the posts according to a color. Also, if you post, you are asked to precise a color for your post, expressing your mood. The interpretation is yours: red posts could be significant from women in love, who are passionate, or, who are simply expressing their anger.
This website is pretty imaginative, but what is the link with perfumes, since there is no mention with any Thierry Mugler product? When Thierry Mugler launched his website, he was asked if it was in anticipation of a new perfume, and he replied no. Apparenlty, he changed his mind, since a new fragrance, called Womanity, would be released around this September. Do you remeber the videos of stories Internet users were asked to finish? They might be used as a spot. Moreover, the different women presented in these stories are also present on the poster presenting the bottle of the new fragrance:
It was a good strategy not to launch the perfume at the same time of the website, giving the impression it was only for women. Tricky, isn't it? The fragrance is said to have been created as a part of this phenomenon, inspired from and for women, and what is the meaning of being a woman today.
Womanity can come from different associations of words:
Woman and... spontaneity? City? Community? Humanity? Strong values to express and represent the modern woman. And you, what's your definition of Womanity?
Angèle Rebergue.
Article announcing the new perfume
Article about both website and the fragrance
Womanity website
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