Berlin and Paris thoughts
Travel and fashion editorials remind me of the most recent fiasco in the airline industry and of the Ratner moment enjoyed by Easyjet, clearly not the world’s favourite airline this winter (and not mine at any rate). Scandal came in the form of a fashion shoot in the middle of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, qui plus est featuring what can only be described as scarily emaciated models (women’s) and a Nazi officer lookalike (men’s). Now, I’ve had stupid ideas in my days but the only word that came to my mind when I was shown the feature was WTF (the other word is Schadenfreude). As much as I like a daring photo shoot, this wasn’t their brightest moment!
(needless to say you won’t find a copy in front of your seat – they’ve been recalled).
I suppose that the flipside of trying too hard is to not try hard at all. And so off I was a few weeks ago for the launch of Kisses From Paris, a film sponsored by the French tourist office aimed at showing a new side of Paris and at creating a “viral buzz” on the Internet. Thanks for the champagne and the petits fours but Le Nouveau Paris? I don’t think so. Uber-Parisian film director Yvan Attal – who has bored us rigid with Parisian cliches for the best part of this decade (Ma Femme est une Artiste anyone) – delivered the most annoyingly Parisian film ever while trying to tell us that Paris is not what we think it is. Well is it, Yvan? Because judging by this dull Doisneau a la Youtube, it does look like Le Same Old Paris to me. And if I may say so, I wasn’t necessarily expecting burning cars in the Montfermeil banlieue but this is as white as a Ku Klux Klan recruiting advert. Now there’s a broader point that needs to be made about city branding: do tourist offices really know how to showcase a city as vibrant as creative? And doesn’t it happen at a more grassroots level? I let you judge… Try not to fall asleep!
