Summertime, and the sales are upon us. I've been planning my annual pilgrimage to Harvey Nichols, the Knightsbridge shrine where in past summers I have found so many wonderful bargains - a Miu Miu top that set me back only £50, or (miracle of miracles) some Prada shoes that cost less than my dishwasher.
I know the London store well: I love its Lewis Carroll-like window displays, have had dates in its glamorous bar, and have spotted celebrities from Andie MacDowell to Marie Helvin on its floors. It is the only place where I can buy my favourite scent (Molecule) and my chosen pesto sauce (Harvey Nicks's own) in one go.
So it is more in sadness than in anger that I ask: Harvey Nicks, how could you? The firm's latest advertising campaign - in the form of mail shots sent to thousands of shoppers - shows a model with a damp patch on her trousers with the slogan: "Try to Contain Your Excitement" . Soiled goods suddenly has a whole new meaning.
It seems incredible, after a week in which Britain's glorious pageantry wowed the world, that a high-end department store chain could strike so crass a note. Yet the ad men who masterminded the Harvey Nichols flyers have unwittingly exposed this country's schizophrenic culture, in which an unsurpassed talent for orchestrating tasteful but popular spectacle coexists with a deeply offensive streak of vulgarity. Imagine the Queen and Jeremy Kyle fighting for the soul of the nation - with the latter gaining the upper hand.
In this instance, the advertising executives did their homework. Their research found that "I wet myself" was both "commonplace and invariably used in a playful, inoffensive manner which was in keeping with the tongue-in-cheek spirit" of their campaign. But if there's a market for this kind of smut, who is it?
Certainly not Harvey Nicks's regulars, women of taste and means. For them, picking up the flyer would have felt like opening their beloved Country Life to discover that the editor of Loaded had taken over: that the famous girls in pearls had given way to Page Three models and the glossy property spreads to advertisements for Rampant Rabbits. Thanks, but no thanks, the Harvey Nicks regulars will say, as they cut their store cards into tiny pieces. And I don't think the marketing men had the Wags in their sights, either. Colleen Rooney and co may have a penchant for bling jewellery and flash cars, but I suggest that even they might draw the line at this kind of vulgarity.
No, the "damp patch" gag is aimed at another group of clients altogether. It's the same people who find binge-drinking girls so funny, and mud-wrestling women a turn-on - a loutish cohort obsessed with celebrity and consumerism. In their rush to be a star, or to buy a Burberry coat, they have no time for sensitivities or subtleties: only the boldest, grossest and loudest can grab their attention. Hence the new, unrestrained, unashamed and larger-than-life vulgarity.
The Left thinks that this kind of criticism is about the imposing of middle-class morality on everyone else. It's not. It's about that sizeable proportion of the country raised on a diet of Big Brother incontinence, in which everyone lets everything hang out. It's about a leering, sneering approach to sex, drink, drugs and swearing. Children are not exempt: today's nursery comes not with Beatrix Potter murals, but sexually explicit clothes and violent video games. Why would their parents mind "Eat My Cherry" being embroidered on their little girl's knickers when they themselves are steeped in crudity every day?
Lavatorial humour of the "damp patch" kind fits right into this chav model: as offensive and clumsy as a drunk at a wake. In comparison, the refined and restrained world of the original Harvey Nichols would seem insipid. As would the choir at Westminster Abbey, or even the royal procession during the Jubilee.
The advertisers - and much of the media - encourage us to ditch propriety and discipline. Neither, after all, plays well on the telly dreadfuls that we seem to rate, or characterises the celebrities we ape. Thanks to their efforts, and to the fact that self-indulgence is a lot easier than self-control, laddishness has become the new norm. Politicians have taken it up to appear "ordinary": watch them raise their arms at football matches and proclaim their passion for the latest foul-mouthed rappers. Journalists and broadcasters have spread it about: watch them crash cars and throw punches to prove their worth.
I've seen the same coarsening take place in my native Italy, where within 20 years the laddish premier and media mogul, Silvio Berlusconi, managed to turn the proud nation of Dante and Michelangelo into a trashy backdrop for soft-porn starlets and bunga bunga parties. If it could happen in the cradle of the Renaissance, why not here?
Gags about wetting yourself are just the beginning. Harrods could sell its wares by bringing to automated life its statue of Diana and Dodi. The Archers could turn the air blue with scripts riddled with four-letter words. And weathergirls could deliver their forecasts in a pair of "Eat My Cherry" knickers - bought, needless to say, at Harvey Nicks.
Via: How could Harvey Nicks get it so wrong?
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