Juicy Couture

Before I designed products, I directed a film about wanting: a spaceship, a crew of fifty, and the last bottle of Juicy Couture perfume left anywhere.

  • The brief: a short spec commercial for Juicy Couture’s Viva La Juicy Noir. One minute twenty of fashion film with a story in it. Survivors on a spaceship throw a costume party out of whatever is left of Earth, old pianos, chains, circus balls, antique wigs, and two girls fight over the one bottle that remains. The message is simple: Juicy is the last luxury worth fighting for.

    Same craft I use on any product now: a concept, a cast of characters, a costume system, art direction, and a team that has to believe in it. The difference is this one was a film, and I ran all of it, from the first sketch to the final cut.

  • Director, creative director and producer. I led concept, art direction, set and costume design, production and post. Crew of fifty: cinematographers, actors, stylists, makeup artists and set designers. Shot on RED, edited in Final Cut Pro and After Effects. Set photography by Laura VanZee Taylor.

  • A fifty-person production built from nothing: antique chandeliers found in abandoned warehouses, an antique piano, a custom circus stand, a human-sized birdcage dressed in flowers. The first time I ran a whole production from concept to cut, and the project that showed me what I love most: big unconventional ideas, a team behind one vision, and visuals that stay with people.

The Challenge

My first film, and every job on it was mine.

It was my first film project, and I had to play every role behind the camera at once: writer, director, art director, costume designer, producer. The world had to be built from nothing, and every survivor needed a look: vintage, circus, underground, military. Fifty people on set, all waiting on the same person.

The Story

SAN FRANCISCO, FALL 2013

I was finishing my program at the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking and the thesis film was due. Two things I loved were sitting on my desk. One was a bottle of Viva La Juicy Noir, which I was slightly obsessed with: the black bow, the dark pink glass, a woman who is dangerous in a good way. The other was existentialism, which I had written about back in journalism school: what people do when nothing is guaranteed. I looked no further. Put the last bottle on Earth in front of people who have lost everything else, and watch what they do for it.

The Brand Pillars

Branding

Take a brand people already know and imagine the commercial it never made. Keep the DNA, change the world around it: the bottle stays the hero, the setting goes to the end of the world.

Characters

Nobody in this film is an extra. Every survivor gets a name, a look and a reason to fight, and the costume tells you who they are before they move. The fashion is the casting.

World

Luxury means more when everything else is gone. The survivors build their party from whatever they salvaged, so every prop is a piece of the old Earth. Existentialism underneath it all: when everything is gone, what is the last thing worth fighting for?

Juicy Couture spec commercial

The world is over. The party is not. Fifty people, one bottle, and a film we made from nothing.

Part 1 — Building characters

It started, as always, with the idea. I was in film school in 2013, but my degree is actually in advertising, and my thesis was on existential psychotherapy in social advertising. So I knew my graduate film had to be a commercial. A short one, with a point.

I also loved fashion, and I loved Juicy Couture. Their campaigns always had so much life in them. So I started pondering: if I were the art director at Juicy Couture, what kind of commercial would I make?

And here it was. The world has ended. A handful of survivors are left on a spaceship, throwing a decadent costume party out of whatever they salvaged from Earth: an old piano, chains, circus balls, antique wigs. The party stops for a fight between two girls, their friends cheering them on, over the last prize anyone still cares about: a single bottle of Viva La Juicy Noir. The message is simple. Juicy is the last luxury worth fighting for.

Overview

Tradeoff

Set design ate the schedule. Building the first location took so long that we never had time to shoot the opening scene, an abandoned wasteland the survivors were supposed to walk out of. So I rewrote the story: the survivors live on a spaceship now, and I hired an animator to create those scenes. The spaceship was never the plan. It was the fix.

Once the script was locked, the design job began. Every character got a mood board, then a sketch, then a costume: the Bird Girl, the Venetian Girl, the Heavy Guy, the two Fighters, the Circus Girl, the Clown Girl, and a dozen more survivors behind them. Vintage, circus, underground and military, all mixed together, and almost everything upcycled from what I could find. Then the set: an antique piano, a custom circus stand, chandeliers pulled out of abandoned warehouses, and a human-sized birdcage dressed in flowers.

Brand, fashion and set design

She was the first character I drew and the one I kept coming back to: a nest of blonde hair, a red mask, red wings, and a black French cancan dress underneath. Half creature, half showgirl. Of all the survivors she looks the least like she belongs at the end of the world, which is exactly why she stays in your eye.

She is dear to my heart for a second reason. My best friend Ksu played her, and she rocked it. See if you can spot her in the commercial.

The Bird Girl

Part 2 — The shoot

Overview

Then the film job. Fifty people on set: cinematographers, actors, stylists, makeup artists and set designers, all on one vision. The actors fully embodied their roles, and with a crew that good the energy on set was electric. We shot on RED, I edited in Final Cut Pro and After Effects, and the animated spaceship scenes open the film.

Tradeoff

I played too many roles on set. There were so many looks and so many actors that I was dressing everyone at the same time and coordinating hair and makeup while the camera waited. I directed less than I planned. The film got the world I saw in my head. The performances got less of me than they deserved. Next time, a wardrobe lead who isn’t me.

The crew at work on set.

Photo by Laura VanZee Taylor

One minute twenty of spec commercial, finished, and a crew of fifty proud of it. A film school thesis that turned out to be a film. The parts I did not plan for: friendships that have lasted more than a decade, and a set of pieces, costumes, sketches, frames, that half the crew still carry in their portfolios. Mine included.

The Result

What this project led to

Two things, and I did not see either coming. The first: somewhere between the mood boards and the fiftieth person on set, I realized the job I actually wanted was creative director. Not designer, not editor, the person who holds the whole vision. Years later that is my title, and this film is where the dream started.

The second: I fell in love with upcycling. Half of these costumes were built from things that already existed, and making them was the best part of the project. That instinct became a brand. It became SPARK + REBEL.

See SPARK + REBEL