Back in the USSR with French luxury
I wonder if others were saddened by this picture, which covered the back page of the International Herald Tribune today. What is Mikhael Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union, doing hawking luggage for Louis Vuitton, the French luxury brand?
No-one cares if actors and sports people cash in on their images. I don't mind if second-ranking statesmen make money moving merchandise. The late President Gerald Ford did it and so does Bernard Laporte, the national rugby coach who is about to join Sarkozy as minister for sport (see him selling ham below).
Gorbachev, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, is another matter. He may be unloved in modern Russia but he is a giant. No lesser word applies to the man who wound down the communist empire of Lenin and Stalin and engineered the peaceful end of the Cold War. He shouldn't be selling capitalist luxury goods. What's next, Nelson Mandela pitching for Tiffany's?
The picture is stylish, one of a series by Annie Leibowitz, the American portraitist, for an advertising campaign that Vuitton calls "Exceptional People, Exceptional Journeys". Another features Catherine Deneuve perched on a suitcase by a steam train at the Paris Gare d'Austerlitz. The married tennis stars Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi appear in another in a New York setting. Vuitton, part of the LVMH group, says that it is celebrating its corporate "core values" and projecting the notion of travel as a personal journey -- whatever that means.
Of course Vuitton is making fashionable donations to environmental charities: Al Gore's Climate Project and Gorbachev's Green Cross International. But the stars of the adverts are still selling their images to help Vuitton unload its logo-laden bags.
Deneuve's picture, is just harmless fantasy. Austerlitz hasn't seen steam for decades. Gorbachev's picture is another matter. The former General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party has played along with another retro mise-en-scène. He is posing with a Vuitton bag in the back of a 1950s Kremlin limousine as it skirts the modern vestiges of the Berlin wall. The caption reads: "A journey brings us face to face with ourselves. Berlin Wall. Returning from a Conference."
It's not surprising that Gorby does not look comfortable. The wall still chills anyone who remembers the Cold War, especially those who lived, as I once did, on the wrong side of the iron curtain. The advert, produced by Ogilvy & Mather, inevitably brings to mind Ronald Reagan's plea at the Brandenburg gate in 1987: "Mr Gorbachev. Tear down this wall."
Getting Gorbachev to use the wall to sell leather is, to put it mildly, unseemly. We are told that he was initially unwilling to take the work. I suspect that his decision reflects the naive side of his character. A decade earlier he made a fool of himself doing a spot for Pizza Hut.
His guileless side was evident when he was overtaken by events and Boris Yeltsin in 1991 and failed in his ambition to keep the Soviet Union together with some kind of reformed Socialist system. But anyone who came near Gorbachev was deeply impressed by the man. In the 1980s, I lived in Moscow and shared in the amazement over the emergence of this inspired reformer from within the ranks of the sclerotic Soviet machine.
Vuitton told the New York Times that its choice of Gorbachev mirrors a shift in the "geopolitics of the luxury business". Pietro Beccari, Vuitton's marketing director, said the campaign aimed to broaden the brand's appeal in new markets such as Russia and China. I'm sure that Vuitton does its research, but I find if hard seeing this world-weary former communist, now in his 77th year, as a model for the post-Soviet nouveaux riches.
Much more suited would be our very own Sarko, a man who loves to decorate his person with brand names. His unabashed fondness for Nike, Ralph Lauren, Ray Ban and big Breitling watches have earned him a new nickname -- President Bling-Bling. Unlike Gorbachev, Sarkozy is, we suppose, not receiving payment for his product placement.
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