McQueen & Cadbury In Dispute Over Floating Woman Image (VIDEO)

Alexander McQueen's label is contemplating suing Cadbury for producing a commercial that resembles one of the designer's iconic images, the Telegraph UK reports. The commercial for Cadbury's Flake bar features a woman floating and spinning in a long yellow dress. It's reminiscent of a hologram of Kate Moss projected on McQueen's Autumn/Winter 2006 Paris Fashion Week runway.

Both the Cadbury ad and the McQueen projection were directed by Baillie Walsh. A spokesperson for Cadbury said, "There was not a deliberate effort, but the director has a particular house style, it was his work which attracted us. It is the same director and it is his particular house style."

WATCH the Cadbury ad:

WATCH Kate Moss as a hologram at McQueen's show:

What do you think?

Comments

[hauksdottir]

04:33 AM on 06/16/2010

[I can't reply to myself or change the order. Dratskies. Continued from below.]

Moss's performance only has one POV and one light set-up. The Cadbury ad uses different perspectives and different lights.

Moss's dress does not change. The Cadbury dress has that purple mist enveloping it, clinging, and changing the color.

The part I liked best in the McQueen hologram was the whizzing lights after Moss melted into the light and vanished like a ghost. The ghostliness at beginning and end was nicely done as well. Her twirling lasted a good two minutes toooooo long without variation or any vertical motion at all. If she is going to move to music, or be filmed for more than 30 seconds, she'd better take some dance lessons. Boring.

Rip-off? Or Reminiscent? If it was a different director, the question would not come up.

Even if it is his "house style", I would have recommended changing the trailing bits to a different weight fabric or a different shape (more feathery), or perhaps with a celery ruffle at the edge (ruffles on ruffles) to also suit the "flake" product. It is *that* similarity that catches the eye and raises the question.

If it IS indeed his "house style", there ought to be another example of it.

[hauksdottir]

04:31 AM on 06/16/2010

[Sorry, but I will have to split this.]

Kate Moss is not floating. All she does is stand on a turntable, wave her arms, and stare at the camera like a porn star. Men like that.

The Cadbury woman is floating and dancing. She is wrapped in her own dream. Women like that.

The shape of the dresses is different. Both are ruffled, with trailing pieces, but the gold dress is trumpet-shaped and much too long to wear walking. Ruffled dresses with ruffled trailing bits are NOT new.

Women floating or turning in space are NOT new. We artists have been portraying that for centuries, and film simply allows the motion to be shown. Anime, for example, has LOTS of women floating in space, with trailing bits. Again, NOT new.

A lot of children playing dress-up have stood and twirled, delighted by the way the fabric flared. I remember my first full-circle skirt. NOTnew.

Big fans directed at women with floaty dresses or floaty hair are NOT new. Photographers have used that gambit for decades.

Classical music to indicate class? NOT new.

[David Eisenbach]

06:36 PM on 06/14/2010

clearly stolen and Cadbury did such a poor job that their 1 min ad felt twice as long as the 3 min McQueen show.

[ZenCrusader]

11:46 AM on 06/13/2010

Clearly McQueen's Oyster Dress was stolen for the commercial. How the dress is shown, the motion - it is all a clear rip off. To attribut the theft of the entire scenario to the directors style is clearly BS.

[LillyKelder]

04:14 PM on 06/12/2010

I think you both need to find a new director. That was the stupidest thing I've seen in awhile.

[darth geekboy]

12:19 AM on 06/12/2010

they should include the option: "i have no idea what i'm looking at, nor what the fuss is all about."

[imaginaryfriends]

10:02 PM on 06/11/2010

Both look like copies of Project Runway's challenge design of Christian Siriano's layered haute couture dress.

[Marcozi]

03:41 PM on 06/14/2010

Um, Siriano worked under McQueen and participated in PR 2 years after the runway video in question appeared. If anyone is ripping off anyone it isn't the late Alexander.

[Blues02]

05:16 PM on 06/11/2010

Well the dress does look similar to the infamous McQueen Oyster dress. So with the combination of that and the commercial it does look ripped off.

[ceedubya]

04:25 PM on 06/11/2010

So no one is ever allowed to do ethereal imagery of a floating lady from now on? It's not like the McQueen show was the first time we've seen imagery like this, the main difference was the whole hologram thing. A lawsuit is just silly and petty and does not server McQueen's memory. Isn't upper-tier fashion generally seen as an inspiration for mainstream style anyway?

[PaticaDeGato]

03:43 PM on 06/11/2010

These two (identical) videos desperately needed a cameo by a hungry turtle.

[Benja0901]

02:44 PM on 06/11/2010

Correction: Cadbury didn't rip it off.. the director just got lazy and reused the style

[menthol]

09:23 AM on 06/12/2010

agree

[alsm9]

05:47 PM on 06/12/2010

....or that's what Cadbury asked for and he did what they asked...because they sign the check.

[Marcozi]

03:42 PM on 06/14/2010

You know that's what it is. Happens all the time. A client with deep pockets says "I want that." and they hire someone to hack it out figuring any legal hassle is worth it.