Always the industry contrarian, British grand dame Vivienne Westwood is pulling out all the stops for her upcoming Spring 2009 campaign, and to ensure she delivers a suitably zany splash, she has enlisted the services of her most unorthodox celebrity ambassador to date — pneumatic Hollywood starlet Pamela Anderson.
Even for the likes of Vivienne and Pam, two women famously married to their mercurial whims, this arrangement is a head-scratcher. Is Westwood trying to be ironic? Is Pam trying to resurrect her spontaneity? What is the hidden agenda, we ask?
But it seems the casting decision stemmed from the most organic of intentions: the designer & celebrity hit it off.
Backstage at a recent runway show, Anderson enchanted Westwood, who regarded the bodacious blonde as an implausibly convincing muse.
“Vivienne thought Pamela looked stunning in her clothes,” Westwood HQ says. “When thinking of casting her next campaign, she immediately thought of Pamela and called her to ask if she would be interested. Pamela agreed on the spot.”
The Baywatch era icon may have landed the starring role, but Westwood herself along with husband, Andreas Kronthaler, will also star in the new campaign. Photographer Juergen Teller, notorious for his lo-fi aesthetic and cheap visual thrills, will shoot the ads in Pam’s Malibu trailer, where all the lines of Westwood’s anarchic empire — there are four and counting, in case you wondered — will be on display.
The campaign will debut in the February 2008 editions of magazines worldwide. Steidl will also commemorate the campaign via a procurable coffee table book.
This isn’t Pam’s first turn as a high fashion ad magnet, but we are willing to bet that Vivienne’s campaign will exploit her cartoonish appeal, leading to a result that will be judged lowbrow by some, fabulous by others.
What does Pam represent to you?
