EXCLUSIVE: Charlie Heaton Named Global Ambassador of Paco Rabanne’s Phantom Parfum
PARIS — Charlie Heaton has been named the global ambassador of Paco Rabanne’s new Phantom Parfum for men.
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The “Stranger Things” actor will front the campaign for the perfume, which is due out starting in July. It was created to be more mysterious and sexy than its predecessor, Phantom, which launched two years ago.
“I’ve known Paco Rabanne for years and years,” said Heaton. “One Million is one of the first perfumes that I was given.”
That scent from the brand was gifted to him as a teen.
“It is like full circle, because they kind of introduced me to perfume,” he continued.
To introduce him to Phantom Parfum, Heaton was sent creative elements, and had seen Elle Fanning in the spot for Fame, Phantom’s feminine fragrance counterpart.
“I saw what they did with that, and thought it was beautiful and fresh,” he said. “With this one, they wanted to go with this enigmatic, dark character. I liked the idea of collaborating with them, creating that vision and idea.”
Heaton delved deeper into Paco Rabanne’s past, especially during the ’60s.
“That was super cool,” he said. “Their clothing was something I discovered along this journey.”
Heaton knew David Bowie’s music would accompany the spot, as it has other Paco Rabanne fragrance campaigns, and that he’d need to portray a musician — something he is in real life.
“It was like shooting a music video,” he said of the process. “It was [about] just leaning into the confidence of it, because you have to create this very mysterious, sexy character.
“We were blasting ‘Let’s Dance’ for the whole filming of the campaign,” continued Heaton.
That was shot by Matt Lambert, while Florian Joyce lensed the still images.
“It was pretty freeing,” said Heaton, of the collaborative experience, during which he had to dance in front of many people for the first time.
Heaton recollected a piece of the Eiffel Tower was recreated, so he could appear to be standing on the structure, high above Paris.
“I was like: ‘How do we shoot this?’’ he said. “You had this wind machine. I felt like a superhero.”
For extra footage — to be used as behind-the-scenes and social content — Heaton was given free range, also set to the beat of “Let’s Dance.”
“They just let me roam free, with whatever I wanted to do,” he said. “There was a Steadicam and a couch.”
Heaton last year acted in the movie “Billy Knight,” with Al Pacino. “That was a once-in-a-lifetime, incredible experience,” said Heaton, who was just a few weeks away from going back into production, for the final season of “Stranger Things.”
Whereas the campaign for Phantom was set in a utopia-like environment, Phantom Parfum’s is more of today and in sync with Paco Rabanne fashion.
“Here, we also have this Parisian touch, which is very important for us,” said Vincent Thilloy, chief brands officer of Paco Rabanne and Jean Paul Gaultier at Puig. “We want to capitalize on that.”
Jér?me Leloup, vice president of Paco Rabanne Beauty, described Phantom Parfum as Phantom’s relaunch.
“It is an evolution of pretty much every aspect of the mix,” he said. “We very naturally turned to Charlie,” explained Leloup, adding Heaton was Paco Rabanne’s only pick, as the brand continues speaking to Gen Z.
Brand executives were drawn to Heaton’s sophisticated, rock attitude, and the fact he’s aspirational for his generation.
Leloup called Heaton “a very interesting, complex character, who portrays very well the kind of men we are interested in portraying today — a bit more complex, sensitive, very magnetic. We were obsessed with trying to showcase also a very seductive [modern] masculinity.”
In the film, Heaton appears to look out over Paris from the Eiffel Tower, lounges on the hood of a car, walks through the City of Light, meets with a romantic partner and plays the drums. The camera, meanwhile, toggles between him and Phantom.
Phantom Parfum was designed to be more luxurious than its predecessor. That robot-like, refillable bottle was given a black matte finish.
Phantom Parfum has a new juice, too, which mixes French lavender, black vanilla bean from Madagascar and Haitian vetiver. The fragrance, conceived by IFF perfumers Juliette Karagueuzoglou, Dominique Ropion and Anne Flipo, is almost wholly of natural ingredients.
“We were really trying to come up with something that is timeless,” said Leloup, calling the scent also “empowering” and “sexy.” “We think it’s going to be our new hero product.”
The U.S. consumer was kept in mind during the scent’s creation.
The perfume will be pre-launch in travel retail and on Paco Rabanne fragrances’ e-commerce site on July 1, along with the campaign. That will be followed by the global product rollout on Sept. 1.
A 100-ml. Phantom Parfum bottle will retail for 110 euros.
The Fame Parfum will come out also starting in July.
Paco Rabanne’s fragrance business has been on a steep growth trajectory. In 2022, it gained rank everywhere, and today places among the top five fragrance brands globally. The brand gained two positions, climbing to number three in Europe, coming in just after Chanel and Dior. In Latin America, Paco Rabanne places second.
“All our pillars are growing,” said Thilloy, referring to franchises such as One Million and Invictus. “Fame is an amazing launch.”
That ranked 10th at launch, and Fame’s recent introduction in the U.S. has allowed the Paco Rabanne fragrance brand to gain nine ranks overall there.
The aim is for Phantom Parfum to catapult Phantom into the top 10 men’s fragrances worldwide by 2025. If so, that would make Paco Rabanne the only fragrance brand to have three franchises in the top 10 around the globe. (One Million and Invictus are already there.)
Thilloy believes 2023 “will be a tremendous year” for Paco Rabanne.
“It is the first time since the pandemic that the online rank for the brand equals the one for bricks [and mortar],” said Leloup.
Part of the success is that Paco Rabanne keeps introducing more premium iterations of its scents to meet consumers’ rising desire for high luxury since the coronavirus pandemic began.
“That did phenomenally for us,” said Leloup.
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