Gisele Bündchen Dances With Topless Ballerinas in Stuart Weitzman’s First Commercial
Stuart Weitzman is hitting the MTV Video Music Awards.
Come Sunday night, amid the Miley Cyrus-theatrics and Taylor Swift reaction shots, MTV will air the footwear designer’s first-ever television commercial, a black-and-white 30-second spot featuring the brand’s fall campaign face, Gisele Bündchen.
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The decision to make a commercial, Weitzman noted, was inspired by Swift herself. “Renowned singers call us all the time to make us shoes for their performances — we did Beyoncé for a few tours as well as Rihanna and Jennifer Lopez,” Weitzman said. “This year, Taylor Swift asked for like, a dozen pairs for all of her changes [on the ‘1989 World Tour’]. I went to her show in Philly and I was floored. She’s big with all the 15-year-olds, but I wrote her a note that says, ‘You now have a grandfather as one of your fans.’ We make the shoes with extra-cushion so she can dance and thought, ‘Hey, we make dance shoes…maybe we should find some way to show them off.’”
The commercial, directed by Mario Testino, depicts a leotard-clad Bündchen doing the electric slide with a group of male backup dancers (a formula, ironically enough, employed by Beyoncé in the “Single Ladies” video, which became the catalyst for Kanye West’s infamous interruption of Swift at the 2009 VMAs). “The message is ‘Stuart Weitzman makes great product and you can dance in them,’” the designer said of the video. “If girls see that you can dance in them, they sure know that we can wear them. The commercial side comes in that way in the sense that we’re selling the story of our DNA. We think that showing off what you can do in those boots is just as important as how you look in them.”
Gisele Bundchen stars in Stuart Weitzman’s first television commercial. Photo: Courtesy
Airing the video during the largely watched awards show is not just a nod to the music video-esque nature of the commercial. “Fashion, fit and function are at the basis of everything we do,” said Susan Duffy, chief marketing officer at Stuart Weitzman. “The first thing we think about in the morning and the last thing we think about at night is how we do break through with our brand story, and how do we emotionally connect with our clients and the next generation. By airing this during the VMAs, the impressions in the ages from 18 to 54 [is] going to be incredible. We see this as a momentous burst for the brand and a huge opportunity to introduce the brand to a new generation.”
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Added Weitzman: “We are in a changing world of communication to the public, with social media and all of that, but some of the old-fashioned ways to get a message across like television work because they are not used as much as they used to be. So when you do use them, you’re more noticed than you would be.”
The full-length version of the video, titled “Make That Move” and featuring an original song of the same name by singer and model Maluca Mala, will be available for view on brand’s Web site, where visitors can also download the full track.
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