Supermodel covers Blondie in her bikini

There's nothing new about a model singing in accented monotone — Nico was the patron saint of that.

But Nico had the magic of the '60s New York City art scene behind her, as well as the music of the Velvet Underground, Jackson Browne, and other great collaborators.

Gisele Bundchen, on the other hand, has Auto-Tune and a weak arrangement of the classic new wave/disco crossover hit by French DJ Bob Sinclair:



Oh yeah, and it's an ad for swimwear. In case you missed it.

According to Ace Showbiz, the ad was given a premiere showing on Good Morning America yesterday.

The only good thing about it is that H&M is donating all royalties from the song's iTunes sales to UNICEF. If anyone buys it.

You could also buy this instead, and donate directly to UNICEF here:

Vanessa Paradis explores the domestic jungle for H&M

I like this new ad for H&M's "Conscious Collection" of more sustainable clothing.



Just because you have signed on Vanessa Paradis to be the face of your collection doesn't mean you have to focus on her sex appeal. Instead, this ad is a beautiful piece of eye candy for corporate social responsibility. The parallax-effect scrolling web site is also quite lush.

H/T The Drum

H&M and the curious case of the cyborg models

Look at these two models, from the H&M online catalogue:

Here are three more:

Notice anything... odd?

According to Jezebel, "The bodies of most of the models H&M features on its website are computer-generated and 'completely virtual,' the company has admitted. H&M designs a body that can better display clothes made for humans than humans can, then 'dresses' it by drawing on its clothes, and digitally pastes on the heads of real women in post-production."

In other words, they're just digital paper dolls. Pick a skin tone, add an outfit and photoshop in a real head. Why a real head? Well, humans have pretty fine-tuned facial recognition software in their heads. We tend to be freaked out by fake faces that are too close for comfort, pushing us into the uncanny valley.

You will notice however, on this pose, that they re-use the same headshot over and over again as well.

And in case you're wondering, they have cyborg male models too:

What do you think of this tactic? Its advantage is consistency in showing off the clothes; after all, models are supposed to be mannequins. Plus if they were a little more overt about it, with a disclaimer that "models bodies are computer generated — do not try this at home" then maybe it would help to overcome the whole dysmorphia and eating disorder issue with both models and their followers.

After all, there was a time when fashion was usually sold by illustration.

Is this any different? I'd love to hear your opinions. (Well, those of most of you anyway.)

F'd Ad Fridays: Donatella Versace goes to H&M

While '70s designer jeans brand Jordache goes to Walmart, former high fashion label Versace is teaming up with middlebrow retailer H&M.

But current fashion house boss Donatella (sister to late founder Gianni) won't allow the fact that her clothes are appearing in a slightly cooler version of The Gap deter her from making a pretentious, high-budget, egomaniacal and downright baffling fashion video to promote it:



Via Adfreak