Like all great mysteries, the case of Martin Scorsese’s conspicuously missing perfume ad begins in ancient Mesopotamia.
Like all great mysteries, the case of Timothée Chalamet’s conspicuously missing Bleu de Chanel ad campaign begins in ancient Mesopotamia. In 1200 BCE, a woman named Tapputi-Belatekallim made the first recorded perfume using flowers, oil, calamus, Cyperus, myrrh, and balsam, immortalizing the formula carefully on a cuneiform tablet. In the intervening 3,222 years, humanity fell off. In the spring of 2023 AD, Chanel paid Timothée Chalamet a reported $35 million to promote a fragrance called Bleu de Chanel with a 60-second ad directed by Martin Scorsese, preceded by a monthslong press blitz that included several behind-the-scenes videos, interviews, and influencer-attended dinners — then they never actually released the ad. Its much-hyped release date of October 16 came and went with nary a peep from Chanel or Chalamet or Scorsese; it briefly leaked online on October 31, then all but disappeared from the internet. I think I speak for all of us when I say, who cares, but also, ???????
Let’s start by retracing the ad’s steps to see if we can deduce to where it might have wandered off. The official campaign began on May 15 with an Instagram post announcing Chalamet as the “fragrance ambassador for BLEU DE CHANEL … A fragrance for the man who is deeply himself.” In an accompanying Vogue feature, Chalamet very normally and organically raises “his wrist to his face to take in the aromatic notes of sandalwood,” noting, “I like that it feels a little pulled back, it’s subtle but still assertive … I’m not someone who wears scent all the time. For me, it’s about emphasizing a moment.” Alongside paradigm-shattering anecdotes about sharing a “groomer” with Channing Tatum, Chalamet confirms that recent paparazzi photos of him and Scorsese shooting in Manhattan were for a “short film” for the brand. “I have some friends that aren’t as interested in the high-fashion space, but when I tell them I’m doing a short film with Martin Scorsese in New York, their ears prick up,” he says.
Oh my god they used it!! https://t.co/WQjZEz6qTv pic.twitter.com/pF9fzs57b8
— Ema Sasic (@ema_sasic) October 31, 2023
The rest of the summer passes in a blur of Bleu. “Bleu De Chanel Will Actually Make You Smell Like a Movie Star” crows GQ. “The luxe cologne is a perennial favorite of Hollywood big shots, and yet its price — a mere 96 bucks for the smallest size — falls squarely into everyman range. (A very Chalamet dichotomy!)” A clip of Chalamet accidentally (maybe) bumping into Scorsese’s camera while filming in Soho goes viral. In June, he stars in a 15-second “reveal,” slowly raising his head and staring solemnly into the camera, his eyes pleading with the viewer to release him from his cerulean prison. Accompanying ad copy reads, “For the new campaign, Timothée Chalamet embodies an individual who is deeply themself” (no longer a “man who is deeply himself”). It continues, “Ready to dive into the unknown in pursuit of a vision that takes them to new heights. BLEU DE CHANEL is the essence of that vision, the colour that knows no bounds.”
A week later, another commercial for the commercial drops, in which an unseen, unheard presence asks Chalamet questions like, “If you were an hour, what would you be?” (He answers, in French, that he would be 2:37 in the morning.) In a separate sponsored video, entitled “France Vs. the US,” a visibly pained Chalamet is forced to choose between his American and French heritages: Does he prefer the Empire State Building or the Eiffel Tower? (The latter; the Empire State Building’s neighborhood is too random.) What about bagels or croissants? “Bagels are about 95 percent of this diet right here,” says Chalamet, suddenly and forcefully standing up. “They keep me alive.”
In the fall, the publicity blitz continues with a journalist-free, influencer-attended dinner at Bemelmans, where Chalamet “joined legendary auteur Martin Scorsese to toast their partnership on the Bleu de Chanel campaign” and “turned up to the dinner on theme” in a brown Tom Ford monochromatic outfit (the theme being, naturally, “a man who defies convention”). On October 11, Vogue Italia drops a behind-the-scenes look at the ad that is 120 seconds, twice as long as the hypothetical ad itself. “In this short film, I’m playing sort of a caricature of what my life could be seen as, sort of in a hyperrealized setting, and sort of the publicity requirements that come with acting,” Chalamet says, seemingly without irony. He goes on to explain that in the “film within the film, I play a guy named Simon who’s a trumpeteer [sic] who’s more married to his art than his relationships.” The next day, a 20-second “exclusive look” — actually just the first 20 seconds of the 120-second teaser — runs in Russh.
Three days from the ad’s planned drop, The Fall runs a rich analysis of Bleu de Chanel’s ethos: “ ‘Find your blue, find yourself,’ reads the campaign message. It’s a sentiment that speaks to the kind of bold forward thinking that saw Chalamet tapped as the face of a Chanel fragrance in the first place.” Is it bold and forward-thinking to tap one of the most famous actors in the world as the face of a Chanel fragrance? What are we even talking about anymore? Where is my blue? Scorsese is briefly quoted in the piece, explaining that “the world has changed. There’s another aspect to celebrity in a way. Which is even more extreme than 10 or 15 years ago.” What could he possibly be referring to? Olivier Polge, Chanel “in-house perfumer and creator,” adds that “Bleu de Chanel has just the right amount of conviction and intensity to represent a man who refuses to be typecast … a man who dismisses façades and who is not afraid to let vulnerability show through his tough, disarming exterior.”
October 16 arrives and departs with no ad, no explanation, and no vulnerability showing through a tough, disarming exterior. One day later, GQ releases a 30-minute “epic conversation” with Scorsese and Chalamet about their allegedly fruitful parfum partnership. The two talk about New York versus L.A. (“Your edge rots out there,” says Chalamet), the Bleu film being inspired by Fellini’s 1968 short Toby Dammit, the unmentionable things they have both seen at New York’s Port Authority, and how, according to Chalamet, “America is a Puritan country.”
Weeks go by. On Halloween, the ad briefly leaks into Puritan America and some other countries. It is, indeed, 60 seconds long. Having watched it approximately 13 times and read every bit of accompanying promotional copy and press, I can say confidently that it is about a disillusioned young actor who goes on too many late-night shows and is suddenly rescued from the hellish promo circuit by Havana Rose Liu, his co-star in the aforementioned movie-within-a-movie about Simon the cold careerist trumpeter; Liu travels through the veil and yanks the actor into a subway car and subsequently another world, one that is “bleu” instead of black and white. Inside the bleu world, he is finally free to be themself. In other words, the ad is about how being a celebrity and having to do marketing sucks, and how it would be preferable to be trapped in some kind of lawless alt-universe governed only by the rules of perfume.
Fan accounts and the A.V. Club rejoice too soon; save for a few X remnants, the ad is quickly removed from the internet by the people who govern our current universe. On November 1, Timothée Chalamet Brasil writes, “We deleted our tweets from Timothée Chalamet on the Bleu de Chanel commercial, as we discovered it was leaked content. Brian Swardstrom, Timothée’s agent, liked tweets from fans confirming that it has not been officially released.” Reddit is not as respectful as the Brazilian Chalamet contingent; it sink its fangs into the ad like the people Chalamet probably saw at Port Authority. “This is not giving. They spent $35M on his contract, they could’ve made a much better commercial,” writes one user. “Why does it seem it was edited for TikTok?” asks another.
December is now upon us. We are, all of us, ready to dive into the unknown in pursuit of a vision that takes us to new heights, the essence of that vision being the colour that knows no bounds. And yet we have no guidebook on how to do so; the Bleu ad is nowhere to be found. I reached out to Chanel and Scorsese and Chalamet’s publicists to ask why it hasn’t been released and where it might be lurking; the former replied, “It was a Global decision to postpone this release date, but we will let you know when we have more information on the new launch date.” Scorsese’s told me, “The latest we heard from Chanel is that they’re currently looking at an early 2024 release — tbd February.” Is the ad pushback to do with the optics of releasing a luxury ad against the backdrop of ever-encroaching Global horrors? To line up with the new Dune release date? Or maybe it was to placate Tapputi-Belatekallim, who has probably cursed the craven evolution of perfume from beyond the grave.
