The Dior Book Tote Club: Where Intellect Invites Innovation to Designer Marketing
High fashion campaigns have evolved tremendously over hundreds of years. From the 14th through the 18th century, fashion in general was of course limited to the rich. Marketing back then existed in the form of exquisite little dolls called Pandora dolls which were used to showcase the latest trends in fabrics, styles, and so forth. (Honestly sounds extremely fun to me, not considering the logistics). Then from the 18th century through the 19th century, we relied primarily on magazines and print media, with the 90s being the peak era for the supermodel. Fast forward to today and we are inundated with campaigns that typically feature some combination of an A-list celebrity, a magazine spread, and a video clip intended to be seen primarily on social media platforms, more specifically, Instagram.
A Pandora doll, circa 1760-1770, from Victoria and Albert Museum
While the modern way obviously does a great job of promotion and driving revenues up, it has become rather boring and doesn’t do much to give any brand who employs the method much distinction from others. High fashion brands are supposed to be about character, distinction, and innovation. Considering that, their marketing strategies should reflect that for the sake of integrity of the brand. And while those principles may not be at the forefront of intention for the marketing teams within many fashion houses today, Dior is one house that has certainly made themselves stick out recently with how they campaigned for their book tote- they created a book club.
As a huge book and fashion lover, I am naturally obsessed with The Dior Book Tote Club. It’s a mini-series on Youtube and each episode features a public intellectual type of woman strolling through an iconic bookstore talking about some of their favorite books as they load them into the Dior tote. These women are Rosamund Pike, an actress who was educated in English literature at Oxford, Beatrice Borromeo, an Italian journalist and fashion model, and Nine d’Urso a French socialite and model who cannot be bothered to have Instagram or Facebook but enjoys books, art, museums, and philosophy. These profiles alone give a rather clear intention of the campaign and what it seeks to attract- women whose love for fashion and art doesn’t end with their chic outfits and bags, but expands to the enjoyment of their intellectual stimulation.
From a business standpoint, (which I personally am always enthused to talk about) I think it was a brilliant marketing approach because it’s incredibly memorable and gives the bag more long-term relevance. I feel like it’s a great demonstration of why not trying to appeal to the masses is a more effective strategy in marketing. Instead of having a wide amount of lukewarm interest, they have a perhaps small but very mighty segment of dedicated consumers. I might even call them collectors. And besides, if we’re being completely honest here, high fashion is not meant for wide-scale consumption. To me, this campaign was a marriage of so many themes beyond fashion and intellect- you feel some sort of nostalgia and history and a richer-than-life feeling. I love that Dior was enterprising enough to pursue something so out of the box in such an eloquent way. I’m hoping that this can set a standard for other fashion houses to boldly marry design to other seemingly unrelated but meaningful themes of human existence.
Enjoy the linked video below and feel free to share with me your thoughts.
