Two new catalogs raise the question of authenticity and pretentiousness in marketing-and not a moment too soon. What with the Catalog Conference in Boston this month awarding this catalog or that for approaching the philosophical ideal of the good, the true and the beautiful, catalogs are on everyone’s mind.
The catalogs in question- Anthropologie and The Claude Monet Collection-both cater to an upscale consumer who wants her goods to wrap her in an aura of authenticity, if not individuality. The products are to show she has good taste and leisure time.
Part of Urban Outfitters Inc., Anthropologie launched its catalog this spring. Anthropologie is a chain of 10 stores across the country offering an assortment of women’s clothing, furniture and decorative objects. The catalog was sent to a mailing list of some 300,000 names culled from a variety of files, the retailer claims.
Why call it Anthropologie? According to copy in the catalog, “Because it is the study of foreign cultures that brings richness and meaning to our own.”
Right. And here I thought anthropology was the mother of all the social sciences. Let’s just skip asking why the French spelling is used for now. It might prove to be an embarrassment of richness.
While the explanation may be ripe or pretentious, it is not inaccurate. The products evoke the Other: other times, other places. The copy and the color-saturated photography enhance the effect.
Two sterling silver bracelets, one mesh, the other seed-coil, are simply described as “Ethnic jewelry handcrafted in Bali.” Another item inspires the copywriter: “Like a flower, this vase is both graceful and intricate. A silver-finish copy of a Swedish design, its elegant shape is decorated with hand-etched filigree at the rim and base.” An over-wrought-iron sconce-flowering vines as candleholders-is “based on an Italian original from the 1940s.” Paris between the wars is recalled for a club chair. “The classic French lines of this chair, covered in nice Italian leather, will develop a beautiful patina as it ages.” Morocco and colonial India are evoked for other products-in short, items aping the sorts of happy bibelots a well-heeled traveler might pick up touring “exotic” climes or during extended stays abroad.
In terms of aesthetic line and consistency, Anthropologie gets high marks. But take a step back, and that consistency gives one pause.
Travel, as such social commentators as Paul Fussell have pointed out, is a search for authenticity, a cultural richness or meaning that can be brought back to our own in the form of a souvenir. Whatever one may think of such a quest, Anthropologie seems to be offering the prizes of the quest without the actual work of going to visit a foreign land. And these souvenirs are only authentic reproductions, not even traditional craftwork kept alive for the tourist trade.
On the surface, The Claude Monet Collection is a typical museum catalog that exploits the institution’s holdings to raise capital to keep it going. The question has been reduced to whether it’s been done well or not. Well, here too, issues of taste and appropriateness come into play.
The Monet Collection plays the connection between Monet and products with such determination that it becomes a form of lunatic enjoyment. In a couple of cases, I cracked up laughing.
The Collection’s basic stock in trade is arrangements of artificial flowers, rendered as realistically as possible in porcelain. Supplementing the bouquets are various bowls, vases and dishes suitable for your floral displays.
However, you might not know that from the cover. Emblazoned on the top is “Masterpiece Gardens and The Claude Monet Museum Presents”-I suppose we should pause here to listen for trumpets-“The Claude Monet Collection: Handpicked from his garden in Giverny, France.”
Right. Picked that porcelain posy from a pottery plant.
The “signature piece” for the collection is, not surprisingly, water lilies-but here they have to be called Les Grandes Nympheas. In fact, all the products have French titles.
Here no stretch is too far for the copy to connect the product to Monet. The bouquet has no source in his paintings? “For Monet, eye candy.” The tulipierre is lovely, but unlikely to be eye candy for someone of Monet’s refinement: “This tulipierre is shown in one of the worlds (sic) most photographed rooms, Claude Monet’s kitchen. Sporting tulips cut from his garden of course.” Or my favorite: “You are standing before one of Monet’s finest works, ‘The Artist’s Garden, Irises, 1900,’ and sitting prettily beside the painting is an arrangement of irises that bear an uncanny resemblance to the colors and images in the painting.” I don’t know about you, but I do most of my catalog perusing sitting down and before me is not the painting, but a picture of the painting.
Look, guys, a vrai dire, je parle francais un peu aussi. And I’m all for addressing niche and minority markets in their own language(s). And foreign airs suit many, from cosmopolites to cultural transvestites. But these catalogs are going to the mainstream American audience, which is Anglophone primarily, if not exclusively. The inappropriate use of a foreign language does not lend authenticity to the pitch or the products or the prospects.
It’s just pretentious.
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