When I think about David Bowie, beside talent, I always think about sophistication, style and luxury, right? And this is truer than ever with this new movie made for Vuitton. It’s definitively an ad but, at first, I couldn’t really decide whether it was a new video for Bowie’s last album or a trailer for a rich European super-production. The short film – entitled ‘L’invitation au Voyage’, an obvious Beaudelaire-ian reference – features a hot-air balloon, Venice’s Piazza San Marco, American model Arizona Muse (who comes up with names like this one really?) and a masquerade ball worthy of a Luchino Visconti or Stanley Kubrick film. Everything breathes luxury, absorption in sumptuous details and opulence, and Bowie sings a harpsichord version of his song ‘I’d Rather Be High’ off his album ‘Next Day’.
The advertisement movie was directed by Romain Gavras, who also did MIA’s ‘Bad Girls’ and ‘Born Free’, and lasts only one minute. When you think about the time and the fortune it probably took to set up such a thing, it seems to be a total waste, and you keep wishing a longer version of the movie would exist somewhere, a longer version and so a real video for the entire ‘I’d Rather Be High’ song!
‘The film is all about traveling through time, and sharing an incredible moment,’ Frederic Winckler, Louis Vuitton’s communication and events director, said to WWD. Sure, they couldn’t have picked a better rock star as Bowie is truly ageless, still I am not going to buy any Vuitton shit soon.