The very @accidentallywesanderson facade of Bergdorf Goodman’s Fifth Avenue flagship store has long seemed all but fated for some actual Wes Andersonian treatment. Why let that Beaux-Arts
symmetry go to waste?
Happily, that's exactly what's happening. For the department store's holiday campaign, Bergdorf released a short film in homage to the director and in partnership with his latest film, The French Dispatch, narrated by designer and Anderson mainstay Waris Ahluwalia. The spot stars a host of fashion’s familiar faces, including recent CFDA top-prize winners Emily Bode and Christopher John Rogers; Bode, channeling a Margot Tenenbaum pout, appears alongside her real-life dog, Monday (a very Andersonian detail in itself). Marc Jacobs, meanwhile, himself plays a very 21st-century Santa Claus in the role of the Bergdorf Goodman Courier, dispatching luxury goods around the city in a sugarplum cargo van.
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Keen eyes will spot the Andersonian easter eggs: King from Isle of Dogs, a map from Moonrise Kingdom, a Mendl’s cake box from The Grand Budapest Hotel, and a gaggle of children wearing the red Adidas tracksuits from The Royal Tenenbaums.
While the ad , which was developed and directed by Bergdorf’s VP of creative and brand marketing Elle Strauss, doesn’t shoutout Anderson by name, the department store was one of several brands tapped for the promotion his latest film, The French Dispatch, and flagship showed Dispatch-themed window displays last month. Theirs was one of several Manhattan-centric campaigns that Searchlight Pictures arranged around the film’s October release, including a branded takeover at Village institution Casa Magazines and a nearby coffee popup. “The holidays at Bergdorf Goodman are so iconic and magical,” says Strauss, and it’s true: the storied iconographies of Bergdorf, Anderson, and the holidays in general are a pretty ideal linkup. Some whimsy can be nice!