Smells like girl spirit

ADS No 206: LYNX

Peter York
Sunday 28 December 1997 00:02 GMT
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"Lesbos Vampyros," says the cover of Sleaze Nation, a new magazine for the club-going young person. I imagine it means lesbian vampires, a lifestyle group extensively displayed in the new Lynx commercial. Gorgeous vampire lesbians, eyeing each other up and generally seeming on for it.

In a photographer's large, loft-conversion flat - the sort only photographers live in - a girl in a very short, flimsy dress runs distractedly, looking for something. It must be her scent; does this mean it's been a one-night stand? Her night's companion remains asleep in a rumpled bed - this is open-plan living. Despairing - you'd have to be, wouldn't you - she sprays herself with Lynx from his shelf.

Now Lynx is, I imagine, the male equivalent of Impulse, the stuff that causes the unwanted art-school erection. It looks like a chemical spray, very Stud and very naff, very CFC-ish (perfect, in fact, for a Seventies- revival spoof). But they've chosen a more daring route. Clattering down the deco fire-escape-cum-staircase in the San Francisco sun, our girl meets her first lesbos vampyros, gorgeously heroin-chic pale, in sophisticated pink, and obviously panting for it. Looking like Mary Tyler Moore fallen among Hell's Angels, she wanders the streets catching every girlish eye, stirring every tumbled curl. One girl, arms around her boyfriend turns to wink. On the bus, three pale, androgynous Californian killer blondes - looking rather like Hanson actually - stare her out. She sniffs herself reflectively.

Back home - high heels tippy-tapping on the stripped boards, lovingly shot from knee height - it's a very short dress - she confronts her boyfriend, a Bon Jovi clone with a major fringe, who grins his patent rumpled grin. "Baby's going to find out today, the world's got a different take," sings the soundtrack. It's a cop-out, with absolutely no lesbian consummation.

But still a winner, an adland version of that naughty lesbo-point- of-viewed Prodigy video for "Smack My Bitch Up"; targeted dead centre on every boy's fantasy, and bound to be elected men's-magazine favourite of the year.

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