You quite often laugh at the way the fashion industry endorses the same high profile bloggers using them as brand ambassadors, supporters or mere advertising boards to promote their products. But a shopping centre in Japan opted instead for a different way to relaunch itself, enlisting well-known Kaiju monsters.
In need for some major - or rather, excuse the pun, "ultra" - revamping, the Amu Plaza Hakata Shopping Centre in JR Hakata City, Kyushu, didn't choose fashion models, celebrities or bloggers, but characters borrowed from the Ultraman series.
Launched in February and developed in collaboration with the special effects studio Tsuburaya Productions (original makers of Ultraman), the monster campaign features indeed the Mother of Ultra in a canary yellow coat, alien Baltan in pink trousers and high heels (a rather risqué choice for a bad arthropod-like alien...), a Dada alien and Pigmon, and is also accompanied by a few hilarious adverts.
In one of them the Mother of Ultra, originally one of the members of the Space Garrison (and the mother of Taro in the Ultraman series) appears as the tallest model ever towering over the city and sashying down the streets (in one image advertising children's products she is instead portrayed while pushing a pram View this photo).
Fashion has often played around with the monster theme with designers sending out on their runways disturbing alien-like creatures, but so far we had never seen famous monsters being employed for a shopping centre advertising campaign.
Though, to be really frank, Pigmon looks a bit too passive in her pink manicure, designer handbag and oversized decorative ribbon on her head, the Dada alien in its graphic suit wouldn't really look out of place on a Walter Van Beirendonck runway or at a convention of Bowie-Givenchy-Ultraman fans.
In a nutshell, this is so bad that it ends up looking good. Apart from unleashing positively enthusiastic comments from the Ultraman fans and geeks around (who are currently enjoying a Star Wars fashion frenzy) the campaign makes you think: what if the 50 ft woman was indeed a 50 ft model or if monsters suddenly developed a taste for fashion?
With many thanks to Italian comics expert Nicola D'Agostino (who also appeared in a previous post) for bringing to my attention this campaign.
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