Marc Jacobs Model Tumbles Down Stairs For New Ad, Deserves a Raise
The Marc Jacobs marketing team is wild for this one. To advertise its new XL Sack Bag, the fashion label captured a model inexplicably tumbling down stairs while carrying the roomy tote — because posing for regular ol’ photo shoots is so last year, it appears.
In a now-viral video shared on Oct. 10, a brunette woman dressed in silver separates and Marc Jacobs’s towering seven-inch platform boots elegantly rolls down a flight of concrete steps, the white purse never leaving her shoulder. Upon reaching the bottom, she jumps to her feet, fixes her hair, and walks off frame without batting an eyelash. It’s chaos. It’s art. It’s a serve, your honor.
Now, before you get your panties in a bunch over Marc Jacobs treating its models like rag dolls, it’s worth noting that the woman in the video is a professional stunt performer named Tereza Kubová. Judging by her Instagram, she has lots of experience safely flinging herself around for various projects. Still, this doesn’t answer the question on everyone’s mind: why? Why use a model hurtling down a flight of steps to promote a new bag? To prove its durability and injury-thwarting properties?
Marc Jacobs provided no context or explanation while posting the video on Instagram, simply captioning it, “The XL Sack Bag,” and crediting art director Yulya Shadrinsky for shooting the clip. Upon further analysis, the “why” is actually quite clear. As Will Ferrell’s character famously says in “Blades of Glory,” “No one knows what it means, but it’s provocative . . . It gets the people going.” It’s meant to be wacky and catch you off guard.
Shadrinsky specializes in creating this type of unconventional, conversation-sparking content for fashion brands, previously making a model roll down a giant dirt pile for Jean Paul Gaultier and another karate kick a glass bottle for Alexander Wang. It’s genius marketing for an era when people live online and communicate via similarly meme-worthy clips. It got you reading to the end of this think piece on a designer handbag, after all.
