“Kenzo World” is pretty weird. The project is a collab between Kenzo’s Humberto Leon / Carol Lim and their friend Spike Jonze to direct a short film for a new fragrance by the French brand. The four minute clip features Margaret Qualley from The Leftovers performing a dance routine so ridiculous you’d have to see it to believe it.
The ad starts like any typical fragrance ad with a close up of dancer and actress Qualley in an emerald gown sitting in a ballroom but not before long she’s out of her seat, running down hallways shooting lasers out of her fingers, and even licking a statue. She also sort of injures this guy who seems busy on the phone. Oh well.
“When we think about perfume campaigns, we think about a pretty girl with a bottle,” Lim and Leon told Dazed. “This clip is exactly the opposite. It’s very multi-faceted and different; it takes the spectator by surprise.”
The video later shows Qualley beating her chest and moving her limbs uncontrollably to the song “Mutant Brain” by Ape Drums and Jonze’s brother DJ Sam Spiegel. This was all the handiwork of Ryan Heffington, who is also the choreographer behind Sia’s “Chandelier“ video that featured Shia LaBeouf and Maddie Ziegler.
The video has striking similarities to Jonze’s video for Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice” and definitely falls in line with the style of Leon and Lim while at Kenzo since they took over as art directors in 2011.