How PINROSE piqued my interest in writing about Memory, Synesthesia, and what brands need to learn more about.
Living means dancing between what I want to be and what I’ve been told to be and figuring out what those two realities have to do with the most honest version of myself. There’s way too much to say about the relationships fostering comfort. This or that story in culture says, “You’re right!” or “You’re wrong!” and provides all the usually fierce reasons why. He should (or should not) have long hair. She should (or should not) be tough. The reasons depend on the seasons. Say you ask “Why?” now and don’t like the answer you get. Just wait a generation. The answer will change.
“Who are you?” is an easy question to answer, and the answer is the hardest thing in the world. There is only one answer, and the answers are myriad. There’s only one way to answer; it takes about a lifetime to do it.
I know I’m a man because I’ve been told. That’s generally how it starts, the confusion. Men, like so many other things, get defined by not being things. Men are not sensitive, pretty, talkative, or floral. I know this is true, because I’ve been told it is. That’s the source of truth: context.
Ah-hah! The key to breaking down the formula rests in the formula. If truth is in context, then the algebra is simple: change the context. One variable changes another and reality withstands it.
Outside of my head, masculine—as defined by not being things—is not sensitive, pretty, talkative, or floral. Context: outside my head. Truth: rules of being a man. QED: this is reality.
But the context can change. Inside my head: men can be sensitive, pretty, talkative, and floral. Can and must, as it happens. Men need to be pretty and floral for two reasons: 1) people outside of them like those qualities, and 2) the people outside them display those qualities to attract them. The context has changed—the truth has changed. QED: also reality.
Both things seem true. That either means reality makes no sense OR that it’s big enough for a lot of true things.
Nuclear fusion still works, so I’m inclined to believe the second thing. I’m inclined to believe that my flowery-scented shampoo does nothing to compromise my masculinity. And, if it does compromise my masculinity, then THAT does not devalue me as a person.
I was recently called a Pinrose MUSE.
This is one of the most complex and fascinating content machine projects I've been part of.
Kristina is the Digital Strategist I work with who cast a wider net than the previously clean beauty vegan marketing narratives thrown out by PINROSE. It's a great team they have over there, but it's simply time to pivot. She dreamed up this concept of women being celebrated...and women empowering women without the politics. Just the joyful community building part.
We launched a Strategy around WE SEEK MUSES and it's just at the brink of trending.
I've been part of finessing the language around how celebrate Muses and how we love hearing stories from people who wear our fragrances.
There’s an aspirational trend in the fragrance industry. A great deal of the most visible marketing made by big fragrance brands leans on involving this or that fragrance with some well-known celebrity.
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Recently, Kiera Knightley has become the face of Au De Perfume by Chanel, and there’s a bit of controversy in the rags lately about Rooney Mara inheriting the mantel of L’Interdit by Givenchy, formerly given a face by Audrey Hepburn. (Sidenote, and interesting to consider in light of the fact, is the casting of Mara as Hepburn in an upcoming biopic. Anyway, sort of cool, but not pertinent. Moving on.)
This marketing is saying, “Get this perfume and you can be like Marilyn Monroe!” Why do you think Chanel No. 5 still flies off the shelves?
At Pinrose, it looks to us like that takes a lot of the fun out of it.
So we write stories.
You wanna know the most fun part? People are reading it.
Celebrating Identities, Masculine or Feminine...the humanity in conversations cause this directly: It's a good way to think about it all. Win-win.
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