Diesel powers denim doodle
By Sally Ratcliffe. DIY doodle. Diesel is letting French consumers loose on its jeans with a selection of inks, pens and biros. This denim action is the Italian fashion label’s one-to-one marketing invitation to its customers to have their say in word, picture or graphic with a scribble on a pair of jeans. Go for it.
Diesel’s consumer profile is urban active 16-to-25 year-olds, so expect to find those used to scribbling on their schoolbooks, as well as taggers and graffiti artists, at the heart of the action.
The ‘denimisation’ event takes place in Diesel’s flagship store in the heart of Paris, and the rue Montmartre key outlet will be transformed into a studio with a range of artists on hand to help out. The art party will see customers working with graphic designers, tattooists and a host of scribblers and doodlers on anything from Diesel’s 5-Pocket collection.
Is Diesel expecting any new designs to emerge from the exercise and be taken on by the brand?
“Absolutely not,” says François Ridoret, director of communication for Diesel France, in true Gallic fashion. “All design direction comes from and remains with our headquarters in Italy.”
The brand is headed by Wilbert Das, and the Dutch creative oversees all aspects of the brand creation including the PR, the events and the store interiors right down to the graphics. In short, he has his own pens.
“We’re not expecting people to be selling their designs on e-Bay for example,” says Ridoret. “We expect them to view this as a personalisation and we expect them to want to keep their jeans for themselves.”
In fact, proud scribblers have already posted their offerings on YouTube.
Diesel likes to provoke – see the SFW XXX video – and doesn’t see its customers responding to banal messages, so let’s hope that they reciprocate and jot down some innovative and witty designs in response. If this test-case doodling salon goes well, the event will be rolled out to other Diesel shops in main cities throughout France according to Ridoret.
