Streetwear brand Diesel will push on with its controversial "Diesel Island: Land of the Stupid & Home of the Brave" campaign, with a star-studded event to be held at Sun Studios tonight.
The event, designed to spruik the brands latest collection, will see up to 250 guests, including Vogue editor Kirstie Clements, GQ editor Nick Smith, top models Charlotte Boss, Spencer Petterson, Kate Peck, and actors Gracie Otto and Alex Dimitriades, gather at Sun Studios for what Diesel describes as a “provocative party”.
The proceedings will be led by daughter of Rolling Stone Keith Richards and ambassador for the Diesel Island project, Alexandra Richards, who will be joined by DJ Nick Cohen, providing electro and retro mash up sounds for the launch bash.
A Diesel representative revealed Diesel Island “Pioneers” will showcase the latest collection at the launch by mingling with party guests, “lounging on the hangover installation of driftwood scaffolding, island and raw materials, sleeping, eating, partying, relaxing, and possibly showing off the Diesel underwear collection in the makeshift island showers”.
The Diesel Island campaign, which launched in July, upholds the brand's reputation for causing a stir with brazen advertising and has received mixed reactions since its inception for expletive laden taglines such as “Diesel Island: The least f*cked up country in the world”, as reported in Ragtrader [print edition July 29].
The racy ads follow on from Diesel's previous campaign, “Be Stupid”, which landed the label in hot water with the Outdoor Media Association (OMA) and the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA ) for breaching the Code of Ethics, and Brand Collective marketing manager Leanne Wall said she expected Diesel Island to to irk the ad standards bureaus yet again.
“We think it will definitely generate discussion here. Diesel Island is about creating a message that resonates with people and therefore they themselves can enter into discussion around why the world is “fucked” or why Australian politics is ‘fucked’, and so on. Diesel is a brand that is provocative, a brand that likes to cross boundaries, and with ‘Diesel Island’ we want people to embrace the message of the campaign and to have fun with it,” she said.
The Diesel Island creative was conceived by global advertising agency Santo and documents the first “Diesel Island pioneers”, scantily clad in Diesel apparel, with a variety of brazen taglines splashed across the ads.