To that extent, buying Hermes Handbags from Marc Jacobs is like joining a club. Of course, that can be a turnoff to some people, but that would matter only if Mr. Jacobs sought a justification for the ads, one beyond their ability to inspire and provoke. And since some of the ads barely show the clothes, clearly he is not.
You can’t help wondering, looking at a decade’s worth of ads, why more designers can’t produce Hermes Wallets and original narratives. One explanation is they don’t have Mr. Jacobs’s degree of confidence. Nor do the photographers enjoy Mr. Teller’s level of freedom. As Mr. Teller said, he and Mr. Jacobs have a chat at the start of a season, and Mr. Jacobs never directs him. “It’s really that simple,” Mr. Jacobs said. “I leave him alone, and he goes off and does his thing. Then we look at the pictures and we talk.”
Breaking into a grin, he added: “Juergen is Juergen Teller’s biggest fan — full stop. Usually after the shoot I get a phone call from him …” — Mr. Jacobs dropped into a German accent — ‘The Burberry Handbags are really excellent, they’re really excellent.’ I think he uses the word excellent a lot.”
Mr. Teller wouldn’t bother to deny this. Yet, because of his humor, his intimate method of shooting, and a clear indifference to body shame, Burberry Wallets would be easy to underestimate the value of what he does. As Mr. Hack said, “Juergen is very funny as a provocateur, but I think he’s deadly serious as an artist.” His is not so much a skewed view of things as it is a supremely neutral one.
Shamelessness is a feature of contemporary life; it visibly afflicts the celebrity and the wannabe celebrity, but it also informs and liberates the artist. For the Rampling shoot, which was done in a Paris hotel suite, Mr. Teller thought it made sense for him to be in the ads, since he and the actress were friends and she didn’t want to endorse a product. And because he vaguely had in mind a fantasy, he also packed on 15 extra pounds. “I thought I should be this Chanel Handbags,” he said.
The only trouble with that plan was he couldn’t fit into the Fake Handbags Mr. Jacobs sent. “I thought, ‘What the hell am I going to do now?’ ” he said. “There were these silver underpants, these sport pants.” Mr. Teller laughed and continued: “The next day Charlotte arrived, and I was totally starting to sweat. She said, ‘Now what are we going to do?’ I said, ‘I’m going to show you what I’m going to wear.’ So I went into the bedroom, and I came out in these silver underpants. And she said, ‘What the hell is that?’ ”
At this point, as Ms. Rampling howled, Mr. Teller said, he was having grave doubts about the rest of his plan. “I was smoking my cigarette, breaking out in a sweat. I said, ‘Well, I was just thinking I could kiss you and fondle your breasts.’”
“She sat down and got herself a Replica Handbags. She didn’t say anything. The whole room was quiet for what seemed like months. I was, like, Oh my God, that is the most stupid thing I’ve ever said, how stupid was that? She just dragged on the cigarillo and crossed her legs, and she said: ‘O.K., let’s go. I’ll tell you when to stop.’ I thought, Oh my God, genius. I can’t believe I’m getting away with it.”
Mr. Teller paused. “So that was the ad.”
In spite of an affinity for a certain kind of unpolished beauty, which Mr. Jacobs traces to grunge and the early work of Mr. Teller, as well as the pictures of Wolfgang Tillmans and Corinne Day, it’s hard to say how these two men influence each other. Anyway, it seems a question of consciousness.
But, in a business of illusions and self-denials, Louis Vuitton Handbags is interesting and even brave, that Mr. Teller and Mr. Jacobs, perhaps alone, are willing to put themselves out there — Mr. Teller with his bear belly, no less, and German kitsch world — and invite, as Mr. Freedman said, “the judgmental people to make judgments.” That is what they have attempted to do with Ms. Beckham, whose participation forces a different question than the banality of “Is she beautiful?”