A timeline of David Lynch’s dreamlike perfume commercials, from Calvin Klein to Gucci

David Lynch, the unparalleled visionary behind canonical films such as Blue Velvet (1986), Wild At Heart (1990) and Mulholland Drive (2001), passed away this week (15 January 2025) at the age of 78. On Wallpaper.com, we pay tribute to the auteur by remembering his guest editorship at the magazine in October 2010.

Craig McClean has also written an obituary, recalling an anecdote from his meeting with Lynch: ‘That morning, we sat in the concrete cube that was this multidisciplinary artist’s painting studio, one of a series of similar structures slotted into the Hollywood Hills that comprised his home with his fourth wife, the actress Emily Stofle,’ he says. ‘We were, of course, drinking coffee,’ McClean continues. ‘And yes, it was damn fine, not least because it was a cup of David Lynch Signature Cup Organic House Roast (signature notes, according to my genial and welcoming barista from beneath a shock of silver quiff, ‘sweetness, smoothness, no bitterness even if it’s just pure, straight black espresso, packed with flavour’).

Lynch directed a four-minute-long commercial for his namesake coffee brand in 2011, featuring a close-up shot of a Barbie head held between his fingers. 20 years prior, he created a Twin Peaks-inspired series of adverts for the Japanese brand Georgia Coffee, featuring cast members from the TV series including Kyle MacLachlan as Agent Dale Cooper, Mädchen Amick as Shelley Johnson and Catherine E Coulson as the Log Lady.

Clearblue pregnancy tests and Alka-Selzer antacid tablets; Parisienne cigarettes and the PlayStation. These are just a few more products Lynch had a hand in marketing via short commercials. But here, Wallpaper* reflects on the times Lynch turned his signature surrealist lens to perfume advertisements for Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani, Lancôme, Jil Sander, Karl Lagerfeld, Dior and Gucci.

David Lynch’s dreamlike perfume commercials

Calvin Klein (1988)

All Four Commercials "Calvin Klein: Obsession" (1990) by David Lynch - YouTube

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Following on from the acclaim of Blue Velvet, David Lynch was commissioned to produce his first-ever commercial by Calvin Klein for its fragrance Obsession. Released in 1988 as a series of four black and white shorts titled Awake, Dangerous, Explore and Kissed, each tells the stories of four pairs of lovers (one of which is played by Heather Graham and Benicio Del Toro). Every film was inspired by a different novelist – Ernest Hemingway, D.H. Lawrence, Gustave Flaubert and F. Scott Fitzgerald – and included a voiceover reading excerpts from their writing.

Giorgio Armani (1992)

Giorgio Armani selected David Lynch to create the campaign film for his 1992 fragrance Giò. According to lynchnet.com, Mr Armani ‘personally’ phoned up the director asking for a concept, which Lynch then sent to him in the form of a short poem. The resulting advert Who is Giò? is a Lynchian neo-noir, with model Lara Harris playing a mysterious femme fatale flitting in and out of parties and around the backstreets of an unnamed city, as the paparazzi follows her trail.

Yves Saint Laurent (1992)

Giorgio Armani wasn’t the only designer seeking the talents of Lynch, with Yves Saint Laurent calling on him to dream up a commercial telling the story of the best-selling house fragrance, Opium. This time using colour - alongside his quintessentially dream-like dissolves and double exposures - a woman in a gold dress, with long red fingernails complimenting the perfume’s lacquered bottle, ascends the stairs to an apartment. Upon applying Opium to the nape of her neck, she is overcome with ecstasy.

Lancôme (1993)

Isabella Rossellini became the face of Lancôme in 1982. She would meet David Lynch a few years later during the casting process for Blue Velvet, where he remarked on her uncanny resemblance to Ingrid Bergman (not knowing that Bergman was her mother). Rossellini and Lynch entered into a relationship, with Rossellini also playing the role of Perdita Durango in Wild at Heart alongside a cast that included Nicholas Cage, Laura Dern and Willem Dafoe. Although parting ways romantically in 1991, they remained life-long friends and collaborators, with Lynch capturing Rossellini on film once more in 1993 for Lancôme’s fragrance commercial for Trésor.

Jil Sander (1993)

The Instinct of Life, David Lynch’s 1993 campaign film for Jil Sander’s now-discontinued fragrance Background, is set in a vast, arid landscape. Amidst smoke machines and vivid coloured lighting, a lone protagonist chases a black panther throughout the night, ultimately befriending the animal as the sun rises. It seems as though Lynch was trying out techniques for Lost Highway (1997), which was shot in California at Silurian Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert. (Lynch once said in a 1999 interview with Movieline that he liked to take on commercial work to ‘learn about the latest technology, tools that normally wouldn’t be available to me’ for later use in feature-length films).

Karl Lagerfeld (1994)

Daryl Hannah never worked with Lynch on any of his feature films. However, she did collaborate with the director as the 1994 face of Sun Moon Stars, a fragrance by Karl Lagerfeld created by the designer for his namesake brand. In the commercial, Hannah assumes a role reminiscent of the Marilyn Monroe-esque ‘Hollywood blonde’, a character trope so often used by Lynch. Here, the actor is seen in a dream-like state, swathed in lilac silk and floating around a cosmic backdrop as she longingly muses on the solar system.

Dior (2004)

In 2004, during his tenure as the director of menswear at Dior, Hedi Slimane tapped David Lynch to direct the fragrance commercial for Fahrenheit. Set to a snippet of As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls , a 20-minute-long jazz fusion track, Swedish actor Andreas Wilson is seen hurtling upward in a clinical chrome elevator as he begins to hallucinate, seeing visions of the natural world. When Wilson reaches the destination floor the doors open, revealing a heavenly expanse of orange sky. (Slimane’s long-time collaborator on make-up for campaigns and shows Aaron de Mey posted a tribute to Lynch on his Instagram, remembering this campaign shoot).

Gucci (2009)

David Lynch filmed his last perfume commercial in 2008 for Gucci (which also happened to by the first television ad for the Italian house). It starred models Raquel Zimmermann, Natasha Poly and Freja Beha Erichsen as the faces of new fragrance Gucci by Gucci. Above, watch the commercial in full, which was filmed in Paris and set to Heart of Glass by Blondie. Below, find a BTS look at the making of the campaign, which provides an intimate glimpse of the maestro at work and the uplifting atmosphere he cultivated on set. (He said in a 2017 interview with GQ that he never ran a working environment on fear). Highlights include Lynch smoking as he perfects a shot of cascading glitter and at a wrap party with the cast and crew – a moment in which their feeling of love and admiration for the director is palpable.