The commercial campaign for the Revlon fragrance ‘Charlie’, which debuted in 1973, was centered around a very hip little jingle which accompanied model Shelley Hack as she strode confidently through a club, onto a boat, getting out of a nifty 1930s Dusenberg etc. Further hip-ifying the campaign was the use of two of the era’s greatest jazz/pop vocalists, Bobby Short and Mel Torme (they appeared in separate ads). As a kid I used to await the airing of the ads eagerly–usually I caught them early in the day when they appeared during ‘Good Morning America’. I’ve posted both versions of the commercial above. Each singer brings their own distinct vibe to the jingle–and dig Torme’s very Torme-ish tag to the tune. Below is the Wikipedia entry about the fragrance itself–truly TMI on a perfume brand that nobody reading this likely uses. Still, something in me read it with fascination. I chalk it up to a massive case of work avoidance…

Charlie, named after Charles Revson,was released in 1973. It was originally launched to compete with Estée, a fragrance released by Estée Lauder. Ad campaigns for the scent featured models Shelley Hack, Charly Stember, and, notably, Naomi Sims, making Sims the first African American woman in history to be featured in a cosmetic company’s advertising. Television ads featured Shelley Hack and jingles sung by Bobby Short and Mel Tormé. Young, working women were set as the target audience, and the ads were said to represent the “new woman” of the era. Hack and Stember wore pantsuits by Ralph Laurenand were the first women to wear pants in fragrance ads. The response proved to be profitable for Revlon, as Charlie became the world’s top selling perfume within three years. However, a later ad, showing a female model patting a male model on the backside, was controversial. While some praised the ad as being “playful” and representing “female self-sufficiency,” others called it “sexist” and “in poor taste.” Subsequent advertising in later decades featured Lauren Hutton, Sharon Stone and Cindy Crawford, with jingles sung by Little Richard.  Oprah Winfrey dedicated a segment of her talk show in 2007 to discuss the impact of Charlie advertising featuring Hack as her guest. Winfrey stated that the ads inspired her. She wanted to be “confident and fabulous” like the “Charlie girl”. Hack agreed, saying “It was a time when women were changing. Women looked at [the ad] and said ‘I want to be like that.'”