Absolut Book: The Absolut Vodka Advertising Story
By Richard W. Lewis
Journey Editions, 274 pages, 1996.
I’ll admit it. I was fully, completely, 100 per cent sucked in by Absolut Vodka’s groundbreaking 1980s ad campaign. Launched in 1981 the unforgettable ads featured works by so many important artists and designers of the day — everyone from Keith Haring to Stephen Sprouse crafted one. The message was clear: Absolut was cool, and as one of the brand’s consumers, you were too. And by the time I was in my late teens in the late ’80s, I was feeling very cool indeed drinking my Absolut-and-sodas.
I’m not sure if I’ve been quite as enamoured with an advertising campaign since, so it’s a delight to revisit all those iconic images in Absolut Book.
All the ads you remember are here: the two Warhols, the clever cities and holiday ads — and of course all the Absolut Fashion ads. Through the years the company challenged a variety of designers (including Christian Francis Roth, Nicole Miller and Marc Jacobs) to design Absolut-themed looks that were often published as multi-page portfolios in magazines like Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Vanity Fair. Men weren’t left out either: an Absolut Fashion menswear portfolio was published in GQ in 1991. All the Absolut fashion images — from Steven Meisel’s 1987 image of model Rachel Williams in a silver David Cameron Absolut dress through Helmut Newton’s series of black-and-white photographs published Vogue in 1995 — are here.
When Absolut Book was published in 1996, I was still drinking the brand’s vodka, and still thinking their ads were interesting and cool. I remember being thrilled when I saw in a publisher’s catalogue that the book was coming out (I was working as an editor for an alternative weekly at the time and ordering the books for review was one of my responsibilities). I may not have been the very first in line to receive it, but I was close.
While the images could easily stand alone and the book is an excellent collection of ’80s adverts, the story of this brilliant campaign should not be overlooked. Author Richard W. Lewis does a great job of weaving the story of how the ads came to be without interrupting the visual flow of the book.
Whether you’re all about the pictures or interested in the Absolut story as well, the book will serve you well and will surely remain an important edition in your ’80s-style-book collection.
