Vincent Gallo, fashion model

Everyday for the last couple of weeks I've been seeing the ads -- at bus stops, waiting for the train -- and everyday I wonder: "Why?" Why is Vincent Gallo the face (and body) of H&M? S&M I could see, but not this. There he is, anyway -- filmmaker, creep, curser of Roger Ebert, star of Francis Ford Coppola's next movie -- palling around with Shalom Harlow and Eva Herzigova, with a look of hunger in his eyes. It's often the look of a lizard who sees dinner. The European TV ads employ the kind of surrealism that at least acknowledges the inherent weirdness of having him as their star. The print ads make no sense. Harlow and Herzigova are having a ball, while Gallo, trapped in a giant piece of Ikea furniture, appears to be having indigestion. Sexy, I know.

The gist of the TV spot -- vast white space, bright red props -- is that Gallo is trying to get in touch with Herzigova and she, through a series of oneiric complications can't contact him (a force sucks her away from a giant telephone; a set of stairs end with no destination; the ladder she climbs through the ceiling puts her back to the floor, allowing her, for what it's worth, to see up her own skirt). All this while the soundtrack plays "I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)," a song made famous by Grace Jones, who, if we're being honest, is the only woman for Gallo.