Who says animation and animated merchandise has to be just
for kids? We’ve seen plenty of examples over the years to suggest that the
films can be just as serious and dramatic as any live-action film and yet the
merchandise has always seemed to lag behind. The kids get all the cool clothes
and toys and adults get, well, coffee mugs and if you’re really lucky, shot
glasses.
The much anticipated Book of Life from producer
Guillermo del Toro and the supremely talented Jorge Guiterrez is set to be
released on October 17th, but coming on September 15th is
something that could be just as exciting.
Hot Topic (of all companies) has
partnered with Fox to sell clothing inspired by the film, and no, they’re
much more than 100% cotton T-shirts. What they are, is a
series of nine dresses (sorry gentlemen) that are inspired by the film and
also the holiday the film is inspired by, the Day of the Dead.
What’s great about this is that the dresses aren’t the tacky
and cheap job that you might expect. They are in fact, as the photo above
shows, rather stylish. While style perhaps isn’t a word you might
normally associate with Hot Topic, it’s nonetheless quite refreshing to see an
animated film receive a clothing line that looks like a real effort went into
it. Too often animated films get clothing that seems almost like an
afterthought, or at least like something the key 18-39 market wouldn’t be seen
dead in. Which is a shame, because that’s precisely the group that animated
films in general desperately need at the moment.
As a marketing effort, it’s quite risky. The clothing does
not brandish the film or its characters but if you’re going to market some
clothes, why not kill two birds with one stone and get audiences excited about
the film too? That’s what this campaign is hoping to do, and given the
beautiful way they’re going about, it’s hopefully not the last.
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