I’m including a couple of newish photos of Robert Pattinson from his recent feature in InStyle Mag. The photos aren’t all that great, but the camera does love our Sparkles. Which is why his Dior campaign is so disappointing – he’s photogenic, he’s got a great face, he’s tall and he’s a delicate, sparkly heartthrob. But Dior fumbled. Anyway, lots of magazines have little featurettes on Rob’s Dior campaign, but I kind of loved this one from Le Figaro (the translation is wonky but charming):

His Dior campaign is a tribute of the New Wave cinema, broadcast for the first time on TV on Sunday night September 1st. On screen, Robert Pattinson seems he would like to devour the beautiful Franco-American Camille Rowe Pourcheresse.

“When everybody was watching the footage of the kissing scene, I was already embarrassed. Suddenly, Camille said ‘Oh la la!’ I glared at her and told her ‘Are you kidding me?’ I thought that the British would say ‘Oh la la!’ as a way to make fun of French. I didn’t think that French women would say it for real. Then I realized that I would like to have a French girlfriend with all her clichés.” said Pattinson over a coffee at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles.

This new campaign is primary for Christian Dior Parfums whose goal is the international success – that is annual sales reaching at least €300 million – of the Dior Homme perfume. “This perfume can be interpreted of multiple ways, it can have thousands of faces.” emphasized François Demachy, creator of this manly and sensual harmony, a manly iris mixed with leather, wood, amber and spices.

In this very fast black and white clip, however intimate, Pattinson, the chilled British, named several times “Sexiest man in the world”, seems to be enamoured of Pourcheresse. He is in a deteriorate house in the Bronx neighborhood, in NY, languid in a cast iron bathtub, he holds out a cigarette to Camille, who puts on a tank top on top of her underwear. They are two lovers on the run. He represents the fantasy of the sensual guy and she personifies the French beauty with a sullen charm.

From one end to another, the video spreads an an exhilarating atmosphere: the couple introduces itself in a wedding at the last story of a building, drives a convertible BMW on a vast beach…

“The first day of the shooting was tricky. I drove a BMW at 100km/h, because the sand was unstable. Eventually, I found myself in the water… with a camera inside the car,” explained Pattinson with a laugh. “the people from Dior were very understanding.”

Since then, the man did not become a big spender. Despite his three big hits at the box office, who made the studios earn $1,17 billion these last three years, he drove in Hollywood a Silverado truck that cost $1,500, bought also on the internet. “I love the second-hand truck, you can drive many people and nobody dares to come close to me. Sometimes, paparazzi chase me. With a beautiful car, they could block me. But when they see my Silverado, they know that I can bump into them!” he laughed and continued. “It may seem curious but I don’t like being photographed and being followed. So I only go where I know it won’t happen even if it comes to only five places in LA.” explained Pattinson who, at the night of the presentation of the ad, was at Chateau Marmont where twenty beautiful girls paced the place to try to capture his attention.

After some digressions, Pattinson comes back on his passions at the time: French women. “They are amazing. When you arrive in Paris, it is the first thing you see. I think Paris and New York are the two cities where the women are more beautiful than anywhere else. They are more confident of themselves, of their personalities but also of their looks. They are elegant and have a natural grace.” said Pattinson. His masculine icons are also French: “Belmondo was very important to me when I was a child and I love the way Jean-Luc Godart dress and how he wore his sunglasses.” he said before to confess that he just had torn off a picture of the Swiss movie director in a magazine to ask to a stylist to found him the same.

Pattinson had refused many big ad campaigns. If he has accepted the one for Dior Homme which could make him earn more than $10 millions, this is on condition he could choose the director, Romain Gavras famous for his controversial videos for M.I.A.

If some abroad countries see France as the last bastion of chauvinism, this video imposes itself as a brilliant display of international savoir-faire: a British movie star and a Parisian model filmed by a director born in Greece, behind the wheel of a German convertible who dive in the Atlantic ocean in Brooklyn, while British legends of rock fire away their biggest hit, all of these to put on the front the perfume of this fall, which carries the name of a French designer.

[From Le Figaro, translation & transcript from a Sparkles fan-site]

I’ve been saying for months now that Sparkles should get a French girlfriend. Just a few weeks ago, I suggested Léa Seydoux for him and I still think she would be a great choice, although I don’t really know anything about her personal life (does she have a boyfriend?). But it sounds like Sparkles is really interested in seeing what other flavors are out there, and that he definitely wants to see what it’s like to date a French girl. I want that for him too. Give him to Vanessa Paradis, see what she can do with him.

Photos courtesy of InStyle scans.