Tilda Swinton Recites Poem by Rumi While Reeking of Vetiver, Heliotrope & Musk

If anyone should ask you how to promote a celebrity fragrance without losing face, click play and whisper, “Like This.”

It helps if the celeb in question is generally acknowledged to be a class act. Imagine a drunken starlet emerging from her limo sans-drawers to stumble through her favorite poem by a 13th century Sufi mystic. Which would you rather smell like?

(Personally, I’d go with Team Swinton! )

Some scholars quibble with the accuracy of this Tilda Swinton-approved translation, but there’s no denying that Coleman Barks‘ “perfect satisfaction of all our sexual wanting” stands to move a lot more scent than A.J. Arberry‘s terse reference to Houris, viriginal and numerous though they may  be.

Speaking of comparisons, take a peek at how another celebrity promotes her fragrance in a video of similar length.

Team Swinton for the win. Definitely.

Related Content:

The Moby Dick Big Read: Celebrities and Everyday Folk Read a Chapter a Day from the Great American Novel

Tilda Swinton and Barry White Lead 1500 People in Dance-Along to Honor Roger Ebert

Hear Sylvia Plath Read Fifteen Poems From Her Final Collection, Ariel, in 1962 Recording

Ayun Halliday marks her territory @AyunHalliday


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