Who Is This Baubé Character?

Has anyone received the Fall "Book" from Neiman Marcus?  There is a cosmetics insert with a cartoonish hairstylist/makeup artist character by the name of Baubé in it.  And Baubé "speaks" eerily like our beloved Manolo.

And if The Manolo has the gig writing the parlance and the patois for this Baubé character, "bravo," I say.

It's pretty cute, it's funny, it's well-illustrated and I hope it pays buckets of dough.

If he doesn't have the gig, and I kind of think not (he's more erudite than this Baubé character could ever hope to be), he's being ripped-off.  It's a pretty egregious and blatant rip and for a few moments there I was thinking of suggesting he lawyer-up.

But WWTMD?  What Would The Manolo Do?

He would laugh.  He would be flattered.  He would saunter respectfully past the offerings of Baubé for the super-fantastic shoe selections at Neiman Marcus.  He would go to Giorgio for dinner.  And so it would be.

Yes, people have been doing Euro-speak forever.  We've had Franck (Martin Short, "Father Of The Bride") and Dieter (Mike Myers, "Sprockets") and the gold standard, Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers, "The Pink Panther").  And well, as an extension, a distant extension, how can I leave out Hrundi V. Bakshi?  Any takers on that one?  Anyhow, it's been done, and done well.

Though our Manolo must be from Europe originally, I believe.  How, possibly, could he be a fan of Joaquin Sabina, otherwise?  Your thoughts?

So it may well be fruitless to protest here. It's not exactly intellectual property.  I suppose I feel a bit protective.  I've been reading the guy daily for, what, a year a half?  That's a long time for me to do anything every single day.  That's bordering on slavish devotion.

But check this thing out if you can get your hands on it and tell me something isn't rotten in Denmark.  Or France.  Or Spain.  Or like, Andorra.  Because Baubé seems to vacillate between French and Spanish extraction.

And he has lots of tattoos and a ponytail.  Neither of which, in my mind, The Manolo posseses.  And there is a conspicuous absence of shoes.

Baubè stops short of ever referring to himself as The Baubé, however, he does consistently delight in referring to himself in the third person.

My guess is that Baubé is a fabrication of Neiman Marcus, without the express help and hiring of The Manolo himself.  It's been dumbed-down too much, presumably for the mass-consumption of the Neiman Marcus shopper population.  Which is not to say that the Neiman's shopper is a toad.  Simply that if you're going to use a campaign, you'd better test-market it and make sure at least 70% of your customers get it. 

By the way, Baubé is nowhere to be found on the Neiman Marcus website.  The scans here are the only ones to be found thus far on the internet.  An internet search for "Baubé Neiman Marcus" yields nothing useful.

(click on the pics to expand, they're cute - and pretty funny - but not nearly as funny - or as gently abrasive as The Manolo)
 

Comments

[Tammy]

Hmmmm...awfully similar, don't you think?

[ali]

wow!

[Wendy]

I, too, as one of the Manolo's many internet friends, see him in bespoke (sans tats and hair elastics)!

It must very be hard for the Baube to be compared to the witty and erudite fellow whose blog is required daily viewing for so many. Now, if he had a pouffy pompadour hairstyle and a spacesuit, we might mistake Baube for a funky little fashion troll ...

[Lisa]

Dude, you got mentioned by The Manolo!

I swoon.

[G]

Hi! The Manolo, he mentioned you, so I thought I'd stop over...:)
Hi from Ireland!

[kim]

Good catch! I have to say that the Bergdorf's catalogue ripped off my spotlight section, too obviously! I guess they are catalogues and have no real creativity and no original merchandising accumen. If Manolo's not mad and you're not mad, then I'm mad for both of you. But if it brings more attention Manolo's way, then fine. But the writing here was spectacular, so: great catch AND great post.

[Susanna]

Hey everyone! And welcome G from Ireland - glad to have you here.

Thanks for all of the notes! It has been a fun 24 hours, what with the sitemeter going wacky and all. Been very much an adventure.

It was not my schtick that was ripped-off, so I can't complain. But it did make me uneasy. Because, as Kim mentions, it happens. All the time. The big guys stomping the smaller ones, shamelessly.

They ask their big-ass legal departments if they can get away with it, and the big-ass legal departments say "sure, that's not intellectual property, people have been doing XYZ forever, just change it a little" and that's that.

But, yes, I am surely sensitive to those things. They say there's nothing new under the sun. But sometimes certain individuals acquire a unique shade of tan. And attempts to duplicate that tan look, well, like a fake bake. Witness Baubé.

I suspect (and hope) that our beloved Manolo has much bigger fish to fry and can't be bothered by a little thing like a Neiman Marcus catalog. In my imagination he is far too busy doing far more interesting, fun and important things to waste his time pursuing the provenance of a gnat like Baubé.