It’s highly unusual for the perfume industry to choose a 67-year-old woman as its public face. And even less so to place her in a highly sexualized scene. But that’s precisely what the Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana has done with Madonna, the star of its new campaign for the fragrance The One, alongside 43-year-old Cuban actor Alberto Guerra. “The ad is undeniably sensual,” designer Domenico Dolce explained via email, “a dream, a play of contrasts rich in suggestion, emotional tension and anticipation.” The pair are taking over from Scarlett Johansson and Matthew McConaughey, ambassadors for the fragrance since 2013, and their successors, Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington, who were the faces of the franchise in 2017.

The commitment to the new duo and the advertising video, directed by Mert Alas, is a powerful statement in a global landscape where sex is disappearing from cultural content (despite its strong presence in increasingly violent pornography). “We’ve always told this story, adapting it to the context and the historical and cultural moment. Times change, as does the sensitivity with which we view the world, but our values and our narrative remain unchanged,” the creative continues. Their vocabulary has always been linked to the imagery of sex, like that of Madonna herself, with whom they have shared a close friendship for years.

“Our story with her is a friendship that has lasted for decades,” Stefano Gabbana recalls. “We met her in the late 1980s. She was already an established star, and we were two young designers at the beginning of our careers. She was in Turin for the world tour of Blond Ambition, and Domenico and I went to see her because we were huge fans. I remember saying to each other, ‘Imagine if she wore something of ours someday.’ Shortly afterward, a copy of the International Herald Tribune arrived on our table with a photo of her at a party in Paris. She was wearing Dolce & Gabbana. I still remember it: a knitted skirt, a bra, and a mesh cardigan. We were stunned. We immediately contacted her press office, and that’s how our relationship began. First professional, then personal. From the start, what united us was passion, the desire to break the rules and give voice to our personalities. For our first meeting, we went to dinner at an Italian restaurant, Silvano, in New York. We talked for hours, stayed for a drink, and arranged to meet again the next day. Even after all these years, she’s the only woman who still intimidates me because she remains, and always will be, my idol.”

The admiration is mutual, and the singer has turned to the designers for major occasions and starred in several campaigns for the brand, though always for the fashion line. But in 2021, the company absorbed its beauty division, which until then had been managed through licensing (a common business model in the sector). That’s why it makes sense that Madonna wanted to continue supporting her friends now, becoming involved in a way that’s unusual for this type of collaboration. The star, who will release her first album in seven years in 2026, has covered the song La Bambola, popularized in the late 1960s by Patty Pravo, for the video and has overseen numerous creative details, Dolce reveals: “She participated in the project from the beginning and in every detail. She worked with Mert Alas on the script and suggested Alberto as the male lead. We trusted her instinct, and we were right. The connection between her and Alberto is extraordinary; it’s reflected in every frame of the campaign.” Garter belts, corsets, blindfolds, and power games in which the singer always holds the reins.

This isn’t the first time the brand has used a protagonist older than is typical in the industry. The Italians previously featured actress Monica Bellucci, then in her late thirties, in their campaign for the perfume Sicily, reuniting her with director Giuseppe Tornatore three years after the release of Malena. Currently, Lancôme counts Julia Roberts (58) among its ambassadors for its best-selling fragrance La vie est belle, and in 2018 Susan Sarandon (79) was the face of Sunlight for the much more niche label Jil Sander. Even so, these examples remain the exception in an industry devoted to the utopia of eternal youth. Conversely, Charlize Theron (50) passed the torch in 2024 as the face of Dior’s J’Adore to a Rihanna in her thirties. These moves are surprising, especially since the biggest consumer of perfumes and cosmetics is the mature woman. And their role will become increasingly crucial for the industry: the consulting firm McKinsey estimates that by 2025, people aged 50 and over will drive 48% of the incremental growth in global spending. In the United States alone, in 2024, those over 55 held 72% of the wealth. Yet these demographics, especially women, are almost entirely absent from beauty brand communications.

Where a much broader path can be traced is in the alliance between the world of perfume and sensuality. In fact, the very origins of fragrances are closely linked to sex, argues Clara Buedo, author of History of Perfume: “Perfume has always been associated with eroticism. From the Egyptian blue lotus, which had both psychoactive and aphrodisiac properties; to the erogenous flowers that the Hindu god of love, Kamadeva, carried on the tips of his arrows; or the Islamic world, whose treatises offered recipes for perfumes to lengthen the penis, promote vaginal hydration, or make intercourse longer and more pleasurable, with warming substances that activated blood flow.” Regarding the use of eroticism to sell perfumes, the tradition dates back to the early decades of the 20th century, coinciding with the industry’s great development: “Exoticism was the pretext for creating sensual compositions with animal-like, amber, warm, enveloping notes, and with suggestive names that evoked nocturnal pursuits, the escape of an odalisque in the harem. The historical context demanded it. A change of century and of thought, greater disinhibition and a strong desire for liberation; the Belle Époque gave way to the Roaring Twenties, an era of great social and cultural effervescence at all levels. It was the perfect catalyst for experimenting with fragrances, that powerful elixir that encouraged letting loose,” the writer continues.

In the first half of the 20th century, numerous campaigns emerged that directly referenced this idea: “Tabu by Dana (1932), which was promoted as ‘a perfume a prostitute would wear,’ Cocaína en flor (Cocaine in bloom) by Parera (1932), which appealed to disinhibition, or Orgia by Myrurgia (1922).” In the 1950s, Marilyn Monroe wore only a few drops of Chanel No. 5 to bed, and in 1977, Yves Saint Laurent revolutionized the market with Opium. “It generated controversy with its sexualized advertisements and, once again, by commodifying the idea of the Orient as a perfumed, seductive, and libidinous paradise.” As the 21st century began, few campaigns resisted succumbing to conventions, including prioritizing the male gaze. The One campaign sought to subvert this objectification in order to break with the dominant narrative. Stefano Gabbana believes that “elegance is ageless, and Madonna is proof of that. She has managed to evolve her iconic style over time, maintaining her ability to be desirable, to feel beautiful, fascinating... unique. Beauty is not just aesthetic. It comes from a combination of elements: character, temperament, energy, inner strength, and intelligence.”

*Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition *