Crate & Barrel offers up some ideas for a romantic night in with your special someone in their January Inspiration 2013 catalog, starring a gay couple as they prep an intimate pasta dinner using the retailer’s high-end goods.
The catalog’s “Us & Always” section invites you to “spend a Saturday night at home, cooking together, dining together. Music, candlelight, and a good bottle of wine, and you can have the table as long as you like.”
Ah, nothing says romance like carbs eaten in a tastefully-decorated kitchen. The only thing missing now is a Lady & the Tramp-esque noodle kiss, followed by a wedding outfitted by J. Crew. What? We don’t see any rings on those fingers.
Joel J
I guess we’ll call this cocooning, the new gay pastime.
MikeE
you don’t see any wedding rings on those fingers because you can’t see their left hands.
besides, they’re MODELS. it’s not like the actually used a married couple for an advertisement.
Lester Brathwaite
@MikeE: I may not see a left hand but I do see some unnecessary shade being thrown.
MikeE
@Lester Brathwaite: really? the king of snark is complaining at what he perceives as being someone throwing shade at him? wow. just.. wow.
SebastianWilMa
Heirloom tomatoes, a pasta maker…and that’s all I like about this ad! That staged room or set is WAAAAAAAYYYYYY toooooooo dark & stale and…too much wood to be a gay couple. Where are they? In their “weekend cabin” on West 189th Street in NYC?
And…ONE BOTTLE OF WINE! I think we all know a normal gay Saturday night would involve at least two cocktails while deciding what to cook, then a bottle of wine while cooking, another bottle with appetizers then another bottle with the main course which will be carried into the bedroom half-empty before being knocked over after someone got a LITTLE toooooo excited b/c it was his turn to top. Then they will have a fight while cleaning it up, someone will sleep on the sofa until at 6 AM at which time the one who slept in the bed will wake him up with a blowjob & a hot shower.
dstnyc
@MikeE
I bet they don’t use MODELS to portray straight married couples.
Dominickj
What’s all the bitchin’ about. If they’re not Gay But Are being potrayed as Gay so what?? ANd if they are Gay but not married SO WHAT???? It’s being offered to Gays…
Seaki
Dear Crate and Barrel,
Thank you so much for representing the love that my husband and I share, not only representing us, as a couple, but millions celebrating their love. I have never been a C&B fan, but while now be paying a very close attention to your product lines and online site to suite my decor / utilitarian needs .
Thanks again for representing us gay couples as a loving,breathing consumers.
PS Disregard these pathetic, snarky queens that happen to have made comments based rather on stupid, over-rated and tackless ‘irony’, INSTEAD of appreciation and acknowledgment. Someone pissed in their morning cheerios, and farted on their bran muffins. Excuse them, as MOST of them are POST Stonewall and have taken all the strides that gay people have made in this world,……well for granted.
Truly Yours
Seaki
Joel J
@dstnyc: What about the notorious Harry and Louise?
technicolornina
Clearly I need to start shopping at C&B. I love that they’re addressing something a lot of advertisers are still squeamish about–a gay couple who are spending close, intimate time together, not just “getting married” or “being parents.” You have to have LOVE to be a couple–nice to see a moment between Point A and Point B here.
Joel J
@technicolornina: The scene depicted in this ad is the reality, with or without the upscale accoutrements, for millions of gay couples. Market research would show the advertisers that affluent gay couples have loads of disposable income to spend on their homes. With all the interest in couples in long-term relationships showing up for marriage licenses, the ad advances the idea of a new normal. To show that we are interested in things other than body building and clothes is progress.
the other Greg
It’s great that Crate & Barrel did this, but gee, some of you guys have vivid imaginations. Nothing in this tableau screams “marriage”… more like, been dating a month or two.
C&B is happy to sell stuff to single gay guys so their homes don’t look quite so sad and hopeless to prospective dates (or tricks, for that matter).
C&B probably also has some very nice TV trays for real married couples.