I Help Launch the New Trump™ Fragrances

...but don't pose for Annie Leibovitz

By now you have of course heard about President Trump’s new Victory 47 fragrances, for both the formulation and branding of which I am proud to say that I served as a consultant.

If only I were able to say that more than just one of my ideas was actually implemented.

The president’s own original idea was that Victory 47 be offered in a bottle both shaped like and proportioned like his apparently remarkable penis. It emerged that, as fledgling real estate tycoon in the first-half-of-their-‘70s heyday, he had read an article about the Plaster Casters, who made plaster casts of rock stars’ little elvises, and loved the idea of his own being displayed beside that of the then-not-yet-late Jimi Hendrix, though the future president was not a fan of the celebrated guitarist. But when he contacted the duo, they declined to have him…pose for them because he was a non-musician. When he dreamed up Victory 47, it occurred to him to approach the Plaster Casters anew. Alas, Cynthia Albritton had died from cerebrovascular disease in the spring of 2022.

It was I who suggested that Victory 47’s bottle be shaped like the president himself, all 6-3 and 215 rock-solid pounds of him.

With that resolved, it was time to name the new fragrance. I suggested an array of adjectives — Narcissistic, Malignant, Infantile, Delusional, Vindictive, Petulant, Venal, and Delusional, and the noun Dementia, but the other members of the creative team rejected them all, for one reason or another, and went with a noun suggested by the president himself.

I pointed out that some radical left lunatic cut-up was sure to work up a meme suggesting that 47 represented the president’s IQ at rest, but Adrienne, the team leader, said, “Don’t be silly. If his IQ were that low, he would be capable of only severely limited cognitive functioning.” I thought it best to hold my tongue.

Everyone else seemed OK with 47, so we moved on to the branding. Brandon, a creative director at a Madison Avenue advertising agency, suggested that the men’s version be described as having “rich, masculine notes with a refined, lasting finish” and having been designed “for men who lead with strength, confidence, and purpose.”

I embraced the first part, but thought the second should be “for emotionally abusive fathers’ sons who try — in vain — to conceal their deep insecurity about their manliness with indefatigable self-aggrandizement.”

“Ooh, Mr. Bigword strikes again,” Helen, a copywriter from a big agency in Houston, snickered derisively, and Brendan’s version won the vote 9-to-1.

Helen suggested that the perfume be described as evocative of “confidence, beauty, and unstoppable determination.” I wondered aloud if the fragrance wouldn’t be more accurately described as “for the shallow, pious would-be trophy wife or mistress whose addiction to cosmetic surgery results in her becoming grotesque.”

I wasn’t surprised when Helen’s version proved the more popular, and remembered, albeit not aloud, that, at around the time the Plaster Casters were becoming famous, Annie Leibovitz, later America’s premier photographer of celebrities, implored me to pose naked for her for Rolling Stone magazine. I declined, and Annie eventually settled for David Cassidy. This is a true story.

I wasn’t surprised when my fellow branding experts pooh-poohed my idea for a third version of Victory 47, for those either in the process of switching genders, or for those who felt all butch and shit one day, and all femme and recessive the next.