Britney’s memoir, The Woman In Me, came out on Tuesday and I’m sure it will be a runaway bestseller. I hope it makes her a ton of money, because Lord knows she got swindled out of untold millions under the conservatorship. (And I hope we all decide, as a culture, to let Justin Timberlake’s career completely expire from this point forward.) To promote the book, Britney has new merch, including hoodies, shirts, and hats–the usual stuff–marked with one of her “legendary quotes,” including “you better work b-tch.” She is also re-releasing Curious, her first perfume. You can buy it as a bundle with the book on Amazon. That’s smart marketing. Well played, Britney.
Britney Spears is doing something special for her fans.
The Princess of Pop, 41, is revisiting some of her most memorable lyrics with her new “Legendary Quote” collection in coordination with the release of her best-selling, tell-all memoir The Woman in Me, out now.
Spears’ latest merch drop features apparel and accessories celebrating her smash hits.
Tee shirts are printed with liberating lines like “I Don’t Need Permission” and “You Better Work Bitch,” referencing her famous singles “My Prerogative” and “Work Bitch” respectively.
Other designs like the “Only while performing was I truly invincible” hoodie and “Take on the music” baseball tee are indicative of Spears’ love for her craft, while the “Stronger Than Yesterday” beanie reminds fans to persevere much like Spears’ single of the same name.
Spears is also reintroducing her first-ever fragrance, Curious by Britney Spears, which will be sold as a bundle along with her book on Amazon. The 2004 launch — described as a florally must-have for adventure-seeking risk-taking women — marked the star’s first foray in the beauty category.
Seeing that perfume bottle again made me so nostalgic–as a millennial, few things are as evocative as that sweet floral smell. In my eleven year old brain, that perfume was the most glamorous and sophisticated thing I could imagine. I loved Britney. I had her concert tape on VHS (VHS! What a time!) and all her CDs, which I played in my pink Hello Kitty boom box. My God, I can’t believe we ever had it so good. I remember being a kid and hearing adults talk about Britney in judgmental terms right from the beginning of her fame, and I definitely internalized it. I learned that the world isn’t kind to women or girls who are at home in their bodies. That’s always what stood out to me about Britney, even when I was little. I know now that she was sexualized by the culture, but as a kid, I just saw a girl who was joyous and confident in her body whenever she was performing. That’s always going to be threatening in a patriarchal culture. Anyway, the Curious perfume was huge. The entire mall smelled like it at one point and I wanted it so badly but my parents wouldn’t buy it for me. There’s a high likelihood it would give me a headache now but I might buy the bundle just to have the bottle sitting on my bathroom shelf. The merch is kind of generic looking to me–there was an opportunity here to make a super nostalgic Y2K kind of collection. But if this is how Britney wants it, I’m on board. Get your coin, Britney.
Has she asked for Bobby Brown’s permission to put “My Perogative” on a T-shirt? I hope so.
I dont see anything that says my prerogative, just the line I dont need permission
I never had any of her perfumes as I assumed that they were very “feminine” or “seductive”. Like floral or lots of musk notes.
I was that elder millennial who loved the unisex smells from urban outfitters and grass from the gap.
@moxylady007: I too wore the gaps grass and when it was discontinued I would go online and pay outrageous prices to get it. Wish they would bring that scent back. I loved that fresh smell!
Okay… can we pause for a minute on the revisionist view of Britney’s early career? Like, she wasn’t sexualized by the culture. She actively participated in it. There is a lot of documentation from back in the day about how she wanted a sexualized image. (Example: her mom wanted her to cover up more for the RS photo shoot and she had her mom leave and then took off layers). It was problematic because she was singing songs like “email my heart”… her music’s target audience was young girls and her image catered to adult men. I have empathy for her as someone who struggles with her mental health, but I don’t understand how you can say she was sexualized by the culture without giving her credit for it.
Britney was a minor. She had no control over how the music industry wanted to protray her. She most likely went along with it because she believed that’s what she had to do to become successful.
So did she come up with the idea for the Baby One more time video? Because I see her taking credit for the idea, saying that the original idea was really corny and she wanted to do something cool. So should they have told her she could not tie up her shirt? Wouldn’t that have been controlling her body? It just seems like the narrative now is that she was in control but also being controlled, depending on what is perceived to be more sympathetic. My belief is that she enjoyed being sexy, wanted a grown-up image, and the label etc recognized that it would sell. I just wish she would own it.
@Juju: Who at that age didn’t think that was sexy? She got that perception from somewhere and the music industry had no objection to serializing her
It is not revising, it’s listening, for the first time, her point of view.
Britney was a child when she started, and she was told what to do and how to act. We should talk about how an entire industry wanted to sexualize a teenager.
I was a European teenager in the ’90s and at the time the obsession with her virginity was unsettling, to say the least.
When people raise you as a product you tend to internalize it. That obviously would not have happened to the level it did, on her initiative or otherwise, if people around her had actually cared about her. And she was everyone’s cash cow and was probably very anxious not to “let them down”. Just my two cents.
That was the culture at that time. We look at it now and realize how ugly it is. I remember growing up when teenage girls were expected to be sexy and virgins or no one would marry them. And I never questioned it. No one did.
The image of a sexy teenage school girl who was still a virgin, all the girls aspired to be her and all the boys wanted to date her. That’s not on Britney, that’s on everyone. And the way she was punished for it, that’s also on everyone.
If you think Jive Records let some 16 year old take the reins and have complete creative control on her first music video back in the 90’s when women were even less heard than they are now then I think you are being a bit naive or just willfully blind to support your narrative that Britney is some scheming jezabel. I think she was influenced for sure and maybe she thought it was innocent enough. At that age you don’t realize these things but they also wouldn’t have done any of that if they didn’t think it would sell. They knew exactly what they were doing with her.
She literally says in her memoir that the Baby One More Time video was her idea, that she wanted to wear the school uniform, that it was her idea, she wanted “cute boys” in the video, and she was completely fine with the RS photoshoot and wanted to work with the photographer again even though her mother was upset.
Maybe she still isn’t ready to admit how much she was controlled and managed even in her early days as a recording star, but she certainly tries to portray herself as in full control during the recording of Baby One More Time and making the video.
Now, does that mean she was complicit or that she can’t have a problem with it now? No, because she was 16 and was entering a very competitive industry focused on talent, yes, but also physical appearance and sex appeal, and she had to have been very cognizant of that.
I don’t think she should be blamed for that; just that the situation is probably more complicated than most of us on here realize.
And the final responsibility of course does lie with the managers, producers, parents who allowed the sexualization of a 16 year girl like she was sexualized.
She was a minor. Victim blaming.
She was a teenager who wanted to be sexy, cool and popular, like every other teenager in the 90th.
If I look back at the outfits I wore on carneval (our dress up eqivalent to helloween), it was a as short and revealing as possible, and I remember loving the attention and at the same time running home crying because I could not handle the harassment.
In the 90th you were supposed to be the hot, sexy cheerleader and qn innocent virgin at the same time. Beeing booring or prudish meant social death, beeing a slut was social death as well.
You can’t blame a teenager for trying to navigate this minefield where every decision seems to be wrong.
It’s still that way, sad to say. I have an 11 year-old who has ALWAYS chafed to be “bigger” and “older” since the day she was born. Having a brother 5 years older doesn’t help this circumstance since he can and does do things that she can’t. The fact that he didn’t do them at 11 either doesn’t seem to matter to her, lol.
The difference is that I actively parent her, and give her boundaries (no tummy showing at school, shorts under your skirts) and also allow some freedom (sheer, light makeup when appropriate, let her put together her own very sophisticated Halloween costume!) We also TALK about EVERYTHING. They still get terrible mixed messages about what being a girl/woman should look like.
Lynne was not trying to kill the golden goose, so she went along with what all of the grown-a$$ men thought her 16 year-old should do. Britney was a minor who had no business having the “final say” over any content, period. But her parents needed her to make money because they failed to adequately provide for their family, so Britney became a commodity and a product instead of a child to be protected.
The 90’s were the best. I wasnt a fan of Britney, I was an older teen, but I liked listening to her music. She was all over the place, her video “baby hit me one more time” was supposedly scandalous, I watched it couldnt understand the judgement… anyway – I hope she makes it!
I never was a fan of her or her music but I do like Curious, I think its one of her best fragrances. So good luck Britney!
Huge perfume collector here, Fantasy and Midnight Fantasy remain my favorite Britney scents!
Britney is somehow photoshopped to the point that she shares a resemblance with a younger Gino Vanelli in the perfume ad. Don’t think they really look alike.
@Eowyni What? Who is that??