Set to a reworked version of the classic song ‘Take Yo’ Praise’, ’Viva la Vulva’ is a lip sync video with a twist featuring singing ‘vulvas’ in every shape, size and colour, from oysters to conch shells, puppets, button holes, cupcakes, origami, purses and plenty more. The film also features the women who love them; young women, new mothers and older, post-menopausal women. As well as exhibiting the beautiful and underrepresented diversity of vulvas, the film actively subverts harmful myths and stereotypes; one scene features a singing camel toe, a woman holds a mirror to look at her vulva in another and in one scene Barbie pops up, outraged her genitals have been erased. 

What is the perfect vulva? Something that is anything but theirs, according to almost half of women (44%), who admit they have felt embarrassed by the way their vulva looks, smells or feels. Why? Because of the toxic cocktail of historical prudery around women’s genitals and the more recent explosion of porn – two extreme yet complementary sides of a taboo, pressuring women to believe that their genitals should look a certain way. As a result, many women ignore what normal looks like (68% of women don’t know what their own vulva is), or demand a ‘designer vagina’ (labioplasty is the fastest growing cosmetic surgery in the world), and millions avoid cervical cancer smear tests over embarrassment, putting their health at risk. ‘Viva La Vulva’ is Libresse’s bold new campaign that challenges this gap in truthful and positive representations of women’s genitals.

Each animation method was chosen after a process of discovery and throwing out numerous iterations of work util we collectively found the best method applicable. For example, we initially shot the singing grapefruits as puppeteered plates but this wasn't wholly successful; we ended up augmenting the stop-motion iterations we had shot as back up with live-action plates. Often - for the conch and oyster animations for example - we went with a mulit-disciplined approach with elements of puppeteering, air jet manipulation, editing and CGI animation. The biggest challenge was having to find the right animation approach for each setup. As we shot so many different animation mediums, we needed a bespoke solution for each vignette, whilst always considering the aesthetic of the overall piece.