The Woman Who Ignored all the Stop Signs is Now a Model of Inspiration

A Danish design house has brought in Iranian motorsport star Behnaz Shafiei as part of a new advertising campaign celebrating women who push boundaries. Georg Jensen’s campaign “You can never be too much you” highlights women who have gone to extraordinary levels to achieve their goals, including top chef Dominique Crenn, world champion boxer Cecilia Brækhus, and filmmaker Susanne Bier. 

Behnaz Shafiei has attracted international attention for her pursuit of a career that has not only been cut off to women in Iran — but is actually illegal. “We’ve always encouraged women to be themselves and make their own success,” said Georg Jensen CEO Eva-Lotta Sjöstedt. “Our campaign is the extension of those values and Behnaz is the perfect embodiment of that philosophy.”

Working with the agency Forsman & Bordenfors, the design house, which was founded in 1904 and specializes in up-scale jewellery, accessories and products for the home, conducted a “global search to find women who have defied convention in their lives and pushed boundaries.” Over 100 women were shortlisted for the ad campaign.

“Over the course of two months we edited down the list to five visionary and powerful women,” said Monica Holmvik Persdotter, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing and Communications for the brand. “Behnaz so clearly brings our brand values to life that we had to work together with her on this campaign”. 

If by “brand values,” Holmvik Persdotter means courage and originality, Shafiei certainly fits the brief. And her willingness to take risks might be something that chimes with the “You can never be too much you” campaign too: in the YouTube video for the ad, there are at least two places where from a certain angle, it appears as though Shafiei might not be wearing anything on her head — potentially controversial, since the hijab is compulsory for women in Iran. It’s a possible nod to defiance, a brief moment where the viewer wonders if Shafiei is flouting the rules. For the majority of the video, however, she is clearly wearing a loose-fitting headscarf or a helmet, and it’s most likely that she is wearing a head covering, but the camera angle does allow for that moment of uncertainty. 

The video shows Shafiei riding her motorbike through a landscape that looks like it could be the desert mountains of Iran. “You will always be too much of something to someone,” the video’s narrator says. “Too ambitious. Too demanding. Too loud. Too strong.” For Shafiei, the description is “too provocative.” When asked why the campaign chose that word to describe Shafiei, Monica Holmvik Persdotter said it was specifically because of the way “she has been so brave in making motocross an equitable sport for women all across the world.” Although Forsman and Bodenfors, the agency that managed the campaign, did consider other models from the Middle East, she says “Behnaz was always our first choice.” 

Sport in Iran: A Risky Business for Women

There is no doubt that Shafiei takes risks. Women in sport can be a divisive issue in Iran. For the last few years, women athletes have faced a range of obstacles, from travel bans to extremely restrictive budgets and hostility from some of Iran’s religious extremists. Women sports fans have campaigned for years to assert their right to attend sports stadiums to support their teams, and one Iranian-British woman was even jailed for protesting.

Despite this, women athletes have not given up their fight for equality, and often it pays off: at this year’s Olympics, Kimia Alizadeh won the first medal for a female Iranian athlete, taking bronze in taekwondo. 

Technically, it’s illegal for women to have a licence to ride a motorbike, but Shafiei was able to secure official permission from Iran’s Motorcycle and Automobile Federation to practice off-road. She is not, however, able to compete in official races. 

Speaking to IranWire in 2015 about what it was like to learn to ride a motorcycle, Shafiei said, “Riding in cities is more difficult and I was scared at the beginning. I’d wear sportswear so nobody would know that I was a girl. ” She also tended to practice at night, so she was not harassed. 

“Many of the older, male riders didn’t appreciate my success,” Shafiei says in an interview for the Georg Jensen campaign. “Despite my accomplishments, they told me to stop riding. Many Iranian men thought motocross was not for girls. They think I should quit because women are weaker and that we should only be doing domestic activities. I think they have the wrong attitude. I think that women can do anything.”

Watch on youtube

Georg Jensen CEO Eva-Lotta Sjöstedt, who was appointed earlier this year, says the campaign aims "to transcend ideals about beauty, putting focus on personality first." The use of role models instead of models is a compelling tool for advertising, and the design house has tapped into this, fully recognizing the power of Shafiei’s story, and her message:  “You cannot let anything get in the way. That is how you succeed.”