Blade runner Oscar Pistorius face of A*Men

South African hero Oscar Pistorius named the face of international fragrance A*Men.

Local Paralymic athlete and double amputee, Oscar Pistorius, has been chosen as the ambassador of designer Thierry Mugler’s legendary fragrance A*Men.

“It’s such an honour. It’s something I never guessed or imagined doing,” Pistorius said at the official press briefing.

“They’ve broken the mould with this, choosing to use a person with a disability. The message I spread on a daily basis is to encourage yourself to find the courage and inner strength to defeat prejudice, to not be influenced by the way others people look at you. My story is becoming famous and I am pleased to share it,” he said.

The world-class sprinter had his legs amputated below the knees when he was only eleven months old and got his first prosthetic legs when he was 17 months old.

Thierry Mugler created the A*Men fragrance back in 1996 with the aim of encapsulating the essence of the modern day hero – a man which the Clarins Fragrance Group describes as “part man, part god… defined by his interior strength and his desire to conquer.”

Despite a number of castings, Thierry Mugler was never able to find the right model that fit his comic book type hero (they opted for a graphic character instead). Not until a few years later did he come across an article in a French publication about an exceptional young South African athlete with the power and untiring strength Mugler had been looking for.

The A*Men campaign sees Pistorius as a half-man, half-robot blade runner clad in skintight silver Lycra pants and silver J-shaped carbon-fibre prosthetics. He admits he’s not as confident in front of the camera as he is on the track, but he’s proud that his involvement is helping to defeat prejudice. In an industry that strives for perfection, a beauty house has chosen not to conform to the norm.

View the A*Men campaign featuring Oscar Pristorius.