She joins many dead colleagues -- Fred Astaire (Dirt Devil), John Wayne (Coors) and Humphrey Bogart (Diet Coke) -- in her posthumous marketing career.

The Gap spot is based on a clip from the 1957 romantic comedy Funny Face. Hepburn plays a clerk in New York who is discovered by a fashion photographer and whisked off to Paris to take the fashion world by storm (no stretch, really, given her real-life role as muse to the French designer Hubert de Givenchy).

In the ad, Hepburn, in a black turtleneck and black pants, is shown leaping from her chair in a Paris nightclub, exclaiming, "I rather feel like expressing myself now. And I could certainly use the release." She starts a goofy Bohemian dance, then springs from the frame onto a white background as the AC/DC song Back in Black blares.

Some love the spot; some are appalled that a dead Hollywood icon is being used to sell skinny black pants. "Gap should be ashamed of themselves," wrote one commenter on ThirdWay Advertising Blog. "It's a desperate attempt by a desperate company to align itself with someone classy."

Gap, for its part, is happy just to be back on people's mind. For the last two years, the company has failed to excite customers who have fled elsewhere for inexpensive basics. Reviving a staple like the slim black pants, part of its new "Keep It Simple" campaign, could help revive Gap's sliding fortunes.

Source: Los Angeles Times