It has even become a common expression, this is why.
This slogan has become a real cult sentence, instantly recognizable, and rhymes with the promise of beauty and luxury. But few people know that behind this simple formula hides a surprising, almost improbable story.
In the 1970s, advertising was full of female stereotypes. But a young 23 -year -old designer was going to shake up the codes. Responsible for a campaign for the preference of the Oréal Paris, Ilon Specht invented in 1971 a slogan that has become cult. Born with a stroke of anger, he reflects his rejection of advertising clichés of the time. “” I was revolted by this traditional vision of women. I refused to write yet another spot on the idea of pleased men. So I just thought: go and fuck. And I wrote the text in five minutes “, she already confided to World in 2011. You will have guessed it, it is the famous slogan ” Because I am worth it “.
Commercial success is immediate. Very quickly, the advertising grip was on everyone’s lips. Beyond the simple promotion of a cosmetic product, the slogan conveys a new image of beauty: that of a power of affirmation for all women embodied for more than 50 years by all the muses L’Oréal Paris (from Jane Fonda to Eva Longoria via Isabelle Adjani) and translates into 40 languages, the formula resonates in the collective imagination as a message of emancipation and self-confidence.
This incredible story is today the subject of a documentary entitled The Final Copy of Ilon Specht, available on March 8 on a video premium in which we find a poignant testimony of Ilon Specht died in April 2024. ” What I found deep, as soon as I spoke to Ilon and when I spoke to his family, is that these words, “because I am worth it”, which have become later “because you are worth it”, – these words spoke of who it was. And these are ideas that she embodied. It was not just a casual sentence “, explains Ben Proudfoot, the director of the documentary who won the prize for the best short documentary at the Lunenburg Doc Festival, at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival with this film.
And to say that at the origin, this slogan was only a simple sentence scribbled on a piece of paper, intended to convince … before conquering the world.
