When did 'ambition' become a dirty word?

THERE is nothing particularly fiery about Tory Burch. Shortly after the 2004 debut of the fashion company that bears her name, she was profiled in The New York Times, with the reporter noting that if reserve could be bottled, Burch would probably "have a blockbuster fragrance".

So it may come as something of a surprise that the ad campaign she was promoting on Tuesday morning by phone from her office in the Flatiron district does not have a couple of starlet models photographed by the ubiquitous Mario Testino, but is instead a stark, black-and-white video that takes on a thorny issue that dominated the last presidential campaign and has divided people on the right and left.

Making its debut next Wednesday, on International Women's Day, the campaign, Embrace Ambition, features Julianne Moore, Melinda Gates, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jamie Lee Curtis, Anna Wintour, Reese Witherspoon and other famous people (both male and female) talking in front of a scrim about reclaiming a word that has often been used to vilify women.