6 Fall ad campaign trends featuring Chanel, Miu Miu, Marc Jacobs and more
Right now brands are eager to either solidify or reinvent their identities, and both enterprises call for compelling, considered imagery.
Fortunately, even with expectations high, the round up of advertising campaigns this season doesn't disappoint. Photographers have been taking more risks, and everyone is trying to tap into something essential and original. That being said, this is fashion, so as always, a few trends have emerged.
Pretty Babies
Marc Jacobs shocked several years ago when he cast Dakota Fanning (thirteen at the time), to star in his mainline campaign. This season, he's Fanned out again, and gone even younger, casting Dakota's younger sister Elle Fanning in his Marc By Marc Jacobs campaign. Lensed, as all Marc Jacobs campaigns are, by Juergen Teller, Elle looks pale yet pretty, like a girl from a fairy tale. Also no stranger to very young models, Miu Miu have cast young actress Hailee Steinfeld in their Bruce Weber shot campaign. More upbeat than the Marc by Marc offering, Steinfeld looks blissful - and as young as she is - surrounded by glittering shoes and oversized accessories, like a girl playing dress-ups in mum's cupboard. Prada's attitude was a little older, but barely. Starring a bevy of bored looking baby models, Frida Gustavsson, Kelly Mittendorf, Julia Zimmer, Ondria Hardin and Antonia Wesseloh, it tempers a riot of colour and texture with that utterly teenage activity of lounging with lazy contempt, and looking good whilst doing it. While casting kiddies may have been part of what saw Carine Roitfeld fired, it seems when it's an actress, and you keep things a little playful, it's far more kosher.
Cat Calls
Released from her obligations of editorial integrity, Carine Roitfeld can now collaborate with brands again, and she went straight for the big guns, teaming up with Karl Lagerfeld to style Chanel's Fall campaign. Her provocative touch is hugely evident, as is the darker direction Chanel have taken overall this season. The campaign stars Chanel favourite Freja, but gone is Kaiser Karl's usual high-gloss style, replaced by a grittier, greenwashed treatment. In minimal makeup (save stunning cat's eye lashes) Freja purrs bewhiskered into a photobooth, an eared balaclava pulled over her pretty head. In another shot, hair unbrushed, she looks like a particularly painful walk of shame with hair unbrushed, man's shirt undone, and sharpie all over her face. It's still fairly fabulous though. Givenchy have also fallen for the feline, however their take is rather fiercer. Emphasising a richness of texture, Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott
shot Naomi Campbell and Rob Evens roaring panther like on ornate cushions. Campbell, in particular stuns in velvet, mesh and leather.
Puppy Love
We've already written about the posh pooches from Louis Vuitton's Fall campaign, but it seems the Dogue trend is continuing apace. A particularly velvety pup sleeps in Daria Weroby's hands for Stefanel in a highly polished shot by Mario Testino. Pringle of Scotland have taken a different tack, teaming an untouchably icy Tilda Swinton with a regal looking spaniel. The fluffy layers of Swinton's jacket seem to match the pup's silky fur perfectly, in a restrained yet colourful image created by art photographer Walter Pfeiffer.
Master Class
Hermes has released a new range of bangles with a product placement campaign in fitting with the house's classic heritage. In their advertising imagery, they've added the new wrist-things to the works of Courbet, Gaugin and Ingres. It's the kind of cheeky statement only a house as rarified as Hermes can get away with. Elsewhere, Belgian Veronique Branquinho has collaborated with lingerie label Marie Jo L'Aventure. She then proceeded to commission reproductions of nudes by Cranach, Giorgione, Raphael and Dürer, and cheekily insert her lingerie over the top, covering the ladies up in the process. Finally, while not exactly painted, the composition and tone of David Sims' campaign for Valentino, starring Jac Jagaciak, Caroline Brasch Nielsen, Ruby Aldridge, Sara Blomqvist and Kim Dall Armi, strongly references the compositions of John William Waterhouse, with its reclining models and dedication to the darker side of romance, while its courtly setting has glimmers of the Roccoco period.
Videowoah
Fashion films are becoming an increasingly integral aspect of advertising, offering a more expressive medium for brand message than a simple, static image could. This season two of the strongest came from very different ends of the mood spectrum. Mulberry continued their quest to make kitsch the coolest commodity around by creating a cardboard cutout animation of their campaign imagery, shot by master of the surreal set Tim Walker. The clip, set to a soundtrack of Miike Snow, was created by House and Holme. Viktor & Rolf's Philip Riches directed fashion film, on the other hand, creates an atmosphere of rising mania. It stars and androgyne Natasa Vojnovic, and beautifully, menacingly hints at the unreality of sell deprived obsession.
Viktor & Rolf Fall 2011 from MOST Original Soundtracks on Vimeo.
Dark drama
Several of the big Italian houses, Versace, Gucci, Etro and Emporio Armani all offered a change of pace from their usual brighter imagery, upping the drama and darkness in colour saturated campaigns heavy on the evening glamour. Versace's vision, realised by Mert and Marcus, was near apocalyptic, with billowing clouds and a baleful yellow glow illuminating Saskia De Brauw and Sean O'Pry. Meanwhile Gucci's take - also by Mert and Marcus - played with projection to create an after hours party atmosphere, with an edge of seed to the polish. Etro's Mario Testino lensed forest hues were a little more restrained. Emporio Armani paid tribute to the best of eighties music videos by throwing Iselin Steiro into a warehouse in the rain, which in the hands of Mario Sorrenti still looked perfectly refined.
An honourable campaign mention also goes to Marc Jacobs for casting a hilariously painted Helena Bonham Carter for his mainline. She's a perfect, offbeat choice, and has serious chemistry with Teller's camera.
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