Have we lost our ability to understand fashion campaigns?

Most recently, Bottega Veneta shot Kendall Jenner and A$AP Rocky, a brilliant peak for this strategy altogether, along with GCDS, Poster Girl and Priscavera. Gucci released a pap-style campaign with Dakota Johnson in January of last year (pre-Sabato De Sarno), and, before all of them, came Balenciaga in 2018 — who even styled its 2023 Los Angeles runway show in a way reminiscent to that of a celeb paparazzi walk — and Jimmy Choo, Moschino and many more. The source inspiration, for those unaware, is Richard Avedon’s 1962 spread with Suzy Parker and Mike Nichols for Harper’s Bazaar of the actors being chased by paparazzi, which was inspired by the frenzy surrounding Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor after Cleopatra.

With this in mind, it makes sense that Gucci would lean into the current popularity of candid imagery for its campaign. The public sees Sinner as a star on the court, and given that the tagline for this ad is “Gucci is a feeling”, what we’re being sold is the emotion of him in the moment. That Sinner is wearing Nike in addition to his Gucci duffle bag should be secondary; the idea is to capture him as you see yourself in him. You, too, can feel Gucci on the court, or outside of it.

Yet this seemed to escape fashionphiles online. What we want from our campaigns, the message seemed to be, is to only see what we can buy. The problem with that is we also ask for authenticity. I would much rather have Gucci present Sinner as he is, than outfit him in a Gucci tennis outfit they won’t sell — what’s the point of that? The message is that Gucci isn’t a luxury fashion fantasy more so than it is a feeling you can evoke with a duffle over your regular clothes. Is it enough?

The no-stalgia factor

The added layer to this style of campaign, both in its candidness and in the minimalist idea of packaging a “feeling”, harkens back to the ’90s. Gucci has brought back its placing of the logo across its imagery, which Tom Ford popularised with his own campaigns and Alessandro Michele had done away with during his time at the helm. Nostalgia marketing is all the rage now, and has helped brands not only leverage their history but also connect with a younger consumer who feels a sense of longing for a time they did not experience and therefore missed out on.