Blog Posts

The global luxury fashion industry generates revenue of close to one trillion dollars, and capturing the gorgeous movements of high-end fashion is a specialised niche. From veteran trailblazers Mario Testino and Steven Meisel to Harley Weir, 27, and 20-year-old Gray Sorrenti (image above), some just have the knack. Here are a few advertising campaigns using top photographic talent that have caught our eye.Youthful exuberanceThe daughter of Mario and niece of Davide and Vanina Sorrenti, Gray
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“Flowers can seem ridiculously extravagant, but that’s why they’re so powerful,” says luxury floral designer Elizabeth Marsh. “There’s no self-interest, they just tell the recipient, ‘I see, hear and understand you’ – you cannot underestimate the power of that.”(Photograher Sebastian Ragusa)From the nervous bride to the five-star hotel or corporate events manager, clients need to be understood, says Marsh, who is a great believer in flowers as a point of engagement as well as communicat
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Italian Lavazza coffee is a familiar and well regarded brand for many of us, but far fewer will be aware of the work being done by the Lavazza Foundation,which is behind this trailer for a documentary for Amazon Prime now on limited release in Italy, the UK and the USA.It introduces us to Johana, a Colombian woman who lost everything as a result of the five-decade guerrilla/government war that killed more than 260,000 people and displaced millions, and is rebuilding her life through cof
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British-owned Aston Martin has long been the ultimate high-octane yet elegant brand, renowned for spectacular good looks, luxury engineering, and, thanks to its 007 association, racey intrigue.  The 107-year-old company has roared into the headlines in an already eventful 2020:-It’s putting out a limited edition of 'fully loaded' 007 DB5 remakes as driven by Sean Connery (in image) as James Bond in 'Goldfinger', under the name Continuation. They weren’t able to have the e
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Britain's farms were already in trouble in terms of harvesting before the COVID-19 coronavirus hit. The 2016 Brexit vote led to a drop in fruit and vegetable pickers from the EU flooding in for the season, with UK farms reporting a shortage of 10-20% of seasonal workers in 2019.Despite the government expanding the number of permitted non-EU seasonal workers four-fold in early 2020, subsequent COVID-related restrictions presaged a severe shortfall. Hence the clarion cry to 'Pick for Brit
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Ever stayed in a luxury hotel and pocketed a couple of their miniature plastic-bottle bathroom goodies?No judgment here, just asking.If you have, you may be feeling out of step with the times. What used to be a real little luxury might now get a curled lip and a flat “Oh. Right.” if you showed it to friends. They might just think you’re wrong for taking home single-use plastics.And increasingly – and ironically – it could reflect badly on the fabulous hotel you stayed at.The plushest hotels in th
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"Did you hear about Milan?” exclaimed a friend based in continental Europe.“No,” I said, not without a faint whiff of apprehension.“They’re using the lockdown to reduce traffic,” she explained with glee. “In the central area where there used to be two-way double lanes – so four lanes of engines that were idling half the time, pumping out fumes ‘cos there were so many vehicles the traffic could barely move – they’ve cut it down to one lane each way.“The other lanes are to expand cyc
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As Mother Nature enjoyed a respite from our ceaseless travels thanks to measures imposed during the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis, grounded airlines jettisoned jobs and leaned on governments for bailouts, while Zoom became a household name.Virgin Australia slumped into administration but was due to get back in the skies over the summer, with 10% stakeholder Sir Richard Branson reportedly game to put up $200-250 million to achieve this. The billionaire had drawn flak for asking the UK gove
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Ramadan is a month of fasting, reflection, charitable giving, and community for Muslims around the world. In 2020, Ramadan, which began on April 24, was inevitably affected by the COVID-19 coronavirus situation. This 2020 piece caught our eye for its simplicity – visually reflected in the black and white footage over-written with children’s responses."We are all experiencing a season like no other, and in these uncertain times, we all need hope,"says young US musical artist Brittin Lane
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It’s the drink of celebration, used to mark life’s most special moments. Yet Madame Bollinger, who married into the Bollinger house and ran it from 1941 to 1971, famously said she drank champagne both “when I’m happy and when I’m sad”. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/)With so many suffering in the COVID-19 environment, wine expert Danny Brennan, who’s been with Laurent-Perrier for nearly 20 years, is not expecting to see a rush back to celebratory mood
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As deeper questions began to be asked around COVID-19 coronavirus responses, a few ‘ads’ caught our eye for their deployment of humour in the still-prevalent life-under-lockdown scenario.Let’s take it from the past to the present to the future with three campaigns from Spain, the USA and Australia respectively.“Is that the enemy? Can you stop the war a moment?”You'll see all kinds of processed meat products on Spanish supermarket shelves by the Campofrio group. Its down-to-earth, familiar tone is
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Luxury was one of the first sectors to register the unwelcome economic implications of the COVID-19 coronavirus’ global spread as high-end fashion names were forced to shutter their plush premises in the lucrative Chinese market.With 2020 set to take a large and almost unprecedented bite out of this usually ‘untouchable’ growth area, luxury brands reassessed and re-deployed. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the ways they’ve been doing it:-LVMH, hands-onThe French multi-national owns dozens of le
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Six of the best: lockdown luxuriesMaybe we didn’t all define them as luxuries until experiencing restrictions on our lifestyles, but confinement compels us all to re-assess, right?Which of these are you missing most? Click here to let us know!Touch, companionship, friends/family gatherings (Detail from D&G Light Blue ad)“I need sex,” exclaims a vibrantly energetic woman in her seventies, frustrated and dispirited by the enforced hiatus in her social life. “I don’
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“It was definitely a thing, it was happening,” says a private jet pilot about reports of the wealthy hopping in their own ‘planes to escape the rapid global spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. “They were flying off to their other residences. But it’s becoming more difficult.”That’s because even the luxury loopholes are closing worldwide as countries – including many in Latin America such as Costa Rica which are popular as second homes for the American wealthy – have already shut down or
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Controversial is our readers’ favourite category this month, with this ad getting a lot of attention, though we’re not sure whether that’s sparked by the notion of men being made to pay/tweet, or because of the current COVID 19-driven run on paper.“It made me laugh to see people ‘panic-buying’ loo roll in the supermarkets,” said our local café manager. “I was brought up in Estonia, in Soviet times.”She didn’t need to say more: I did a three-month student exchange in (then) Leningrad, wh
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We used to think of leather as a by-product of meat, particularly those of us who grew up in farming country. Now, the provenance of leathers used in luxury apparel and accessories, and in high-end vehicle interiors, is coming under a lot more scrutiny, with organisations like PETA reporting horrendous animal abuse in the global skin trade – as well as production processes that are harmful to individual workers and the environment. Behind the Leather
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The policeman, my landlord, some neighbours with their 11-year-old daughter and I surveyed the disarray in my burgled bedroom. I wondered if anybody's else's eye was going straight to the sex toy lying amidst the underwear that had been pulled out of drawers and tossed onto the floor.If they were, nobody commented.The colleague who'd driven me home took me straight out for a drink, and everyone else dispersed - no harm done, just a minor mess to clear up.But the image of the plain old dildo pluck
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London Fashion Week 2020 saw the opening of the event’s first Swap Shop; Victoria Beckham highlighting sustainability as a challenge that must be responded to in the notoriously wasteful fashion industry; and a group of us chipping in to buy a new kilt for a friend whose old one boasted almost more holes than cloth after incessant use at weddings, pubs and rugby matches.If you’re not getting the significance of the kilt, check out this animated Selfridges campaign at the British wool se
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Our prototype ADDS site went live shortly before the Brexit vote in 2016. Here are a few European ad campaigns, both hard-hitting and amusing, from non-UK countries in the EU that have caught our eye since.This ‘let them eat cake’ gender equality campaign out of Romania was one of the first, and the ‘Unquiet Voices’ campaign, also Romanian, made a powerful point about domestic violence and abuse (DVA) by superimposing the stories of real DVA survivors onto old black and white movies.Spain
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Photo by Mike from PexelsAdvertising has come a long way from the ‘Mad Men’ days: yes, it’s still about selling stuff, but it now plays a much larger role in holding up a mirror to society. The last decade in particular has seen several taboo-busting campaigns tackle those topics society finds difficult to discuss openly.Read on for our Top Six Taboo Topics we’re expecting to see more of in 2020.MenopauseOmg, seriously??? Yes, it’s really, really, REALLY hard to find any advertising at all around
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