Straightforward portraiture: the new LOEWE global campaign, shot by David Sims, is a blunt, crudely reductionist effort. Doing away with props and artifice, the photographic gaze focuses on the subjects, and what they are wearing as an extension of who they are and how they want to be perceived.
Actor Daniel Craig and LOEWE Global Brand Ambassador Greta Lee are pictured against a white background, looking defiantly into the camera. Craig brings to life the work of artist Richard Hawkins, who inspired the collection, through a collage of personalities. He wears the knitted jumpers, the cargos, the leather blousons but also the boots, trainers and embroidered pants that are key, Americana-inflected pieces of the collection, with much bravado and a confrontational stance.
Greta Lee, meanwhile, is captured sitting on a white stool, standing up, reclining on the floor. With unkempt hair and no make-up she looks like she came on set a few minutes before the pictures were being taken. Her presence is somehow enigmatic; her natural poses highlight the billowy volumes, the tension between structure and fluidity of the items she interprets. Her naked beauty fits the masculine tailoring she dons, as the stark lighting brings out the botanical and trompe l’oeil prints as though they were alive.
The idea of blunt portraiture carries over in the still lives. The embroidered Squeeze bag, as well the Flamenco Purse in mellow nappa, and Campo biker boots are pictured from above, like they were being cataloged, in curated compositions in which items are placed over coloured prints by David Sims with surrounding objects - keys, a stone, a plant, a candle - adding layer of mystery. The men’s accessories, instead, look like they were shot in the bathroom of the character Daniel Craig interprets, adding another facet to the depiction of his personality: the Puzzle Fold tote in vivid green is laid in the washbasin, the Pebble Bucket bag behind the door over the bathrobe, the Squeeze XL bag on the floor, and the Groove round sunglasses inside a glass.
