Review of Saint Laurent Winter 2022 Ad Campaign by Creative Director Anthony Vaccarello and Director Juergen Teller with models Camille Chifflot, Luna Passos, Gendai Funato, and Huijia Chen
Anthony Vaccarello and Juergen Teller continue to push Saint Laurent to new heights with their latest collaborative campaign for Winter 2022.
Creative director Anthony Vaccarello has worked with Teller on quite a few campaigns over the past few years, and they have been a particularly potent vehicle for the photographer’s proprietary sense of stark realism – a style that finds unexpected new dimensions to Vaccarello’s design work and the less familiar sides of Paris against which they are framed.
Almost looking as if it was shot on an iPhone, this campaign film extends the signature sense of unvarnished naturalism that pervades Teller’s portraits. Putting them into motion seems to further amplify the feeling of grounded realism; seeing a car drive past in the background or the models breaking out of deadly seriousness and into spontaneous laughter creates a familiar feeling of everyday warmth and the passing of time. It’s a sensation that both broadens the possibilities for the striking, timeless elegance of Anthony Vaccarello’s designs for Saint Laurent, while making them feel even more elevated from everyday reality.
This new chapter also confirms what the previous campaign from the pair seemed to suggest: that the brand’s iconic and original logo typography has made a triumphant return. Former creative director Hedi Slimane infamously dropped the “Yves” from the brand’s name when he took over in 2012 and opted for a minimal sans-serif font, which has continued to remain in place after Vaccarello took the reins – at least, it seems, until now. While it’s sure to satisfy fans who had been longing for the legacy of the brand’s iconic founder to get its fair due, it’s also an exciting move in the way the distinct logo stands out from what is increasingly a sea of similar-looking and somewhat soulless text.
Saint Laurent Creative Director | Anthony Vaccarello
Director & Photographer | Juergen Teller
Models | Camille Chifflot, Luna Passos, Gendai Funato, Huijia Chen
Casting Director | Samuel Ellis Scheinman
Music | Michel Legrand – “Amour, Amour (feat. Anne Germain)”
Location | Paris