Byredo 'Year of the Dragon: Coming Home' 2024 Ad Campaign

Review of Byredo ‘Year of the Dragon: Coming Home’ 2024 Ad Campaign by Photographer Leslie Zhang

Byredo shares a collaborative project in celebration of Lunar New Year that evokes the traditions of homecoming and festive gathering. The special release is highlighted with a lush campaign by photographer Leslie Zhang.

Working with Shanghai-based design duo, studio KAE, Byredo presents a series of collectibles and homeware that are hand-crafted in Jingdezhen. For over one thousand years, this city in Jiangxi province has been the historic heartland of China’s production of fine porcelain. Taking a unique aesthetic approach, time-honored artisanal techniques shape objects for now, blending the emotions of craftsmanship with contemporary reinterpretations.

As the home takes center stage during the season’s festivities, the all new porcelain objects elevate the interior in a considered dialogue between tradition and modernity. Inspired by a poem from 8th century poet Bai Juyi, which paints a picture of friends coming together ‘over a little red clay stove’ on a snowy winter’s eve, festive red takes on heartfelt connotations. Shining a spotlight on elegant pursuits of the Chinese literati, who prized snow as a pure source of water for winter tea ceremonies, a special double-glazed treatment was engineered for this New Year collection, where an emulsive top layer runs into a red base like melted snow.

Ever since our first fragrance, which was an exercise in bottling the memories of my father, Byredo has been conducting the live experiment into smells and personal connection. Family, home, and traditions may indicate different things to different people, but they are ubiquitous sentiments that everybody carries with them, wherever they go.
– Ben Gorham, Byredo Founder & Creative Director

Zhang brings his signature aesthetic of vivid coloration – with a particular emphasis on red – and painterly composition to communicate the collection’s balance of warmth and elegance. Centered around the table as an emblem for gatherings and exchange, the poised portraits incorporate traditional signifiers of the holiday and its spirit of new beginnings: persimmons, dragons, and chrysanthemums. The color red pervades, but is punctuated by jade and cream tones.

As Byredo is primarily a fragrance brand, it’s exciting to see them undertake a unique craft-focused partnership and expand their creative scope. The campaign beautifully balances these identities, attaining the lush, rich sensuousness of a strong perfume campaign while fully immersing us in the visual world of its contemporary Chinese artists and artisans.