Fendi Fall 2024 Ad Campaign

Review of Fendi Fall 2024 Ad Campaign by Creative Directors Ronnie Cooke Newhouse and Karl Bolander and Photographer Steven Meisel with models Anok Yai, Lina Zhang, Vittoria Ceretti, and Luiza Perote

Fendi explores the physicality of sculpture with its Fall 2024 women’s campaign. The campaign was shot by photographer Steven Meisel with creative direction from Ronnie Cooke Newhouse and Karl Bolander.

In conceiving the collection, Kim Jones was exploring the brand’s 1984 archive and was struck by the similarities he noticed with his home city of London at the time, when its intersection of subcultures was starting to take on a global eclecticism. He incorporates references to Roman sculpture, utilitarian workwear detailing, the Japanese avant-garde, and British countryside posh into a vision that is nonetheless singularly Fendi. On top of it all, there’s an incredibly fun collaboration with Chupa Chups: a special leather case for carrying one of its iconic lollipops.

The campaign takes the reference to Roman sculpture as its point of departure, exploring both the literal presence of a sculpture and the idea of how it elegantly occupies space. In the short film, Anok Yai emerges from behind a marble sculpture that, despite its lack of head and arms, still has a dynamic physical motion from its billowing tunic – perhaps this is Juno or Victoria, a goddess charging forward into the future.

Across this video and the few accompanying photographic portraits, a smart connection is drawn between this Roman artistic legacy and Fendi’s status at the forefront of contemporary Roman craft. All the while, the color scheme of brown, black, and beige punctuated by a few moments of blue and red is simply sumptuous, and the makeup does great work to up the drama.

Synthesizing historical references, creative heritage, and a stylishly contemporary sense of humor into direct and striking imagery, the campaign is a powerful statement of Fendi’s intersectional craft excellence.