Dior Cruise 2025 Ad Campaign

Review of Dior Cruise 2025 Ad Campaign by Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri and Photographer Brigitte Niedermair with models Ali Dansky, Jiali Zhao, Sanija Dalecka, and Tanya Churbanova

Dior celebrates the spirit and sartorial history of Scotland with its Cruise 2025 campaign. The campaign once again sees the house team with photographer and art director Brigitte Niedermair.

Continuing Dior’s and Maria Grazia Chiuri’s practice of exploring a new destination and its rich culture with each annual Cruise collection, their latest trip took them to Scotland. The creative director dove into the country’s sartorial traditions – from the expected tartan and kilts to explorations of folklore and lesser-known reference points – while synthesizing them with her own vision of opulent, powerful, and ethereal feminine chic.

Captured in-studio with smoky, dark-golden backdrops, Niedermair’s portraits let that design vision itself do most of the talking. Nonetheless, her shots make use of a few props or set design choices that lend to the historical fantasy aspect, while the attitudes and poses of the models – especially when they are in pairs – create a sense of heroism, subtle narrative, and power.

The consistent hairstyling choice of a single long braid helps to further push the energy of a dynamic warrior heroine, especially as the models do great work to convey a strong sense of motion.

While the portraits are strong as they are, it still might feel like a bit of a missed opportunity not to use the stunning landscape of Scotland itself as a key element in the campaign. The runway setting was breathtaking and felt like the defining feature of the show; why not further capitalize on the access to that visual goodness and powerful historic presence and shoot the campaign there at the same time? Similarly, Scotland has such a rich and historically significant backdrop – especially in its legacy of resistance to European colonialism, the echoes of which are still deeply felt today – that to draw on its aesthetics without really recognizing their historic meaning might be interpreted as a bit shallow.

Nonetheless, the brand’s previous partnerships with Niedermair have opted for a more controlled, in-studio approach, and the imagery does fit cohesively within this visually consistent practice – while still letting us revel in the distinct cultural flavor of this Cruise collection. Slàinte mhath!