Tailored, Not Told
Review of Dunhill Fall 2026 Ad Campaign by Dunhill Creative Director Simon Holloway with Photographer Ethan James Green with models Colin Otto, Daisuke Ueda, Hamid Onifadé, Henry Kitcher, RJ Rogenski
For Fall 2026, Dunhill places the blazer at the center of its campaign, with Creative Director Simon Holloway revisiting the fault line between Savile Row propriety and the more individualistic spirit of 1960s King’s Road. Photographed by Ethan James Green and styled by Tom Guinness, the campaign brings together Henry Kitcher, Daisuke Ueda, RJ Rogenski, Colin Otto, and Hamid Onifade in a series of portraits devoted to tailoring, material, and masculine character. The clothes are certainly dressed for the occasion. The campaign, unfortunately, never quite decides what the occasion is.
There is plenty here to admire at the product level. Holloway’s Dunhill continues to make a persuasive case for English tailoring loosened just enough for contemporary life. Checks, midnight tailoring, suede, flannel, denim, rollnecks, ties, and softly structured jackets create a wardrobe that understands the difference between heritage and nostalgia. Tom Guinness’s styling is particularly good at introducing small disruptions: denim beneath a checked blazer, a tie slightly more expressive than expected, cream trousers against dark tailoring. These are men who appear to know the rules well enough not to be imprisoned by them.
Green photographs them with characteristic precision. The lighting is handsome, the skin beautifully rendered, the fabrics tactile, and the casting offers distinct personalities rather than variations on one gentlemanly archetype. The strongest image may be Hamid Onifade settled into the leather chair beside the bag, where the brown leather, cream trousers, windowpane jacket, and muted knitwear create an unusually satisfying harmony of texture and tone. Henry Kitcher’s checked tailoring has similar visual snap. Individually, these are accomplished portraits.
But accomplishment is precisely where the problem begins. The campaign tells us it is a “study in character,” yet it gives those characters almost nothing to do, nowhere to go, and little world to inhabit. Remove the names and production pedigree and much of this could function beautifully as luxury in-store signage or an exceptionally polished seasonal lookbook. The neutral backgrounds, formal poses, occasional chair, table, and strategically positioned leather goods describe product efficiently, but efficiency is not storytelling.
That feels particularly limiting given the richness of the premise. Savile Row meeting King’s Road is fertile territory: establishment versus rebellion, precision versus personality, tradition encountering the social electricity of London. Yet almost none of that friction makes it into the photographs. The clothes contain more narrative than the campaign built around them. Even the exceptional craft detailed in the collection, from specialist double-face construction and hand-sewn buttonholes to British-milled checks and hand-finished suede, remains something we are largely asked to understand rather than emotionally experience.
Restraint, of course, is integral to Dunhill. Nobody needs the House staging a psychedelic romp down Carnaby Street to prove it understands the sixties. But restraint and emptiness are not synonyms. A location, an interaction between the men, an architectural environment, or even a stronger psychological conceit could have given Green’s portraiture something to push against. Luxury campaigns increasingly need to create worlds precisely because product imagery is now ubiquitous across e-commerce, social media, and retail. When the advertising image resembles the selling image too closely, one begins to wonder what the campaign is adding.
That is what makes this feel like a missed opportunity rather than a failed exercise. Holloway has supplied the tailoring, Guinness has supplied the styling, Green has supplied impeccable portraiture, and the cast has supplied character. All the ingredients for a compelling Dunhill world are sitting neatly on the table. What’s missing is the invitation inside it. For a House with this much history, craft, and distinctly British personality, simply being well dressed is no longer quite enough.
All dressed up, indeed. Now give these gentlemen somewhere to go.
Dunhill Creative Director | Simon Holloway
Photographer | Ethan James Green
Models | Colin Otto, Daisuke Ueda, Hamid Onifade, Henry Kitcher, RJ Rogenski
Stylist | Tom Guinness
Hair | Tosh
Casting Director | Piotr Chamier