Shadow Play
Review of Boloria debut 2026 Ad Campaign by Olivier Theyskens with Photographer/Creative Director Willy Vanderperre with models odine Van Galen, Nanne Gr, Tijmen Govaerts, Lauren Huyskens, Celya Aviron, Jonathan Michiels, Moustapha Fall, Nizar Marzouki, Elise De Poorter, Lander Steyaert, Jolande Bouw, Jef Verbanck, Clara Pacini, Mistral Guidotti, Louis Cornelis
For the first visual statement of a new house, many designers would be tempted toward spectacle. Olivier Theyskens instead chooses atmosphere. With Boloria’s debut campaign, unveiled ahead of the brand’s first public chapter during Paris Couture Week, the Belgian designer offers something rarer and arguably more difficult: restraint. Shot by Willy Vanderperre, the imagery arrives not as a loud declaration but as an invitation into a mood, a memory, perhaps even a ghost story. If most brand launches shout, Boloria prefers to whisper – and in fashion, whispers can sometimes travel further.
The campaign unfolds in fragments, almost cinematic in their ambiguity. Faces hover behind translucent curtains like apparitions waiting to be remembered. Windswept dunes host languid bodies stretched across sand beside solitary chairs and abandoned coats, conjuring a dreamscape suspended somewhere between romance and ruin. Elsewhere, dimly lit embraces feel less like fashion photography and more like stills from an unfinished film, while atelier references – exposed basting stitches, oversized tailoring, scraps of pinned construction – remind us that behind the poetry lies process.
What emerges most clearly is Theyskens’ long-standing fascination with emotional tension. His work has always lived in the space between fragility and severity, sensuality and melancholy, and Boloria continues that dialogue with notable confidence. The oversized jackets, unfinished seams, and precise monochrome tailoring feel distinctly Theyskensian, yet there is also something more elusive at play – a willingness to leave meaning unresolved. Vanderperre, a master of emotional coolness, proves an ideal collaborator here, allowing stillness and negative space to do as much storytelling as the garments themselves.
The campaign’s strongest quality may also be its boldest risk. At times, the imagery withholds so much that it edges toward opacity. There are moments where atmosphere slightly eclipses product, particularly for a debut when audiences are still learning a house’s codes. Yet perhaps that tension is intentional. Boloria does not seem interested in explaining itself too quickly. In an era when brands often over-share their meaning before viewers have had the chance to feel anything, there is something quietly rebellious in allowing mystery to remain intact.
Importantly, this does not feel like a conventional campaign designed to sell a season. It feels more like a prologue – a house sketching emotional coordinates before revealing its full language. Theyskens, whose career has long been defined by romance tinged with darkness, appears less interested in reinvention than refinement. The visual language speaks fluently in Belgian fashion’s native tongue: cerebral, poetic, slightly haunted, but deeply human.
And so Boloria begins not with fireworks, but with shadows. A curious move, perhaps, in today’s attention economy. But then again, Olivier Theyskens has never been particularly interested in chasing the light – he has always known how much beauty can live just beside it.
Bolivia Creative Director | Olivier Theyskens
Creative Director/Photographer | Willy Vanderperre
Models | Bodine Van Galen, Nanne Gr, Tijmen Govaerts, Lauren Huyskens, Celya Aviron, Jonathan Michiels, Moustapha Fall, Nizar Marzouki, Elise De Poorter, Lander Steyaert, Jolande Bouw, Jef Verbanck, Clara Pacini, Mistral Guidotti, Louis Cornelis
Hair | Louis Ghewy
Makeup | Miranda Joyce, Lynsey Alexander
Casting Director | Julia Lange Casting
Music | “Drijfzand” by Machinefabriek (Rutger Zuydervelt)