Bottega Veneta unveils a haunting new campaign with photography by Tyrone Lebon. Using clever studio and lighting tricks, Lebon wraps the imagery in a mysterious sense of uncertainty.
He captures his models in a studio that impressively simulates a snowy mountainside at night. At first we are convinced that we actually are outside, but focusing on the shadows and backgrounds, we finally recognize this is a studio. This made-you-look maneuver imbues the campaign with a sort of uncanny mystique, leaving us always second-guessing.
Lebon furthers this feeling of nocturnal mystery by not using any lighting except for the flash of his camera, saturating his models and the snow with a ghostly white light. They loom out of the darkness like luxurious specters of a bygone age, luring us into the gloom.
Despite its apparent simplicity, the campaign’s subtly brilliant twists elevate it and fill it with the sense that it is drawing us ever deeper within. Suggesting the documentarian terror of found-footage horror movies combined with the conspiratorial intrigue of faked moon landing theories, it gives us a lot to wonder about, while remaining strikingly cohesive.
Photographer | Tyrone Lebon
Models | Quinn Mora, Abbey Lee, Mona Tougaard, Sascha Uhlemann, Tobias Dionisi