Byredo "Lil Fleur" Fragrance Ad Campaign by M/M Paris

Fresh off their Manual Collaboration, Photographer Craig McDean has reteamed with Byredo Founder Ben Gorham on his latest “Lil Fleur” fragrance ad campaign. With Creative Direction by Mathias Augustyniak and Michael Amzalag of M/M Paris, the campaign utilizes hand-drawn overlays and dynamic, asymmetrical compositions that impart a distinctive edge to the design duo’s work.

“Lil Fleur” is a perfume with notes of cassis, tangerine, Damascena rose, saffron, and a base of blonde woods, amber, and vanilla, marketed as the “multifaceted embodiment of its teen spirit”. Subsequently, the campaign features young women photographed against coloured backgrounds carrying a single flower, the namesake “lil fleurs” and also presumably metaphors for their youthful beauty. McDean’s spare photographic style is the perfect foil for whimsical doodles and child-like lettering as provided by M/M Paris. Tracings of faces, flowers, and bijoux are offset by musings that seem extracted from a teenager’s diary or the margins of a school notebook, such as “Walking around taking stuff in” and “Love is a creative act”. Sweet but not cloying, restrained yet complex, the imagery appeals to youth through its innocent appearance, and to everyone else through subtle underpinnings of poetic nostalgia.

More than meets the eye, the “Lil Fleur” ad campaign is the result of a meeting of great minds. Gorham, McDean, Augustyniak, and Amzalag have delivered a campaign that functions on multiple layers, much like a well-designed perfume: aficionados might pick up on particular top notes, base notes, and a bouquet of pleasing scents inbetween…but even an amateur will instantly recognize that it is beautiful.