dunhill Spring 2026 Ad Campaign

Review of (designer/brand) Spring 2026 Ad Campaign by Creative Director Simon Holloway with Photographer Ethan James Green with models Orfeo Tagiuri, Jon Paul Phillips, Adam Sattrup

For Spring 2026, dunhill offers a quietly persuasive reminder that British elegance has always thrived on contradiction. Under the steady hand of Creative Director Simon Holloway, the house frames its latest campaign as a study in cultivated tension: aristocratic composure meeting a louche, rock-inflected insouciance. Photographed by Ethan James Green, the imagery resists spectacle in favor of something more enduring—confidence that doesn’t need to announce itself. If the hook here is rebellion, it is rebellion conducted in impeccable tailoring and delivered sotto voce.

Set within a pared-back, sunlit environment, the campaign strips away narrative excess to let cut, cloth, and posture do the talking. Models Orfeo Tagiuri, Jon Paul Phillips, and Adam Sattrup inhabit the clothes rather than perform them, lending the images an ease that feels lived-in rather than styled. There is a sense of English summer unfolding at its own pace—light filtering across stone-colored linen suits, trench coats shrugged on without ceremony, shirting and ties worn with a studied looseness. It is Britishness distilled: less pageantry, more presence.

At the heart of the story lies tailoring, not as rigid doctrine but as a flexible language. A high-twist linen suit paired with a cotton-silk Bengal stripe shirt and assertive tie captures the campaign’s central thesis—formality softened by attitude. The pale grey trench, inspired by both King Charles and Charlie Watts, becomes an emblem of this duality: heritage Italian linen, archival references to early motoring garments, and yet worn with a shrug that feels distinctly modern. Holloway’s strength lies in this ability to let history inform the clothes without allowing it to weigh them down.

The campaign’s successes are most evident where archival reverence meets contemporary restraint. The reimagined driving jacket—once toffee-colored sheep leather, now unlined British khaki suede—feels especially assured, balancing utility with elegance. Similarly, the Bourdon suit in Huddersfield-woven navy pinstripe wool nods to Savile Row discipline while remaining breathable and relaxed enough for summer. Where the campaign occasionally risks over-articulation is in its abundance of references; the narrative is rich, but at times nearly too fluent. A touch more visual tension—perhaps a rougher edge or unexpected disruption—could push the story from refined to revelatory.

That said, dunhill’s command of mood remains impressive. Pastel linens evoke garden parties and Wimbledon afternoons without tipping into nostalgia, while eveningwear—midnight navy hopsack, voile shirts, hand screen-printed accessories from Macclesfield—extends the idea of elegance undone. Leather goods, particularly the Alfred collection, ground the campaign in the house’s engineering legacy. The hand-burnished patina calf and lighter-inspired hardware quietly reinforce dunhill’s long-held philosophy: usefulness, beauty, and longevity in equal measure.

In the end, Spring 2026 feels less like a declaration and more like a knowing glance—a wardrobe designed for men who understand that true style lies in how one wears tradition, not merely in owning it. The formal, undone; the classic, made rakish. Dunhill reminds us that the most compelling rebellions are often the most polite—and the best dressed.