Fear of God Athletics 2023 Ad Campaign

Review of Fear of God Athletics 2023 Ad Campaign by Creative Director Jerry Lorenzo and Photographer Nadav Kander with models Diane Chiu, Quannah Chasinghorse, Taemin Park, and Fabien Naivo

Fear of God celebrates the launch of its new Athletics line, created in partnership with Adidas, through a cinematic new campaign that draws on the visual language of science fiction films. The campaign was shot by photographer Nadav Kander.

A testament to the power of art direction and clever styling, Kander’s campaign imagery elevates the collection’s foundation of voluminous yet simple outerwear, sweats, and sporty accessories into a visual tale of sci-fi mystery. The layered and nomad-like silhouettes, hazy desert planet setting, and sense of prophetic, psychedelic mysticism all feel heavily indebted to art and film adaptations of Dune, which, especially since the success of the latest movie reboot, is an aesthetic that we are seeing a lot of in recent days. That familiarity isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it is undeniably cool and resonates with a lot of people, but it might not be the best way to set your brand apart – especially when that brand’s main selling point is beige sweatshirts. So it may not draw a ton of new customers, but already-existing fans will nonetheless definitely be adding some things to their Christmas lists.

Following the huge success of its Essentials line, Fear of God is continuing to grow at an impressive rate. The brand introduced loungewear just over a month ago, and is now ambitiously embarking on a third range of what could again be said to fall into the “elevated basics” category, although sportswear does represent a somewhat new direction. The investment from Adidas is no doubt a major vote of confidence that the brand’s powerhouse trajectory will continue.

Much of this success is attributable to the brand’s consistent and accessible marketing aesthetic, which synthesizes a luxuriously laid-back minimalism with street-smart style. This campaign confidently carries that aesthetic forward while introducing new motifs drawn from the language of science fiction and fantasy as if to say: the biggest adventures are yet to come.