Loewe "Decades of Confusion" Ad Campaign

Review of Loewe “Decades of Confusion” Spring 2024 Ad Campaign by Director Ally Pankiw and Writer Dan Levy with Talent Aubrey Plaza and Dan Levy

Loewe dives into comedy with “Decades of Confusion,” an era-spanning romp that plays with the brand’s famously difficult to spell and pronounce name. The campaign film stars beloved actor and brand ambassador Aubrey Plaza alongside Dan Levy, who also wrote the short.

The narrative centers around a spelling bee, with Levy playing the host and Plaza hilariously embodying a series of increasingly more conceited and irritating contestants. With the help of clever production design and vintage Loewe pieces carefully selected from the archive, the film progresses through the decades, from the big hair (hairstylist Michelle Ceglia deserves a lot of credit) and blouses of the 70s to Jonathan Anderson’s postmodern playfulness that we love today.

Along the way, each moment is punctuated with hilarious dialogue and over-the-top character acting as each of Plaza’s personas wrestle with the notoriously tricky spelling of the brand name, while Levy’s host character becomes increasingly more over it.

While the concept isn’t totally original – we’ve seen European brands (including Loewe and Givenchy) poke fun at their difficult-to-pronounce (at least for Americans) names before, and Ssense very recently launched a spelling bee campaign that played with tough-to-spell designer names – it is executed very well. The short gets a huge boost thanks to its strong talents, and it’s also exciting to see some archival Loewe pieces given new old life.

Loewe’s campaigns tend to be serious, subtle, and surreal, so it’s a surprising yet fun change of pace to see the brand cut loose and share a campaign that is pure comedy. However you spell it, Loewe has us laughing while looking good.