Review of Loewe Spring 2024 Ad Campaign by Creative Director Jonathan Anderson and Photographer David Sims with models Taylor Russell, Yang Mi, and Lim Ji-Yeon
Loewe explores the curious nature of identity as performance with its Spring 2024 women’s campaign. The campaign was shot by photographer David Sims, and inaugurates actor Lim Ji-yeon as a brand ambassador.
Lim joins returning Loewe personalities Taylor Russell and Yang Mi, each of whom Sims captures in a series of distinctive and delicately composed portraits.
The imagery continues Loewe’s ongoing campaign practice of a kind of elusive eclecticism, so no one unifying theme immediately suggests itself from the imagery. But Anderson and Sims seem to be exploring a territory between the polarities of identity and art: is the reality of our existence different from the way we present it to others?
In one image, Taylor Russel uncovers her face from behind a glittering masquerade mask – but does that mean we see the real her? In another portrait, Yang Mi pensively holds a tomato as she sits at the right side of a table with a window presumably out of the shot to her left – a composition that is ineluctably reminiscent of a Vermeer painting. The art references continue across the photos wherein the models perch atop a ladder with an sculpture of knotted metal by Lynda Benglis behind them – the artist with whom Loewe recently collaborated on runway sets and a special jewelry collection (pieces of which also appear across the campaign). Other set design elements like a vase of lilies or a bean bag chair feel more everyday, yet still potently symbolic.
A brief accompanying video deepens the atmosphere while retaining the open-ended anti-narrative. Lim Ji-yeon poses before a vintage sports car while her hair blows in the wind, with fast-paced cuts, swirling cinematography, and an effervescent avant-garde electronic soundtrack creating a mood of heady and indulgent glamor.
Unmistakably Loewe, the campaign beautifully continues Jonathan Anderson’s elusive exploration of the intersections and boundaries between life and art. Drawing together references to classic and contemporary art but maintaining an idiosyncratic appeal, it draws us into an enigmatic yet rich world of creative expression, again affirming Loewe’s untouchably unique and alluring take on contemporary luxury.
Loewe Creative Director | Jonathan Anderson
Photographer | David Sims
Models | Taylor Russell, Yang Mi, and Lim Ji-Yeon
Stylist | Benjamin Bruno
Hair | Zhihui Li
Makeup | Helong Jin
Manicurist | Ama Quashie
Set Designer | Poppy Bartlett