Dry Heat
Review of Rabanne Spring 2026 Ad Campaign by Julien Dossena with Creative Director Bruce Usher and Photographer David Sims with models Awar Odhiang, Ella Dalton, Mack Karpes, Selena Forrest, & Silouane V
There is something quietly disarming about Rabanne’s Spring 2026 campaign, where Creative Director Julien Dossena trades the pulse of the city for the hush of an imagined desert. Shot by David Sims with creative direction from Bruce Usher, the campaign unfolds like a mirage—soft, surreal, and just slightly out of reach. The hook lies in its stillness: a group of modern muses suspended in time, as if fashion itself has paused to catch its breath before something shifts.
The imagery leans into a cinematic languor. Models recline across dunes beneath skies that feel almost too saturated to be real—sunsets rendered in painterly gradients of apricot, lilac, and flame. There’s a deliberate tension in the compositions: bodies arranged in repose, yet never fully relaxed; gazes that drift somewhere beyond the frame. It’s less about narrative progression and more about atmosphere—a suspended moment where elegance meets unease.
Dossena’s collection thrives in this environment. Rabanne’s signature interplay of embellishment and utility feels sharpened against the rawness of sand and sky. Metallic bags glint like artifacts unearthed from another time, while swimwear and body-conscious silhouettes ground the fantasy in something tactile and immediate. Stylist Marie-Amélie Sauvé ensures the balance is precise—never tipping too far into nostalgia nor futurism, but instead holding both in a delicate, deliberate equilibrium.
What resonates most is the campaign’s restraint. In an era where fashion imagery often competes for attention through excess, Rabanne opts for quiet control. Sims’ lens captures not spectacle, but suggestion—inviting the viewer to lean in rather than be overwhelmed. The casting, led by Piergiorgio Del Moro, reinforces this subtlety: a collective presence rather than a singular star, each model contributing to the campaign’s meditative rhythm.
If there is a critique, it lies in that very restraint. The emotional temperature, while beautifully calibrated, occasionally risks feeling too distant—like a dream you admire but never quite enter. One wonders if a touch more disruption, a sharper narrative fracture, might have elevated the tension the campaign so carefully sets up.
Still, Rabanne understands the power of anticipation. This is a campaign less about arrival and more about the moment just before—the inhale before the exhale. And in that suspended breath, Dossena reminds us that sometimes the most compelling stories are the ones that linger, unresolved, on the horizon.
Rabanne Creative Director | Julien Dossena
Creative Director | Bruce Usher
Photographer | David Sims
Models | Awar Odhiang, Ella Dalton, Mack Karpes, Selena Forrest, & Silouane V
Stylist | Marie-Amélie Sauvé
Hair | Paul Hanlon
Makeup | Hiromi Ueda
Casting Director | Piergiorgio Del Moro
Set Designer | Poppy Bartlett