Tory Burch "Sublime" Fall 2024 Ad Campaign

Review of Tory Burch “Sublime” Fall 2024 Ad Campaign by Creative Director Lina Kutsovskaya of BeGood Studios with Photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott and model Kendall Jenner

Tory Burch taps Kendall Jenner as an embodiment of the Sublime to celebrate the launch of its brand new fragrance. The campaign features creative direction from Lina Kutsovskaya and photography and film by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.

Based around leather accords in a nod to the brand’s distinct accessories craftsmanship but balanced and uplifted by floral and fruit notes, the new Sublime fragrance seeks to capture a spirit that is sexy, fearlessly feminine, and empowering. The fragrance is also releasing alongside a concise capsule collection that features signature pieces in the new Sublime Coral colorway.

The stripped-back campaign takes a direct look at Kendall Jenner to offer a simple take on the fragrance’s perspective of bold femininity. Dressed in the capsule’s coral colors or sometimes nothing at all, she smolders into the camera or slips into a dreamy reverie as her hair billows dreamily. In some of the portraits, she holds an oversized version of the bottle that reinvents the brand’s iconic double-T monogram, a smart nod to the tactility and preciousness that is a key element of luxury beauty products. Mert and Marcus shoot in both black and white and color, alternately creating a feeling of nostalgia and emphasizing the classic sexiness of a bold red lip, while also offering some sensuous bodily details, like flexing back muscles or a slim waist.

The campaign, in fact, may rely too much on that ideal of a traditionally beautiful body. There is little going on here other than the body of a skinny, cisgender, white girl. Is this the best choice for a brand and a product that seeks to empower women? More unique casting, an element of narrative, or a stronger art direction perspective all could have provided opportunities to actually demonstrate these values. Even Kendall herself has a lot to offer besides her body; she’s a successful entrepreneur and has been vocal about abortion rights. Simply depicting a woman’s body – particularly one that demonstrates a historically influenced ideal of beauty – as an object of desire probably isn’t enough to communicate values of bodily autonomy and personal strength.

Nonetheless, anything with Kendall Jenner is going to make a big impact, and the choice is a guaranteed way to get lots of eyes on the campaign and spark buzz around the fragrance release. Celebrity ambassadorship is proving to be a tried and true strategy for luxury fragrance marketing, and the use of this strategy and particular casting choice are understandably safe moves. But many may wish that the campaign had a perspective and let Kendall have a voice, rather than just seeing a body.