Supermodel Kendall Jenner takes flight in a ravishing new L’Oréal Paris x Mugler campaign set in the City of Lights. Jenner became a L’Oréal ambassador in July 2023.
Photographer Txema Yeste [IG] has the plum assignment of photographing Jenner in the L’Oréal Paris x Mugler print campaign. Diego Armando Mendoza [IG] is credited with digital. / Hair by Stephane Lancien; makeup by Mary Phillips
The Tory Burch [IG] FW 2025 Campaign gives us a moment to check-in with one of AOC’s favorite brands. Models Hejia Li, Ida Heiner, Lulu Tenney, Nora Attal, and Selena Forrest bond in New York City in a campaign lensed by Jamie Hawkesworth [IG].
Strong performance in 2024: Multiple reports from early 2025 cite Tory Burch's financial strength in 2024, noting the brand sold an estimated $1.8 billion worth of products.
Huge Ambition Goals at the Tory Burch Foundation
In early May 2025, the Inaugural Tory Burch Foundation Founders Breakfast honored Martha Stewart, while Burch unveiled an ambitious new pledge: to generate more than $1 billion in economic impact through women entrepreneurs by 2030.
Burberry [IG] Creative Director Daniel Lee takes us to Wolterton Hall in Norfolk, England, a historic British setting that served as a key source of inspiration for the Fall/Winter 2025 collection and now the campaign.
Lee brings the sumptuous yet restrained location to life again in the appropriately-named Burberry Fall/Winter 2025 ‘A Grand Escape’ campaign, lensed by Sam Rock [IG].
Britain’s favorite heritage brand is far from being out of the woods, but Burberry CEO Joshua Schulman cited recently a notable uptick in Burberry’s brand desirability. Best of all, he said the Autumn 2025 collection is being "well received by a broad range of luxury customers".
AOC shares strong praise for how creative director Daniel Lee has delivered a strong reboot collection that is sumptuous and elegant with major visual appeal.
The Tom Ford [IG] A/W 2025 Campaign presents the highly-praised, debut collection of designer Haider Ackermann in sophisticated images focused on clothes. The deeper you look, more is revealed.
The campaign cast includes Charlie Jones, Henry Kitcher, Julia Nobis, Kristen McMenamy, Milan Bodemer and Scott Barnhill. Jacob K styles the shoot in images by Mark Kean [IG]. / Hair by Tom Wright; makeup by Lucy Bridge
Candice Swanepoel, Devyn Garcia and Imaan Hammam front the new Victoria’s Secret [IG] 2025 Very Sexy Campaign. As sexy comes roaring back, photographer Yulia Gorbachenko [IG] turns her woman-friendly lens on three of the hottest women riding the VS carousel.
Celia Azoulay styles the campaign with strong woman props and a smoldering color palette with shades of black, burgandy, fuchsia and plum.
Givenchy designer and creative director Sarah Burton grabs media focus for her Fall 2025 Campaign and its embrace of humanist values. In a quiet, elegant, modern strategy, Givenchy sends a signal to Burton’s clients old and new, that they are welcomed with a warm embrace by the maison. Thank you, Sarah Burton.
Burton happily embraces a wide spectrum of women in new ways, breaking the mold with a unique campaign message that Humanism 101 chief Brunello Cucinelli will love.
“The beauty of all women inspires me — including my team,” Burton said. “I wanted to capture the brilliant women I work with amongst the cast — real moments with everyone working together.”
Models South Korean heritage Hyunji Shin and Spanish heritage model Pau Ramis front the Brunello Cucinelli summer 2025 Transeasonal Campaign.
Brunello Cucinelli’s Commitment to Italy
Always the philosopher, one of the world’s most important humanists commented about his obligations to shareholders and his equally important obligations to Italy, after reporting a revenue increase of 10.2 percent in the first half of 2025 on his July analysts call.
"The fact is that we have an Italian company pay taxes in Italy... this is our struggle, you know, with regard to improving the profits. We will never bring or transfer our company to the Netherlands, to Luxembourg," Cucinelli added.
Cucinelli explained that his motivation for staying in Italy is in large part to support the wider supply chain. "We are serious Italian entrepreneurs who believe in made-in-Italian manufacturing with high-end craftsmanship, high-end exclusivity, high-end quality. We want to work on a local level in Italy."
Flaunt Magazine [IG] Issue 199, ‘Fleeting Twilight’ shares key looks from the Louis Vuitton Men’s Pre-Fall 2025 Collection. Creative Director Pharrell Williams previewed the collection in Miami December 2024, with the upcoming Met Gala dandy aesthetic on his mind.
I just reviewed again Jonathan Anderson’s swoon-worthy debut men’s collection for Christian Dior, and like Pharrell, he also tapped the ‘young aristocrats’ trend. Anderson added skirts for men and nipping his waists with overtly-femme swagger and white bow ties.
Louis Vuitton Men Compared to The Absolutely-Brilliant Jonathan Anderson Dior Mens Debut
Pharrell played his ties straight and long, Anderson likes bows. Both designers did white ties and the Louis Vuitton man does go to the office to afford his wardrobe preferences. He’s a working man. Anderson’s Dior man is a trust fund kid — or maybe the growing number of men — at least in America — living at home with parents.
Dandyism is a design key to writing about both collections — Dior Spring 2026 and Louis Vuitton Pre-Fall 2025. Yes, Pharrell was off to India with lean and long fluidity for his Spring 2026 collection, which AOC loved.
How to make Chanel [IG] tweed suits once again a must-have for ‘it girls’ is surely a high priority on Matthieu Blazy’s October debut ‘To Do’ List.
Until then, in the Fall Winter 2025 campaign, we see Mona Tougaard out and about on the streets of Paris. As for rewriting codes, that’s Blazy’s job and this was a caretaker collection now on view in campaign images by Mikael Jansson [IG].
Saint Laurent [IG] releases what it calls its AW25 women’s campaign, a steamy slice of life shot by Mert Alas [IG] in LA. Saint Laurent’s Anthony Vaccarello brings Kate Moss and Chloë Sevigny together for the first time in a sensual encounter called ‘Velvet Heat’.
90s top model Frankie Rayder also joins the campaign, adding a note of professional sobriety to the proceedings.
Humanism 101: Polo Ralph Lauren x Oak Bluffs: A Portrait of the American Dream
Writing about the Ralph Lauren Pre-Fall 2025 Campaign in early July, I noted that the Ralph Lauren name — and especially Polo Ralph Lauren — carries great symbolism and respect in the Black community.
Two Humanists: Cucinelli and Lauren
My retraction comes from this early July 2025 statement in this post:
No one articulates humanist values like Brunello Cucinelli, but Ralph is way up there delivering major marketing changes but without a visual bullhorn.
With the release of Polo Ralph Lauren’s new Oak BluffCollection, its second collaboration with Morehouse College and Spelman College and their research and archival teams, I’m ending the competition in my mind between the two designers, great brand builders and global good guys. They are equal in my mind as global humanists after today.
AOC loves Paris and the south of France. But we’ve been saying for many months now that it’s an Italian moment, and nothing — not even the king of cashmere’s current Italian sweatshop scandal — will dampen AOC’s love affair with la dolce vita.
Fendi’s fall-winter 2025 campaign film begins with a visual dose of sophisticated retro nostalgia, peppered with modern reinvention. In speaking with WWD about the fall-winter 2025 collection, Silvia Venturini Fendi stressed the reality that the fall 2025 collection presents “a contemporary and comprehensive vision of the brand”.
Fendi is also aiming to convey this modern message with ancient roots with the inauguration of a new sprawling flagship on Milan’s Via Montenapoleone.
Anne Is Swept Away
Depending on your age, the soundtrack will completely sweep you away. OMG! Barry White.
If you have lived a privileged life resulting from family heritage — or are a working girl who made good and led a privileged life based on your smarts — and you regularly kissed the ground landing in Italia, you will be swooning.
Personally, Anne is destroyed with this campaign video.
Supermodel Kristen McMenamy is the first to tell you that in the Nineties there were no rules. The Irish Catholic American third child out of seven born to her Pennsylvania family has earned her reputation as a visually ‘unique’ character in Italian fashion dramas. She also had rebel DNA flowing through her body head to toe.
Dolce & Gabbana [IG] dialed into McMenamy’s same rebel spirit in their new Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda Roma 2025 Campaign, shot by Luigi & Iango [IG]. The city’s architectural magnificence is captured in both materials and fabrics for Alta Moda fashion and spectacular treatments of ancient characters in the Alta Gioielleria, high jewelry collections. Roman statues transformed into pendants is very cool./ Makeup by Georgi Sandev; hair by Patti Bussa
Bella Hadid fronts MIss Sixty’s Fall 2025 campaign from the privacy of her bedroom, finished with cherry-accented walls and plenty of shag. IB Kamara styles a blonde Hadid looking good in a range of denim styles from jean jackets and straight-leg jeans to flared jeans and mini skirts.
Carlijn Jacobs [IG], who photographed Bella in a retro supermarket in Mixx Sixty’s Spring 2025 campaign, gives another nod to the early 90s and 2000s. Love it.
Louis Vuitton Women taps House Ambassadors Emma Stone and Hoyeon Jung for the Fall/Winter 2025 Campaign, lensed by Ethan James Green.
Before Speedy Came Express
Bags and luggage are the visual currency of the Louis Vuitton brand. They also ring the cash register at critical levels to support LV’s position in the LVMH heirarchy. The FW25 Campaign is focused on its latest handbag: the Express, a roomy reprise of the original name of Vuitton’s signature Speedy handbag.
Louis Vuitton’s Chairman and CEO Pietro Beccari delivered press comments detailing the important role ‘The Louis’ marks on the new journey the luxury brand is taking into the DNA of Louis Vuitton itself. Reinforcing key buzzwords, Beccari stressed the importance of Louis Vuitton’s spirit of travel being experienced not only by crossing national borders, “but through ideas, emotions and inspiration.”
Anne drills down on exactly what Beccari’s words mean.
It was good to see Dutch model Birgit Kos in Goop [IG] brand’s G Label Spring/Summer 2025 Campaign on social media. Photographer Alexandra Nataf [IG] aka Alexandra Nataf-Taghizadeh captures quiet style looks that murmur elegance and relaxed sophistication.
In June, supermodel Kate Moss [IG] worked with longtime stylist, Katy England [IG] and England’s husband Scottish musician, singer-songwriter and founder of alternative rock band Primal Scream Bobby Gillespie on a Zara [IG] collaboration celebrating Glastonbury and Britain’s summer festival culture.
Called the Festival Collection, Moss’ second collaboration with Zara featured bohemian pieces inspired by "thrift stores of small-town America to the most elevated boutiques of Paris and Milan," per Zara.
Photographers Mert Alas [IG] and Marcus Piggott [IG] shot the Festival Collection campaign. In a cool twist, the lookbook imagery [shot by Casper Sejersen] stars young friends and family with Moss' daughter, Lila Moss, and England and Gillespie's son, Lux Gillespie.
AOC returns to Prada’s ‘Days of Summer’ marketing campaign, where the Prada pink gozzo is moored beside the Prada Capri boutique, in Via Roma 2, until July 13th.
Prada Beauty Lip Balms in Macaron Colors
This Prada campaign is being executed with such colors of comprehensive precision that Prada Beauty lipstick glosses are the mouth-enticing colors of French macarons. Scratch that. I mean Italian Macaron colors.
We’re living in a moment of small victories,and surely photographer Tyler Mitchell [IG] feels great pride — and his family even moreso — over Mitchell shooting the Ralph Lauren [IG] Pre-Fall 2025 Campaign. Ralph Lauren carries great symbolism and respect in the Black community.
Ralph Lauren 2024/25 Business Results
The top leadership got big raises coming off an excellent 2024 performance that resulted in a 16.8 percent increase in the stock price for the year ending March 31. Since March 31, the stock has risen another 20 percent.
Like Hermès, Brunello Cucinelli, and Prada, Ralph Lauren’s Asia business is very strong. In China Ralph Lauren saw 20 percent growth in China in their 4th quarter ending March 2025.
Louvet has definite opinions about why the business is strong in China:
It’s important to keep in mind that Ralph founded this company on values that are pretty universal: optimism, authenticity, timelessness, elegance, family. Those are globally relevant and are resonating wherever we play, including markets where you might be concerned about anti-American sentiment.
Harper’s Bazaar Spain [IG] May 2025 devotes an issue to the theme of water, with model Maria Khan lensed by Xavi Gordo [IG] in ‘Acqua’.
The island of El Hierro embraces and awes, like the crystal-clear, dark-bottomed water that surrounds it. Among its volcanoes and extraordinary natural sculptures, model María Khan finds peace in this swimwear story, an ode to the power of nature in the most sustainable corner of the Canary Islands.
Over the past few decades, this island has embraced a pioneering approach to sustainability, driven by a commitment to renewable energy and environmental conservation and its UNESCO Biosphere Reserve status.
