Burberry’s surreal-yet-slick Christmas ad, directed by Juno Calypso

The ad is Ricardo Tisci’s first for the fashion house since taking the reins from Christopher Bailey earlier this year, and brings Calypso’s fantastical approach to a number of different festive scenes, with cameos from Matt Smith and Naomi Campbell

It’s been a big year for Burberry. Following the departure of its long-time Chief Creative Officer Christopher Bailey at the beginning of the year, Italian designer Ricardo Tisci stepped into the role back in March.

Since then, Tisci has been attempting to draw a line in the sand when it comes to Burberry’s creative output. A new, all-caps wordmark and monogram created in collaboration with designer Peter Saville were unveiled in August, replacing the fashion house’s existing 160-year-old logo of a knight sitting on a horse.

Tisci’s first Christmas ad at the helm of the fashion house also marks a clear departure from its more traditional approach to the festive season, and features direction by Juno Calypso, who has gained fame for her highly stylised photography and film installations.

Its previous campaigns have tended to depict a quintessentially British affair, including one starring Romeo Beckham that told the story of a young couple falling in love against a theatrical backdrop of London, and another about the life of the fashion house’s founder Thomas Burberry, directed by Asif Kapadia and featuring a star-studded cast of Domhnall Gleeson, Sienna Miller, Dominic West and Lily James.

This year’s ad starts out festively enough with a snow-covered forest, but the scene quickly transforms into a TV screen in a stylishly decked out greasy spoon. In typical Calypso fashion, the film flits between various strange-but-stylish sets, including a delayed train presumably taking people home for the festive season, and a Christmas dinner set with an almost too pristine-looking dessert.

It wouldn’t be a Burberry Chrismas ad without a few celeb cameos however, with this year’s crop including former Doctor Who Matt Smith, singer M.I.A, actress Kristin Scott Thomas and Naomi Campbell with her mother, Valerie Morris-Campbell.

Credits:
Chief Creative Officer: Ricardo Tisci
Director: Juno Calypso