French director and illustrator Ugo Bienvenu has collaborated with sunglasses powerhouse, GENTLE MONSTER, on their 2019 eyewear collection simply titled, “13”. Being as culturally avant-garde as their highly acclaimed in-house contemporary art experiences, GENTLE MONSTER’s innovative advertising campaign has itself transcended the expectations of what fashion advertisements should resemble.
As a way to translate viewers into their high sci-fi dystopian fantasia, GENTLE MONSTER has enlisted innovative global talents to implement the freshest, and even sometimes state-of-the-art techniques to achieve a newness which has characterized the brands raison d’etre. GENTLE MONSTER’s digital campaign is presented as a chapter based episodic manga like narrative, it melds product placement with storyline in a way that has itself become collectable.
The premise behind the GENTLE MONSTER X Ugo Bienvenu campaign is that the moon has tilted on its axis and is drifting beyond earths orbit, which causes a thirteenth month called “undecember”. This dystopian forecast and its ecological troubles cause the very stylish and sometimes humanoid population to contemplate the importance of what the future holds if anything.
Having a personal fascination with endings, be this of the world or his characters, Bienvenu taps into the mid twentieth century’s retro-futuristic Sunday comic aesthetic, but flips this on its head by merging it with the concerns of post-contemporary malaise, but also by adding in a dash of high fashion appreciation.
