The face of Ferragamo's new campaign is a graphic designer

Choosing a graphic designer as the leading model for a new launch campaign might seem like a bold choice, especially in a time when more and more nepo babies and global ambassadors with millions of followers are being chosen as the faces of luxury brands. Nevertheless, considering the discouraging 73% revenue loss faced by Ferragamo in the first half of 2024, their latest campaign might indicate the brand's intention to try an alternative marketing strategy, aiming to capture a different segment of customers compared to their competitors. In Ferragamo in Florence, shot by German photographer Juergen Teller, Ferragamo dresses models Raquel Zimmermann and Lina Zhang, alongside art director and graphic designer Peter Saville: a face unknown to the vast majority of the public, but of great importance in the design world. For those unaware, he was the one behind the decision for the Florentine brand to switch from Salvatore Ferragamo to Ferragamo in 2022. The Italian maison is not the only luxury brand investing in "lesser-known" faces to the popular audience: just yesterday, Celine released a new lookbook Les Grands Classiques featuring Chiara Mastroianni, an actress and daughter of Franco-Italian cinema titans Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni. The recipe is different (Mastroianni is indeed an official member of the nepo baby club), but the essence is the same. Yet, choosing less-known figures for their campaigns, like Saville for Ferragamo or Mastroianni for Celine, seems odd. How does one go from being a graphic designer to an ambassador for a luxury maison? Apparently, it’s simple, but only if you're the mind behind the cover of Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division, considered by Rolling Stone as the best album cover of all time.

From the beginning of his career, Peter Saville focused his work as a graphic designer on the music scene. Co-founder of the independent record label Factory Records, Saville created most of the album covers for artists like Joy Division and New Order, signed to his label. Thanks to his creative background, Saville placed great importance on art direction and the creation of specific visual identities for each artist under the label, making Factory Records a pioneer in the union between graphic design and music. After the closure of Factory Records in 1992, Saville gradually began to distance himself from the music world to move closer to fashion. Between the late '80s and early '90s, Saville was one of the main figures in the shift from logomania to more discreet and intellectual campaigns. This vision was strongly promoted by the British designer alongside fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto, creative director Marc Ascoli, and photographer Nick Knight, a group that produced one of the most memorable campaigns for Yamamoto's AW 1987-88 collection. Saville's journey in fashion reached its peak when Raf Simons included prints of his most iconic covers on parkas in the AW 2003/04 collection. The collection, titled "Closer", alludes to the title of Joy Division's last album where Saville created the iconic cover depicting the tomb monument of the Appiani family.

In recent years, Peter Saville has increasingly collaborated with Ferragamo, expanding his horizons beyond his area of expertise. In 2019, during Pitti Uomo week, Saville walked the runway for the Italian brand as a "working man." In the latest campaign, his alter ego is significantly different from that of the runway, highlighting even more the difference between Paul Andrew's creative direction and that of Maximilian Davis. Portrayed as a Renaissance intellectual surrounded by statues in the Loggia dei Lanzi, this campaign seems to depict a rebirth for the Italian brand. Perhaps it's an attempt to escape the economic crisis that has hit the brand, which saw a 4.5% drop in stock prices in August 2024, fueling speculation about the security of Davis's role, especially in the era of the rapid turnover of creative directors. It seems that Ferragamo's strategy is increasingly moving away from the mainstream, leaving behind figures like Kylie Jenner and instead targeting people with "niche" fame, possibly hinting at the goal of attracting a segment of VICs (Very Important Clients) who identify with a brand of greater artistic and cultural relevance. After all, in the campaign, we see Saville enjoying an Italian coffee and writing letters at Caffè Rivoire in Florence, the quintessential "posh" location.