LIGHTS, CAMERA, BRANDS, ACTION!
When cinema steps into the heart of brand strategy.
“Fashion is cinema, and cinema is fashion” said Jean-Paul Gaultier - and he couldn’t have been more right. The play of mirrors between these two worlds keeps repeating itself, over and over, across countless stages. The bridges between fashion and film have never been so many.
At the Venice Film Festival a few weeks ago, the spotlight seemed as much on the films as on the outfits. It was, in fact, a simple T-shirt worn by director Luca Guadagnino that caught everyone’s eye: “No Dior, No Dietrich.” Behind this cryptic slogan lies a cult reference: in 1949, Marlene Dietrich agreed to star in Stage Fright on one condition — that her costumes be designed by Christian Dior. Hitchcock agreed, Dior dressed the star, and the myth was forever captured on film.
Last weekend, while watching Chien 51 at the cinema, I was surprised to see Lacoste appear in the opening credits. A rare sight - until now, only a few luxury houses had ventured into this territory. Seeing a more “lifestyle” brand step in signals something larger: the democratization of the fashion–cinema connection.
So, in this issue, I dove into cinema, that medium many once called obsolete, yet one that brands are now embracing more than ever at the heart of their strategies.
One, two, three… action.
𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝐴𝑁𝐴𝐿𝑌𝑆𝐼𝑆
Why is cinema a playground for brands?
CINEMA, THE ATTENTION CHAMPION
Cinema offers something brands can rarely find elsewhere: a long, immersive, and silent moment - the very opposite of our fast-paced, distracted digital world.
A study by Weischer.Cinema and Lumen Research (UK, 2025) ranked cinema as the most effective audiovisual medium for advertising - up to four times more efficient than other video channels! It acts as an attention multiplier, capable of boosting visibility and long-term memorability. Jackpot!
A POWERFUL VECTOR OF SOFT POWER
Partnering with cinema means gaining cultural legitimacy. According to Joseph Nye, theorist of soft power, “the ability to attract is more powerful than the ability to coerce - and culture, especially cinema, is one of its main vehicles.”
By investing in this symbolic territory, brands access a new form of legitimacy: not just occupying advertising space, but participating in the production of collective imagination. Cinema, more than any other art form, has shaped how nations see themselves and others. And today, the same applies to consumers ?
REACHING A WIDE AND DIVERSE AUDIENCE
Cinema brings together diverse audiences : cinephiles, casual moviegoers, fans of directors or actors. Each film becomes an ecosystem of overlapping audiences, supported by natural amplifiers: festivals, interviews, cultural media, streaming platforms, social networks.
This circulation allows all stakeholders to extend their reach far beyond their usual target. “Online, the brand, the director, and the actors already have their own audiences to communicate with,” explains Brian Phillips in Le Monde. This web of audiences mechanically broadens a brand’s exposure, turning viewers into potential buyers.
CREATING A STRONG, COLLECTIVE EMOTIONAL CONNECTION
Elisha Karmitz, CEO of the MK2 group, describes cinema as “a vehicle for collective emotion in a world atomized by algorithms.” Indeed, the power of cinema lies in its ability to create emotional bonds, to anchor a brand within a “shared experience, a moment of wonder and togetherness,” to borrow the words of Elsa Heizmann, Head of Cinema Partnerships at Chanel.
𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝐸𝑋𝐴𝑀𝑃𝐿𝐸𝑆
How is cinema a playground for brands?
COSTUME DESIGN
As mentioned in the introduction, fashion has always found its way into cinema through costume, a true artistic dialogue between brands and filmmakers. Saint Laurent for Belle de Jour, Prada for The Great Gatsby… the list goes on.
More recently, in 2024, Jonathan Anderson himself (acting independently from his brands) collaborated with Luca Guadagnino on the costume design for Challengers and Queer.
When Vogue asked him in a 2025 interview, “Did immersing yourself in the world of Queer influence your own work?” the designer - now Artistic Director of Dior - replied:
“I’m not sure. I think everything has an effect, whether consciously or not. At Loewe, it might have influenced how I adjusted the menswear silhouettes for the latest show.”
Indeed, even if J. Anderson collaborated under his own name on these films, the brands he works for also benefited from this creative crossover. Some of the costumes featured in the films later appeared directly in his collections: in Challengers, the character Patrick wears a T-shirt that reads ‘I Told Ya’. Loewe then launched a capsule collection based on it, selling the T-shirt for over €300 and the sweatshirt for €650.
Similarly, a Queer-inspired capsule was released at JW Anderson. The loop is closed - and a profitable one at that.
BRAND AMBASSADORS
Nothing new here, of course: movie stars have long been the natural ambassadors of fashion houses. The latest example? Moncler, with its “Warmer Together” campaign featuring not one but two Hollywood legends: Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. The photo of the pair, shared on Instagram, broke engagement records : 289,000 likes, nearly eight times the brand’s average this year (Launchmetrics). Comments poured in: “The best campaign in the history of campaigns!”, “Genius and heartfelt.”
Higher, better, faster, stronger… warmer?
As Pierre Camo aptly notes in Mixte Magazine, the celebrity-ambassador market has exploded over the past decade:
“Once reserved for a select pantheon of icons (Audrey Hepburn for Givenchy, Deneuve for Chanel…), it now touches almost every archetype — and has become part of the starter pack for rising stars. Raphaël Quenard and Nadia Tereszkiewicz, César Award winners for Best Breakthrough in 2024 and 2023, have already signed with Dior, as one might sign with a major talent agency.”
The same goes for Mallory Wanecque, César for Best Breakthrough 2025, who at just 18 also became a Dior ambassador. It’s a smart move for brands: by choosing young, up-and-coming actors, they reach a younger audience — fans who follow their idols on social media and, by extension, enter the brand’s world through them.
Pierre Camo also offers a warning through the story of a director who said she could no longer cast a certain on-screen couple, because they were ambassadors for competing brands. The phenomenon could well snowball, recreating a system of “stables” reminiscent of Hollywood’s Golden Age, when Warner and Paramount stars couldn’t appear in the same film because they belonged to rival studios.
A trend to watch closely then.
Another approach to celebrity endorsements caught my attention, let’s go back to Anderson and Guadagnino. In Queer, the lead role is played by Daniel Craig, in stark contrast to his James Bond persona. Here, he plays an American man drowning his loneliness and despair in alcohol, drugs, and relationships with young men.
The film premiered in the U.S. in November 2024, and around the same time, Loewe unveiled its Fall/Winter 2024 menswear campaign. Shot by David Sims, it featured a completely transformed Craig: long hair, retro wool sweater, tinted glasses, rock boots, and mustard trousers. A world away from 007’s tuxedo.
It’s hard not to see a deliberate bridge between the two worlds, perhaps even a subtle way to prepare audiences, to shape their horizon of expectation, for a new side of the actor. More than coincidence, these echoes reveal something intentional: the will to turn a film into a cultural phenomenon, and the brand into the storyteller of its resonance.
PRODUCT PLACEMENT
Product placement means integrating an object, service, or brand directly into a narrative, sometimes subtly, sometimes less so. For brands, it’s a rare opportunity to stand out without interrupting. When linked to iconic characters and worlds, they gain credibility, desirability, and recognition. A historic example: after E.T., sales of Reese’s Pieces skyrocketed by +65%. A counterexample? The Samsung devices powering all the tech in Jurassic Park. You know how that story ends, and it’s not pretty. Samsung, are you ok?
For producers, these partnerships help offset production costs. In the U.S., product placement can account for up to 30% of a film’s total budget; in France, it’s closer to 5% (CNC). According to Alain Maes, founder of Product Placement Impact, the practice is four times more cost-effective than a TV spot over its lifespan.
Today, placements go even further : becoming part of the storytelling itself. The watch brand IWC in the film F1 was chosen for its authenticity, as it is in real life the official engineering partner of the Mercedes team, adding real credibility within that world. The watches featured in the film were carefully selected to express character and narrative. Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) wears a vintage model evoking family heritage, while Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), the young prodigy, sports the Pilot’s Watch Performance Chronograph 41 in 18-carat gold — a statement of power and elegance.
Earlier, I mentioned Lacoste and its presence in Chien 51 by Cédric Jimenez. On the brand’s website, the collaboration is described as “co-created scenes” rather than product placement : a telling shift in language. Brands no longer insert themselves; they co-sign the story. In this case, the house crafted the look of artist Lala&Ce, who wears a black crocodile jacket in several scenes. Lacoste also dressed Adèle Exarchopoulos and Cédric Jimenez for the Venice Film Festival premiere, both in bespoke Lacoste creations.
SHORT FILM CAMPAIGNS
For several years now, luxury houses have increasingly turned to film directors to create campaign pieces that blur the line between fiction and advertising. Think of the iconic Lady Blue Shanghai for Dior, directed by David Lynch, or Train de Nuit for Chanel, by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
It’s a growing movement - especially now that audiences freely choose what they watch on YouTube or Instagram. These short fictions, with their discreet brand presence, offer a subtler way to immerse viewers in a brand’s universe, while enjoying a much longer lifespan than traditional campaigns. Some are even screened at festivals or re-shown in cinemas.
Each house cultivates its own signature:
Miu Miu champions female directors through its Miu Miu Women’s Tales platform:
“Founded 15 years ago and now counting 30 unique episodes, Miu Miu Women’s Tales commissions short films directed by women. Led by some of the most acclaimed filmmakers of our time, each episode reveals a beautiful, resonant world - shaped by the idiosyncratic imaginations of women.”
Crystal Moselle, director of Women’s Tales #12, even saw her short film evolve into a feature. Well done, girl!
Prada favors the heavyweights of auteur cinema (David O. Russell).
Kenzo bets on independent voices (Gregg Araki, Carrie Brownstein).
And this approach is no longer limited to luxury — just think of H&M collaborating with Wes Anderson.
BRANDS TURNED PRODUCERS
Creating their own production companies — that’s the new goal for fashion houses.
Perhaps the most emblematic example is Barbie, produced by Warner Bros. and Mattel Films, the brand’s cinematic division.
Here, it’s no longer a brand appearing in a film, but a film born from the brand itself.
An XXL casting (Margot Robbie — also a producer through LuckyChap Entertainment and Ryan Gosling), and above all, a marketing masterclass: over 3,000 commercial collaborations, from Chanel to Burger King, Xbox to Gap.
A model of “feature-length advertising,” confirms Gauthier De Jonghe (PlanB):
“This kind of format lives on for years. Everyone talks about it — before, during, and long after its release. It’s advertising that’s infinitely more profitable.”
While some criticized this approach, perhaps it’s also the key to its success.
That’s the paradox of Barbie: an advertisement turned film, capable of bringing millions to theaters, transforming a marketing move into a collective cultural phenomenon.
After Barbie’s pink triumph comes Saint Laurent’s black. Here, cinema takes a more restrained, auteur-driven turn, further removed from the brand itself, yet no less strategic, under the structure of Saint Laurent Productions.
Indeed, Anthony Vaccarello founded a true production company in 2023, the first ever for a luxury house. Each film produced bears the contractual mention “Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent”, like an auteur’s signature.The brand becomes a studio, the artistic director becomes a producer.
His ambition?
“I want to work with all the great filmmakers who have inspired me over the years and offer them a platform.”
Mission accomplished, the list is already impressive: Almodóvar, Audiard, Cronenberg, Sorrentino, and, last but not least, Claire Denis. We can’t wait to see what comes next.
WHEN PRODUCERS THEMSELVES BECOME BRANDS
The independent studio A24 - behind Babygirl, Euphoria and Everything Everywhere All At Once - has become much more than a production company: it’s now a cult brand.
On its website, the Shop section sits right next to Film and Television, like a logical continuation. There you’ll find books, vinyls, T-shirts, and even… A24-branded chocolate bars. Here, it’s no longer the brand entering the film, but the studio itself becoming the brand, extending its narrative universes into real life, and into material culture.
Among the most successful collaborations: the one with New York–based Joya Studio, for a collection of candles inspired by ten cinematic genres : Horror, Western, Documentary, Thriller, Noir, Adventure, Musical, Sci-Fi, Rom-Com, and Fantasy. Each candle burns for 50 to 60 hours, or roughly 33 movies. The idea: to make cinema a lifestyle experience, as sensory as it is visual.
Today, the shop highlights the Minor Planet x The Smashing Machine capsule. The latter premiered at the Venice Film Festival 2025, where it won the Silver Lion for Best Director. The collection - pieces inspired by the film, somewhere between fight gear and loungewear - confirms that A24 is no longer just a film label, but a total cultural label.
Beyond one-off collaborations, A24 also invests in long-term ventures. The studio co-founded Half Magic, a direct-to-consumer makeup line created with Donni Davy, the star makeup artist from Euphoria. Its world? Iridescent pigments, futuristic textures, and an unfiltered beauty ethos that has redefined makeup — both on screen and in real life.
Riding the global success of Euphoria, Half Magic is now preparing to open its first physical store in the U.S. According to Michelle Liu, General Manager, the brand’s strength lies in its unique position:
“Half Magic sits at the crossroads of entertainment, giving it access to the talents and trends that shape culture.”
CINEMATIC SPACES
Luxury is stepping off the screen and into the cinema, creating spaces of experience. The seventh art becomes a new form of hospitality: a physical and symbolic space where luxury brands reenact their dialogue with culture.
Some recent examples:
Kering × Vogue Italia — Cinemoda Club:
A mini-festival held in Milan during Fashion Week, with 36 films selected to celebrate “the profound exchange between two art forms that endlessly enrich one another,” says Laurent Claquin, Kering’s Brand Director.Chanel × Le Louvre — Cinéma Paradiso:
Four nights, four cult films — The Virgin Suicides, In the Mood for Love, Twin Peaks, and The Secret Agent — screened outdoors in the Louvre’s Cour Carrée last summer.
For the fifth year in a row, Chanel turned the museum into an open-air cinema. Ambassadors Sofia Coppola, Noémie Merlant, and Camille Cottin hosted conversations between screenings — blending projection, transmission, and, naturally, a touch of glamour.Valentino — Fellini Cinema:
In Abu Dhabi, Valentino recreated a 1960s-style movie theater inspired by Fellini — a strategic move in a key region for the brand. The event accompanied Alessandro Michele’s first collection for the house, directly inspired by Fellini’s universe, with four emblematic screenings: La Dolce Vita, 8½, and Roma.
SUPPORT & COMMITMENT
The dialogue between fashion and cinema also takes shape through support, transmission, and preservation.
In 2015, the Kering Group launched the Women In Motion program with the Cannes Film Festival — an initiative that has since honored sixteen leading women in film and photography. The award for this tenth edition went to Nicole Kidman.
Chanel, for its part, created in 2022 its own internal cinema division, led by Elsa Heizmann. Through it, the house has built a thoughtful, long-term strategy — focused on the restoration of cinematic masterpieces (such as the 4K versions of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Marcel Carné’s Port of Shadows), support for institutions like the Cinémathèque française (around €1M per year), and the funding of exhibitions and retrospectives dedicated to cinema (Resnais, Godard, Romy Schneider, Varda, Wes Anderson — and Marilyn Monroe, coming soon).
For those who wish to explore this approach further, Le Monde journalist Valentin Perez has written an excellent piece on the subject.
All these initiatives serve as a reminder that while cinema can indeed be a powerful image-making tool, it remains first and foremost a cultural heritage to protect and perpetuate.
𝐿𝐴 𝑅𝑈𝐵𝑅𝐼𝑄𝑈𝐸 ‘𝐼𝑀𝐴𝐺𝐸 𝐶𝐻𝑂𝐼𝑆𝐼𝐸’
Agnès, photographer, auteur filmmaker, activist, captured through the lens of the legendary fashion photographer. A powerful exchange of gazes that echoes this very issue: the encounter between two worlds : cinema and the visual culture of brands.
What emerges is poetic, light, and simple, a quiet breath of beauty. May it inspire us.