More than advertising. How fashion campaigns became short films

08 May 2026

By Veronika Varvianska

In recent years, the advertising and creative industries have changed almost beyond recognition. If, in the past, a campaign was often expected to do just one thing — occupy as many advertising surfaces as possible and be visible across the city — in the world of social media, that formula no longer works.

A beautiful image alone is no longer enough to win attention, affection, and desire from an audience. We see hundreds of images every day, scroll past them almost automatically, and forget them faster than we have time to really look. That is why a modern fashion campaign has to work differently: not simply to show clothes, but to build an entire world around them.

Campaigns increasingly resemble scenes from a film. With a single frame, we already understand the character, their mood, desires, inner tension, or conflict. We do not just need a model, lighting, and a logo in the corner. We need characters, dramaturgy, a story, a pause, an atmosphere. That exact feeling when you look at an image and want to know what happened before this frame — and what will happen after.

This is why fashion campaigns have become such a natural space for film directors. Sofia Coppola has long worked at the intersection of fashion, cinema, and an intimate visual language — from her collaborations with Marc Jacobs to shooting Jacob Elordi for Cartier. Luca Guadagnino has created fashion films for Valentino, while Gucci recently presented a short film for the La Famiglia collection, directed by Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn. Fashion understood long ago: sometimes a short film can say more about a brand than a traditional advertisement.

Today, brands sell not only dresses, bags, or shoes. They sell a mood. A feeling of summer, freedom, loneliness, closeness, escape, youth, or the version of yourself you want to try on together with a new look.

We have gathered five of the most interesting fashion campaigns of the season — the ones that work not simply as advertising, but as small visual stories you want to step into.