The spring summer 2016 campaigns are out, and spamming our Tumblr feed with gorgeous visuals. It’s been a season of subversive manoeuvres for campaigns, with many stories catching the attention of even non-fashion publications in their refreshing takes on timely themes.

Final Fantasy’s Lightning was perhaps the most talked about breakout star of SS16, heading Louis Vuitton’s campaign, that also included Jayden Smith and Ghesquière’s muse, Fernanda Ly, in separate stories. Valentino also made headlines for what some deemed a “culturally insensitive” campaign that controversially placed predominantly white models with cornrows against an African village, following their tribal inspired SS16 collection.

The overarching proposition for the season was more abstract and evocative than past years, where brands used their campaigns to make bold statements that are not just confined to the fashion world. We’ve picked our eight favourite campaigns to help you cut through the noise.

Balmain

Last season, the Balmain Army was all about the hottest models on the scene from Kendall Jenner to Gigi Hadid, but for SS16 Olivier Rousteing showed off the most powerful players in his arsenal: iconic ‘90s supermodels Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell. Shot by Steven Klein, the black and white images have a certain ‘90s reverence, in the high contrast black and white filter, exuding hyper sexuality. The icons look as infallibly gorgeous as ever in the graphic body-conscious pieces of Balmain’s latest season.

Céline

Céline has made many of our favourite campaigns in recent years, including the statement-making SS15 campaign starring Joan Didion. Often sensual, textural and abstract in sensibility, this season saw a startling play with outmoded graphic design: models cut and pasted onto a block colour backdrop, reminiscent of our prepubescent forays on Microsoft paint. Shot by Juergen Teller, the campaign exudes all the witty subversion inherent to Céline’s brand today.

DKNY

DKNY took to its neighbourhood streets of New York for its latest campaign, which tells a tale inherent to the brand of a strong woman out in the city. It’s the first advertising campaign from the Public School duo, Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne, and was naturally a keenly anticipated statement of their creative direction moving forward. We love the simplicity of the shots, the paired-down styling, as well as the overall modernity and candidness proposed. 

Gucci

Recent Gucci campaigns have been such a joy in their cinematic elaboration on Alessandro Michele’s cool and eccentric vision of youth. SS16’s story captured a whimsically glittering bande à part – skateboard-clad, glitter-clad, one even peacock-clad - running across the beige backdrop of a Berlin shopping centre. Michele’s vision of freedom and eclecticism is cogent in the uninhibited energy of the campaign.

J.W. Anderson

It's such a joy to say that the latest J.W. Anderson campaign is the size of a postage stamp. Designed by frequent J. W. Anderson collaborators, French design team M/M (Paris), the campaign offers a small stamp of fashion and a lot of negative space. Featuring an image of model Mayaka Merino, the Keith Haring inspired print of the collection is only just decipherable within the tiny parameters. A true iconoclast, J. W. Anderson is constantly reimagining the modes and mediums of fashion communication. With his menswear show earlier this month even streamed on gay dating app Grindr, this latest campaign stunt comes as no surprise, but delights us just the same.

Kenzo

Kenzo has presented very memorable campaigns in recent seasons, thanks to its blazing and surreal collaborations with Toiletpaper Magazine, and a 6-minute film by Gregg Araki for AW15 with all the vibrancy and discomfort typical of his work. This season, however, has offered a more organic backdrop for the vibrant clothes to stand out against in a film by director Sean Baker, starring Abbey Lee. The film tells the story of a girl’s journey through a barren campsite in a quest to share her baked cake. Like Baker’s recently acclaimed film Tangerine, the latest campaign is shot entirely on an iPhone. With only teaser trailers and stills released thus far, the 11-minute film is due to be released on February 3rd.

MSGM

Modernity, architectural detailing and lively colours are inherent to Italian fashion house MSGM, so we loved the latest campaign that extended this amalgam to a wider narrative. Set against the brutalist backdrop of London’s National Theatre, the colourful clothes and bright bulbous sculptural forms by Janina Pedan create an exciting interplay of starkness and buoyancy. We also love the use of our city’s architecture within the shoot’s narrative. We wonder if the models popped in to see As You Like It after they wrapped up?

Prada

Set in the interior of an art-deco style New York apartment, Wes Anderson-like in its fetishised perfection, Prada’s campaign brings unnerving tension to the beauty of its latest collection. Immaculately dressed Natalia Vodianova, Sasha Pivovarova, and Yasmin Wijnaldum sulk and brood in the art-deco enclosure – so moodily, it’s almost Pinteresque. With the addition of butterflies in a bell jar to the film’s narrative, the campaign seems to offer a sort of meditation on the confinement and restrictions of beauty. The music certainly adds to its agitated atmosphere, with a disjointed, violin-led soundtrack by Venezuelan producer Arca.

Text by Prudence Wade