The latest example of fashion brands blending legitimate cool with consumerism just enough to suspend our marketing-tired disbelief was actually well-reseached. Calvin Klein sourced some truly reputable (and beautiful) Internet-made musicians for their latest CK One ad. In true fashion fashion, the minute-long video hinges much less on the fragrance it hopes to sell in favor of the lifestyle it hopes you think they bottled to sell you.
That lifestyle is a familiar, aspirational one: young, hip artists and musicians rolling around in bed, under nightclub lights, between white walls littered with Sharpie. This time, though, their “life” isn’t shot from the outsider perspective. Instead, the extended arms of the subjects frame the dazzling images, suggesting Mario Sorrenti‘s shots are actually selfies culled from the online annals of these Internet stars.
The ad’s roster is well-curated, pulling names like Evian Christ, Dev Hynes (of Blood Orange) and Samantha Urbani (of Friends) from the Soho-centric Internet scene where the look au courant is evasively minimal (okay…Normcore, in the colloquial sense, not in the K-Hole sense), and the nightlife invariably bleeds into morning. Meaningful pouts from the Internet’s R&B darling Kelela, K-pop star Taeyang, Swedish pop honeys Say Lou Lou and French singer/actress Soko also appear alongside British new-waif model Edie Campbell, though the ad’s trend right power-couple, Dev and Samantha, kind of steal the show.
Watch CK One’s 60 seconds of cyber sex appeal below.
