For its spring 2016 ads, Louis Vuitton by-passed the Kendalls, Gigis and Bellas that seem to be dominating every other major fashion campaign, and instead opted for a new kind of model to be the face of its latest collection: a video game character.
As strange as it may sound, creative director Nicholas Ghesquiere has cast Lightning, a fictional character from the Final Fantasy video game series, to star in the new “Series 4” ads. The choice is a daring move for the designer, who has opted for safer bets in the past, including Jennifer Connelly, Liya Kebede and Alicia Vikander.
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Ghesquiere shared a video of the pink-haired character in action on Instagram (clad in Louis Vuitton’s latest collection, naturally), with the caption, “Reality and fantasy become one : lightning a genuine heroine in the new @louisvuitton series 4 ad campaign.”
With the help of designer Tetsuya Normura of Square Enix, the studio responsible for the game, Ghesquiere was able to bring Lightning to fashionable new heights — even trading in her signature “Blazefire Saber” for a lock-and-key box clutch (an upgrade, if you ask us).
