commercials

wrangler x kimbra: more than a bum

‘The simple, yet bold, message of the campaign is that it’s time to enact a change in the cultural conversation, away from simply aesthetics and towards a deeper understanding of achievement and aspiration.’ - The Drum

This project was created for Wrangler in collaboration with Kimbra around the launch of their Body Bespoke range of jeans.

The brief from agency was to create a film centred around Kimbra building a track using layered vocal loops and recordings of different women saying the word “bum” as a way of reclaiming language around women’s bodies and pushing against traditional beauty standards within fashion advertising.

Shot between Amsterdam and London with a small documentary crew, the project mixed performance, portraiture, street casting and live music performance. One of the things I still really value about the film is the diversity of the cast and the opportunity to feature voices and faces from a wide range of identities, ethnicities, body types and backgrounds.

At the same time, it’s also one of those projects that taught me a lot about creative alignment and the contradictions that can exist inside commercial filmmaking. The agency pushed for the film to feature isolated “bum shots” of each of the women in the campaign. Although this ultimately undercut the intention behind the work and highlighted how outdated parts of the wider conversation around female empowerment in advertising still were at that time, looking back, I still appreciate many aspects of the project creatively, particularly the collaboration with Kimbra and the documentary approach we took to casting and performance. It also became an important turning point for me in understanding how essential genuine alignment is between message, execution and representation.

hero film

credits:

Agency: We Are Pi

Lyrics & Music: Kimbra

Production Company: Mr. Frank

Director: Brett de Vos

D.O.P: Noel Schoolderman

First AD: Miguel Teixeira

Make-up & Hair: Aga Dobosz

Stylist: Richard Sloan

Teaser Film Editor: Brett de Vos

Teaser Film Grading: Amator

Main Film Editor: Sjoerd Dekker

Main Film Grading: De Grot