During the last days of September, Christian Dior contacted Odd Bleat design studio through Nomint, their representation agency, wanting to commission them in order to create a Christmas story. A celebrating short spot that would express DIOR’s wishes for this year’s “special” Christmas Season and present the new product collection in a unique way. Have a look at the spot below and share your best Christmas wishes!
-text provided by the authors
In March 2020, during the first lockdown, Christian Dior presented its latest female collection during a special event in the region of Puglia in South Italy, homeland of Maria Grazia, brand’s Executive creative director.
“During this period, I sought to give collective efforts a new dimension. Despite the disadvantages of distance, bringing a different perspective to our daily lives has given us strength and imagination”
says Maria Grazia Chiuri.
Italy had already been beaten by Covid-19, so in order to support Maria Grazia’s home place DIOR created an amazing event with references on the History of the Region of Puglia, the traditions of the place and of course the nature elements of the beautiful Mediterranean climate.
This was the main keystone that we used to create our story.
We also used Puglia for our main inspiration by exploring all the incredible spirits, taste legends and traditions of the region. We, as Greeks, found all those incredible elements so familiar and magical that inspired us a lot. We imagined the little spot as a journey from the past to the presence, from history to magic, from legends to fairytales, from Puglia to Dior’s Maison in Paris and from there to the world. We used as references, the traditional houses of the region of Puglia, Tarantela and pizzica traditions, spiders and magical deers, mythology through Minerva Goddess, nature through meditaranian olive trees.
Based on the research and references above, we started sketching and storyboarding in order to make the compositions based on the storyline, and to decide which product will be presented in each scene and how the camera will move between the scenes. Also, in this part we started exploring the music that would match the visuals and the overall feeling. We started exploring and listening to tarantella, pizzica and all these incredible music from South Italy.
The design and illustrations use the line art based on the Luminaire lights, from traditional installations of South Italy.
Colorful lights create unique compositions that glow on the black background, giving a Christmassy mood but also combining folk and traditional illustrations with a more contemporary illustration perspective. We also designed the products to match the illustration style of our compositions.
A unique part of the campaign was the projection parts of our main video to DIOR’s store at New Bond Street in London.
If you are around, you should go and have a look. We couldn’t travel due to Covid-19 to watch it live, but we were sent some photos to have a look.
Facts & Credits
Client Dior
Agency Nomint
Executive Producer Marilena Vatseri
Production Company Odd Bleat
Creative direction, Art direction Odd Bleat, Manos Gerogiannis, Yannis Zoumakis
Design, Illustrations Yannis Zoumakis, Spyros Loaran, Agella Patsiada
2D Animation Manos Gerogiannis, Spyros Loran, Stefanos Pletsis, Agela Patsiada
Compositing Manos Gerogiannis
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