“dunhill is not one thing, it’s many,” says Mark Weston, Creative Director of dunhill. “Just as there is more than one dunhill man, there are many dunhills.”
“The history of the house is varied and storied. Alfred Dunhill himself was about change and innovation, with purposeful and multi-functional creations. More than anything else, he was always looking ahead – and that is what drives us.” – Mark Weston, Creative Director, dunhill
The multifaceted nature of dunhill is the framework for a multifaceted series of ad campaigns for the brand exploring these stories. ‘Automotive’ is the latest instalment for Spring-Summer 2020 and looks to the defining discovery for Alfred Dunhill that changed the whole nature of his brand: the automobile.
It is with this backdrop –a garage in Berkley Square, Mayfair, with classic cars partially revealed underneath car covers– that the Spring-Summer 2020 collection is presented on a multiplicity of models. In fact, the cars themselves are as much models as the young men wearing dunhill clothes. It is the rigour of design that matters in both cases.
Here, Jack Webb photographs a fluid selection of silhouettes, exploring the technical, classical and contemporary nature of dunhill. By encompassing fluid fabrication, relaxed wrapped tailoring, the classicism of British cutting, a Japanese approach to volume, and the casual cogency of sportswear, dunhill is pictured as a house that celebrates and makes sense of a multitude of menswear codes, including those of its peerless leather goods.
In ‘Automotive’ it is both style and substance that is celebrated, as it is throughout the world of dunhill. “It’s about sophistication of taste; it has to be fitting,” says Mark Weston. “With dunhill it has to be of a certain level and worthy of the house’s legacy. Proportion, fabrication and consideration – the whole thing has to be at such a high level. There has to be a combination of utility and elegance, that is crucial to dunhill.”
