The Hand Behind It

Hermès, Loewe, Chanel, and a handful of other houses skipped photography and AI entirely this season, handing campaigns to named illustrators instead. Loro Piana cashmere-lined an umbrella. Le Seul engineered real orthotic comfort into a heel. Bécane turned browsing a collection into something closer to picking a character in a video game.

When anyone can fake the output, brands are reaching for things that are harder to fake.

Let’s dive in.

Luxury × Illustration

Illustrators are increasingly being commissioned for what only they can bring: emotional specificity and the kind of imperfection that signals real craft.

Hermès, Lacoste, Burberry, Loewe, and Chanel have all handed recent campaigns to independent illustrators instead of AI. 

Gucci and Zara/H&M have leaned into AI-generated imagery and gotten hit for it. Valentino faced backlash for AI visuals in its DeVain campaign, fully labeled, rejected anyway. Getty's SVP of creative argues consumers already rate AI-made work as less valuable, and hold expensive brands to a stricter version of that standard.

Illustration is the counter, slow, visibly handmade, impossible to fake at scale.

• Hermès × Sarah Martinon & Armand Béraud, website redesign: Martinon hand-illustrated every section of the online store; Béraud animated it.

• Lacoste × Rayan Takhedmit: Turned the Lacoste crocodile into a recurring animated character, ski slopes to a beach-set Jaws parody. A deliberate softening of the brand's preppy heritage for a younger audience.

• Burberry × Tezo Don Lee:  London animator Lee illustrates match-day moments (kickoff, warmups, pitch-side) for Burberry's football-themed "A Good Sport" campaign, in his own painted animation style.

• Chanel × Karlotta Freier:  Dreamy, surreal work for Fall 2026 Haute Couture. A cross-house name, also tapped by Hermès and Dior.

• Loewe × Joanna Blémont:  Led a team on 2,000 hand-painted watercolor frames for the house's 180th anniversary film, narrated by Antonio Banderas.

Every one of these is a named, credited artist with a recognizable style, not an anonymous house team. A brand can fake the look of hand-drawn art with AI, but it can't credit a real hand and have that be a lie.

Elevated Utilitarianism

The customer isn't buying status in the traditional sense, they're buying the idea that they have good taste even in the mundane. Owning an elevated version of an ordinary object signals discernment rather than wealth. That's a softer, more culturally palatable form of luxury signaling, and it fits a moment where overt logomania feels dated.

Loro Piana makes a cashmere umbrella, three layers, Storm System water repellent, maple-wood handle. Hermès sells a leather-wrapped speaker. Goyard makes travel dog bowls. Most of the category stops there, signaling refinement without changing anything about the object underneath.

Case study: Le Seul

Le Seul is the rare case where the engineering is real. Its InSeul insole innovation brings athletic-comfort science into a luxury heel and boot category, solving an actual orthotic problem without ever looking like it's solving one.

Built by VAAN. Now live: leseul.com

Bécane Paris

On the topic of major differentiators, Becane's website is practically a video game showing off their latest collection. Giving shoppers an interactive and complete view of how the clothes move and fit together all while reinforcing the technical motorcycle-inspired identity.

The mechanics run deep. Each look rotates a full 360 degrees, filmstrip and all, so the "fit" is something you inspect rather than just view. A ghosted silhouette stands beside the active model, the same visual grammar as a locked character waiting to be selected. Sizing reads like a stat block: Size, Jacket, Pant, laid out as specs rather than a dropdown. Garments sit in an equipment tray at the bottom of the screen. And the credits page for each shoot doubles as lore, full names treated like character titles, crew lists formatted like end-of-level credits.

It's an entire ecomm experience built in the language of character select. Illustration gave luxury a way to feel hand-crafted. Becane is proving the same instinct works in 3D, if the brand world is strong enough to carry it.

What we’re watching

Nike × Hyperice. Nike enters the recovery economy with the Hyperslid, blending its full-length Air Zoom cushioning with a magnetically docked Hyperice pod for targeted heat and vibration.

Casio's new health wearable. The CRW-H001 is a recovery-tracking upgrade to the Ring Watch, retro silver case intact. China only for now, US expected.

Sapone. A liquid shampoo sealed inside a solid soap shell, you wash your body with the outside, and by the time the shampoo runs out, so has the bottle. Founded by 17-year-old Lithuanian student Paulius Buivydas after 23 prototypes, now Shark Tank-backed and rolling out in Europe.

Zouck. A new SPF brand with snow mushroom and blue light protection. Not your typical sunscreen campaign photography. 

Mayah. Mother-safe bodycare built after surveys of 300+ mothers found most were unsure which products were even safe to use during pregnancy. 

The Smilery. Peroxide-free teeth whitening from a French holistic dentist, using fermented pomegranate enzymes and hydroxyapatite.

Thanks for tuning in!
We’d love to hear from you → [email protected]