When Italian luxury menswear house Brioni announced the appointment of their new bearded and tattooed creative director Justin O’Shea back in March, we knew the direction of the brand was going to take a different approach. We didn’t know it would get just this different however.
The brand new Brioni campaign, shot in black-and-white by photographer Zackery Michael and inspired by Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, features none other than the immense presence of James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo. You will probably know them better collectively as METALLICA – the heavy metal band your parents were never really sure about you listening to.
Swapping their usual denim and leather get-ups for trim black and white tuxedos, the promotional shots are overlaid with Brioni’s spanking new logo – a throwback to the company’s historical branding utilized from 1955 to 1986. We’d agree that the gothic logo is fitting for a band of Metallica’s status, because God knows it feels like they’ve been knocking around since the 1950s.
The campaign itself will be distributed across various social media channels and will even appear on billboards and kiosks in Paris and in the New York Times. The rebranding of Brioni is certainly an impressive undertaking from O’Shea, the ‘Master of Puppets’ of this metal-focused operation, who seems determined to prove that ‘Nothing Else Matters’ apart from the product’s high-quality. Only the test of time will be able to tell if this rebranding is a commercial success or whether Brioni will simply ‘Fade to Black’.