Fashion Brand Orlebar Brown Evokes the Spirit of Summer in New Campaign

The legendary Bulldog is to Orlebar Brown what the Trenchcoat is to Burberry. With 25 years of heritage, it has stood the test of time and epitomises everything O.B. represents. Crafted from over 60 individual materials by hand, this film was ultimately commissioned not just to celebrate this icon, but to pay homage to the design work and heritage of the brand.

Director Cian McKenna and the design team used a mix of Super 8 memories and beautiful CG cloth animation to evoke the spirit of summer. Composer and sound designer Denis Kilty conjured up the sounds of the sea, holidays, and summer vibes.

The brand was launched in 2007 (UK) by then photographer, Adam Brown who after attending a friends birthday party at a beach identified a gap in the market for smart men's swimwear. At the time Adam had no experience within the fashion industry but led by his gut decided to attend a couple of short course. 8 month of research and hard work later, Adam was then able to launch OB. 

Having turned 15 this year, Orlebar Brown wanted to begin with a new chapter and move towards a more luxurious approach to it’s storytelling whilst celebrating the products that have helped make it’s name e.g. it’s HERO products like The Bulldog, introducing it to new and veteran consumers and educating them on the detail and work that goes into a pair of finely designed shorts which have a 5 year guarantee for good reason. 

The entire film was created in CG, using C4D and Houdini (for the cloth simulation). NJA received the cutting pattern from O.B. and used it to hand-stitch each piece back in place. NJA then 'exploded' the shorts and filmed them in reverse, giving the illusion of them forming again. NJA used studio-lit stills for all the cloth textures and a very sensitive scanner for cloth displacement. The cloth was then placed into environments that NJA developed by looking at reference stills and video supplied by O.B.

A lot of the inspiration truly hinged on Trevor Hardy (Orlebar’s CMO) line ‘Made of Summer’. That was our ‘north star’ for the project. The brief had to be a visually captivating story about a celebration of summer, the Bulldog and the Brand itself.

The project will run online across different platforms, form social media to the brands website.