The volcanic landscape of the island of Lanzarote serves as the dramatic backdrop for the AMBUSH® SS22 campaign, photographed by Harley Weir and styled by Carlos Nazario. Weir’s second campaign for the house sees the cast narrowed from last season’s lakeside house party, presenting friends Sora Choi and Taemin Park as an enigmatic duo. The intrepid pair leave the safety of the house built by AMBUSH® to explore lunar vistas – and in the process, find each other. Key to the SS22 campaign is the idea of a “retro-future romance,” marrying designer Yoon Ahn’s nostalgia for various eras of art and fashion to her forward-thinking outlook. This season, the designer takes the campaign on a journey outside the AMBUSH® house and garden, just as Ahn’s vision increasingly establishes a whole AMBUSH® universe, both real and digital.
Sora and Taemin start their journey at Mirador del Río, a clifftop lookout designed by César Manrique, the architect whose sinuous creations dot Lanzarote-like spaceships crafted from black volcanic rock. The intimation is that our models have arrived from an otherworldly vessel the architect built – both timeless and firmly of the ‘70s, rooted in Manrique’s impulse to reflect the landscape where he grew up. Sora explores the titular Mirador or look-out of the building, which overlooks the channel separating Lanzarote from neighbouring island La Graciosa, surveying the land she is about to explore. The models climb into a huge round window reminiscent of a rocket’s porthole, her in sleek black separates, him in a glossy blue coat, appearing suspended in time and space, accompanied only by alien-like flora.
The duo leaves the house to venture down to the stark and lovely beach of El Golfo, with its now-iconic black sand and green lake. The set design, by designer William Farr, incorporates tropical flowers and found objects to approximate something suggestive of nature but not entirely organic. Jewellery reflects this twisted ecology, the floral shapes made fluid yet hard in silver and gold, appearing extraterrestrial against Sora’s vivid purple tailoring while glass beads cascade from her ears. The collection finds its new home in the landscape surrounding the pair as a sequined gown blends into the cliffs behind it, and the shoulders of a tailored suit mimic the sloping mountain. High-heeled mules in a neon snake print simulate the toxic-seeming soil and lakes. The garments armor their wearers against the island’s notorious winds and currents, enabling them to thrive in this strange place. The setting sun is framed by an AMBUSH® bangle, illuminating Sora and Taemin in monochrome looks on the rock-pools. They are bathed in winter sun, reflecting the increasingly seasonless ethos of the brand. Once again, the house’s “A” is a thread binding the campaign, appearing as the duo lean their heads against each other, the wind whipping floral macrame around them, or in the bag which takes its shape from the letter.
Nostalgia meets modernity, and nature collides with nurture on this wild and otherworldly AMBUSH® journey.