For its newest marketing campaign, Saint Laurent shed its de rigueur darkish, modern backdrops, for a extra sudden setting: a yard picnic.
Titled “An Extraordinary Day,” reasonably than luxurious leather-based couches draped in satin, fashions sit on folding chairs, licking their fingers, chopping fruitcakes and ingesting tea. The accompanying video contains a lady fixing a glass of orange juice, and one other carrying a cheetah-print bag stuffed with contemporary produce, whereas photographs posted on Instagram concentrate on soft-boiled eggs, toast, butter and desserts — accented by broaches, purses and sneakers.
It’s the most recent proof: Trend has gone foodie.
Meals has lengthy been an necessary a part of the advertising and marketing combine for manufacturers, significantly lately, as manufacturers like Ralph Lauren, Prada and Coach interact followers with cafés and reward high buyers with luxurious dinners. However more and more, it’s being utilized in promoting imagery, too.
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Within the midst of a luxurious downturn, manufacturers are betting that meals can assist drum up urge for food for his or her merchandise. Jacquemus and Loewe — who’ve used meals together with butter, toast, tomatoes and chocolate cake in advertising and marketing — had been amongst the primary, however currently have been joined by Prada, Burberry and Alaïa in addition to sneaker labels Fila and Axel Arigato. Simply final week, Tory Burch dropped a group of blue and pink sandals with marshmallowy soles impressed by sweet firm BonBon. It’s not simply meals, however meals tradition: Retailer Neiman Marcus’ Spring 2025 marketing campaign introduced chef-fluencers Pierce Abernathy and Nara Smith, legendary restauranteur Michael Chow, heiress Ivy Getty and persona Kathy Hilton collectively round a white tablecloth dinner.
“Meals could be very sensory, it’s evocative,” mentioned Karen Fielding, chief technique officer at artistic agency Common Concept. “It delivers one thing that feels tangible and actual within the context of all the things feeling artificial and overdone.”
The development comes as foodie tradition reaches its new zenith in tradition at giant. Folks comply with eating places like celebrities; they aspire to get the suitable reservation (and shot for Instagram) like they might a luxurious purse. Plus, within the midst of a value of dwelling disaster — contemporary fruit, greens and a complete flaky loaf of sourdough talk luxurious and aspiration.
“Meals has grow to be a standing image,” mentioned Michael Scanlon, chief artistic officer of artistic company Chandelier. “The shoe subsequent to the jello mould alerts the factor we’re all craving, which is luxurious and expertise and style and delicacy, good instances coming collectively.”
A Brandable Feast
Meals is “essentially the most universally understood language,” which makes for a powerful advertising and marketing software with numerous functions, mentioned Miles Canares, founding father of streetwear and trend pageant Household Type, which was acquired by Complicated in 2024 and produced its first version in New York this month. Whereas meals can assist sign scent and texture for magnificence manufacturers like Rhode and Milk Make-up, for trend, the impact is extra delicate.
For Axel Arigato artistic director Jens Werner utilizing meals was a contemporary solution to join with the model’s broad vary of buyers. After seeing extra dialog about “meals experiences than ever,” he centred the model’s vacation season shoot round a dinner desk stuffed with fruit, greens and bread.
“Meals is the connector,” mentioned Werner. “You relate to the meals, and then you definately see a sneaker and the entire sudden it appears to be like fascinating and extra digestible.”
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Whereas meals channels familiarity, it’s usually utilized in trend to gas aspiration and sign abundance — which has been the case all through artwork historical past, significantly throughout the Renaissance and Dutch golden age, identified YouTube creator Katie Robinson. And as rising grocery costs dominate headlines, placing a bunch of meals — a juicy eggplant, tomato, leafy greens or jammy egg — in a photograph at this time is inherently loaded.
However past simply signalling “luxurious,” meals in trend will get on the core of what customers contemplate to be an extra at this time. “The objects themselves don’t imply a lot in themselves at this time. Everyone knows they aren’t that scarce,” mentioned Fielding. “Standing has shifted from the article to the story across the object.”
On the similar time, individuals wish to sign style, reasonably than simply wealth, mentioned Scanlon. Trend’s newfound obsession with literature — see Miu Miu’s guide membership and Alaïa’s cafe and bookstore, for instance — is one other instance of this impact.
“Now luxurious is about cultivating style and cultivating experiences,” he mentioned. “Accumulating style and data is your cultural forex versus wealth and extra conventional notions of hierarchy.”
Have Consumers Had Their Fill?
Initially, the truth that meals was sudden in trend promoting was a part of the attraction, a solution to cease a scroll and beat the algorithm. Now that the transfer is rising in popularity, nonetheless, standing out is more durable.
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Manufacturers ought to contemplate their goal in centering meals of their advertising and marketing. It might be to convey a playful perspective — Jacquemus cheekily caught a banana in a gap at a golf course in a shoot with “The White Lotus” star Jon Gries, after a banana-shaped automotive drove via Los Angeles to advertise its new retailer. Menswear label Aimé Leon Dore’s espresso-laden Instagram imagery, cafe and collaboration with machine maker La Marzocco, in the meantime, communicates European refinement and masculinity, mentioned Fielding. Saint Laurent’s lean into mundane suburban routine creates a way of irony. There’s additionally one thing nostalgic about easy meals, and put plainly, its colors and textures can be utilized as one thing akin to an artwork set up, mentioned Werner.
“Meals helps a model construct out the concepts they wish to land,” mentioned Fielding.
Past visuals, manufacturers are additionally investing in creating extra food-and-beverage experiences that transcend fundamental comforts, like handing out water bottles to buyers. At occasions, manufacturers one-up one another with unique spreads and imaginative customized confections popularised by cooks together with Laila Gohar and Imogen Kwok, who’ve produced Instagrammable spreads for manufacturers together with Hermès, Prada, Tiffany, Loewe and Mytheresa. For its showroom in Paris final season, New York-based label Khaite made customized Miller Excessive Life bottles studying “the cashmere of beers” reasonably than “the champagne of beers,” which the model will look to do extra of this summer season, mentioned Scanlon, who labored on the undertaking. Axel Arigato despatched a branded lemonade truck via London in April, and plans to place cinnamon buns — as a nod to its Swedish heritage — in its shops on Fridays quickly.
On the similar time, meals corporations are performing extra like trend manufacturers. Exhausting-to-reserve eating places and grocery shops like Erewhon use shortage, drops and collaborations to ratchet up demand and notion. Canares first acquired the thought for his pageant when he noticed the identical individuals in line at Supreme and LA hotspots like Howlin’ Ray’s, recognized for its hen sandwich, and realised the 2 operated on related rules.
Advertising follows the market: Trend promoting within the Nineties, earlier than the mortgage disaster, usually featured lovely houses — which appeared inside attain for the general public at giant, mentioned Scanlon. Nightlife was additionally in full swing, and party-adjacent scenes had been a standard trope for manufacturers like Tom Ford and Gucci. How lengthy desserts, tomatoes and butter might be caught subsequent to sneakers and luggage is determined by human behaviour and wider socioeconomic forces.
“It’s at all times a mirrored image of the place tradition is,” mentioned Scanlon. “This technology just isn’t going out, it’s not obsessive about proudly owning a house. What are the issues we aspire to? Getting a desk at that place that has simply opened.”
