Revisit Graff Tribal 2021 Campaign Lensed by Mikael Jansson with Sara Sampaio AOC Fashion

Graff launched its Tribal Collection in spring 2021, with Portugese model Sara Sampaio as the ‘face’ of the campaign. Photographer Mikael Jansson [IG] shot the Graff campaign, on location in South Africa’s Atlantis Dunes, close to Cape Town.

The campaign evoked science fiction imagery with Sampaio posing in a backdrop of black steel sculptures.

In the campaign marketing text, Graff made a word salad describing Night Moon, Graff Gateway and New Dawn groups in the collection in this way:

“From a poetic spark of inspiration to a magnificent collection of jewels that speak to the soul about the eternal beauty of nature, the Tribal collection captures the essence of what it is to be human.”

These words perhaps better describe modern life in South Africa’s Atlantis Dunes, where extreme adventure sports including sandboarding define the landscape. Had Graff wanted to speak to the Tribal collection’s capturing the essence of what it is to be human”, the campaign would have been shot 15 hours away by car in at the Sterkfontein Caves, at a UNESCO World Heritage site known as the Cradle of Humankind.

Has Graff recognized their marketing word salad around the Tribal collection? Viewing the collection at Graff online this morning, AOC notes images of the Graff Tribal collection jewelry layered against sand as we know it.

AOC is taking this time to organize our thoughts in Jewelry News, because we will shortly crisscross content between this blog page and Muse, which will focus on the evolution of humankind, ancient and even primordial beads and my own GlamTribal jwelry, with a big dose of goddess history thrown in for enlightenment.

About to post Graff’s latest fabulous bridal campaign, we are moving all of our Graff writing across the site this weekend to Jewelry News. Setting out Sunday morning, we didn’t expect to get mired down extreme sports in the Atlantis Dunes. But then again, the Graff Tribal campaign launched in 2021, creates an opportunity to introduce the Sterkfontein Caves.

The UNESCO World Heritage site known as the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa is a source of enormous evidence about humankind’s migration north into East Africa and out into the Levant. To date — with all the new discoveries about early humans, the scientific theory continues to hold, and is fundamental to our discussions about Africa and human migration out into the world. That cross link will comes this weekend. ~ Anne