Zara Studio's 'Spirited Romance' S/S 2023 Campaign Imagines Women in Solidarity

A‘Spirited Romance’ swept through global cyberspace this week, as Zara Studio launched its S/S 2023 Campaign. The limited-edition, top tier of Zara’s spring offering inspires a spiritual pause on sleepless nights and digital frenzy.

The moment of serenity and human connection is decidedly not commercial, even though we know the breezy clothes are designed to seduce our ‘Buy Me’ appetite for something light and carefree, in a fashion getaway moment.

Do you still remember the smell of fresh grass? Did you ever eat clover? How about just lying on on a blanket and seeing a sky so beautiful, it seems impossible that a climate emergency is at hand?

Press pause and savor the precious moment.

Models Annemary Aderibigbe, Ava Christian, He Cong and Ida Heiner are the spring muses lensed by Steven Meisel. Frequent collaborator Fabien Baron acts as creative director in a moment where fashion swings back to sensual elegance and beautiful clothes, styled here by another Meisel-Baron collaborator Karl Templer.

There will always be contrived fashion around us, but the trend to clothes that we wear as honest pleasure — as opposed to them wearing us as artifice, an IG photo op and to feed some designer’s ego is real.

Zara is also embracing unity among women at a critical moment in human history. The political climate feels treacherous for women and not only in America.

It’s time to put the insipid rivalries on Instagram and TickToc aside. I don’t believe it will happen. but what if 20% of young women and their mothers and grandmothers decided to make peace with each other?

AOC’s ear is very close to the ground on politics but also in how we speak about each other. Tolerance, patience, perhaps a bit of forgiveness are in the wind.

Increasing numbers of American women, at least, comprehend that if we go down, we’re going down together. Few of us will be spared. Perhaps the truly elite women with high incomes or rich parents won’t be effected, but most of us will.

Just last night, I read that Florida is trying to pass a law that young women cannot speak of menstruation with each other on school property until high school. Can you imagine the gall of such a proposed law?

Simply stated, we can keep fighting each other — or we can fight them.

In assembling its model cast, Zara definitely votes for solidarity among young women, suggesting that we back away to reflect and engage with each other.

Even though we want to scream at our courts and judges, we will lose this battle if we live in silos. It’s not oceanic . . . not even one of the Great Lakes. But it’s not a puddle either.

My man Pharrell Williams explains what I’m talking about. We are in a do or die moment on the subject of empathy. And ‘yes’ I am taking the master class.

As Pharrell says, there’s “Something in the Water”, and the festival is returning to Virginia Beach April 28-30. Williams and the city of Virginia Beach have reached some kind of peaceful settlement after the shooting death of his cousin Donovon Lynch by police in 2021.

When LVMH and Louis Vuitton addressed Pharrell as “a longtime advocate against racial injustice” and his taking “an integral part in talks with Virginia Governor Northam about Juneteenth being a permanent paid state holiday” [which it is, if the Virginia legislature doesn’t undo it somehow — DeSantis-style], I said to myself “Wow, if LVMH is willing to go on the record, highlighting Pharrell’s work for racial justice, maybe there is ‘Something in the Water’”.

If you want to know why I will walk on water for LVMH — while absolutely holding their feet to the fire — this is one great reason. And I sense that Zara is headed in a similar direction — and not only because of this campaign.

Zara daughter Marta Ortega seems to have a similar view of the intersection of values and fashion as the uber creative talents and business savants at LVMH.

It’s very easy to seemingly get everything wrong and have the people mad at you much of the time.

Like H&M, Zara is easy to hate. But there is ‘Something in the Water’ over at Zara, too. Ortega has already had a stunning impact on the marketing and communications for the fashion house.

It appears that Zara’s fiscal year ends in March, not December. But they ran at 24% increase in PROFITS for the nine months ending in December 2022 and selling fewer units. In a difficult climate Zara is better than steady, as we speak.

So let’s all jump in the water together — wearing Zara, of course, and turn this mother ship around. ~ Anne

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