There are three people in Moncler’s new campaign who could make a room turn around without the help of a coat. Gabriel Moses photographs Cher, JENNIE and Grace Jones at the centre of separate crowds for Re/Icons, a collection that pulls old Moncler shapes back into circulation. The conceit is simple: everyone else is dressed to blend in. These women never learned how.
Cher arrives in the white Himalaya jacket with a flash of yellow at her throat. The scarf is a wink at the Bob Mackie scarf dress she wore on The Cher Show; in the campaign film, she tugs it and the people around her come alive. It is a fashion image with stage directions. Moncler also puts her in the black Verone, but the more interesting styling is that small strip of yellow: a reminder that Cher can turn an accessory into an entrance.
“I don’t know if I’m ever subtle,” she told Vogue. The evidence is wearing sunglasses indoors.
Grace Jones gets the deep-purple Karakorum and a supporting cast made up to look like echoes of her. This could have been a lazy hall of mirrors. Instead, Jones looks almost amused by the copy-and-paste exercise. The jacket’s glossy volume suits somebody who has always treated silhouette as an act of authorship. In a campaign full of people dressed alike, she makes repetition look like proof of influence.
JENNIE’s register is cooler. She cuts through a moving crowd in black Karakorum, mirrored glasses and a red scarf, while a caramel Tibb gilet appears elsewhere in the collection story. The difference matters: Cher performs, Jones multiplies, JENNIE holds the frame. Moncler has cast three generations of fame, but Moses does not ask them to demonstrate the same kind of charisma.
The archive underneath the star power is real: Himalaya, Verone, Karakorum and Tibb are the names Moncler is bringing forward. The campaign draws on old photographs of alpine explorer Lionel Terray, an early collaborator of the house. But in Moses’s hands, the mountain becomes a crowd. Standing out is the expedition.
That is why the casting works beyond the obvious thrill of seeing these three names together. The jackets have a history; the women have spent decades making their own. Re/Icons is available now through Moncler. The coats will keep you warm. The campaign is more interested in what happens when somebody walks into a room and changes the temperature.
