Let’s face it: emoticons are here to stay. Face symbols have officially become a universal language of sorts, often replacing words but still having meaning. Acne Studios is taking that notion to heart after the success of its emoticon motif. The Swedish fashion house is now introducing a full range based on its flatlined expression emoticon. To accompany the release, creative director Jonny Johansson chose Instagram stars @kordalenkaleb to star in the campaign as the faces of modern families. Based in Atlanta, Kordale Lewis and Kaleb Anthony are an African American couple and have documented their lives as fathers on Instagram to the tune of 168,000 followers. The campaign, shot by Inez & Vinoodh in a New York City hotel, features the couple with their four children Desmiray (10 years old), Maliyah (9), Kordale Jr. (8), and Kaleb Jr. (6 months).
“I have been thinking about families for a long time,” said Johansson. “Since Acne Studios started as a collective, we would see each other as a family back in the days. I therefore wanted to portray households of today, in all constellations—this is how we found Kordale and Kaleb. How does the face motif fit into all of this? Well it’s just an ordinary Swedish citizen. Not too happy, not too sad, but somewhere in between. Lagom in Swedish. Like me.”
The collection will be available in Acne Studios stores and acnestudios.com starting tomorrow and will appear in outdoor campaigns in New York, Hong Kong, Paris, Milan, San Francisco, Berlin, and Hamburg.
