My fascination with the Parco Japan 2020 Spring/Summer seasonal campaign video began when I was still a high-school student. I found it while browsing through the work of Frank Lebon and other photographers/creative directors of the Lebon family. Initially, I think I was attracted to it because of the creative energy emanating from it and the fact that I simply was not sure what I was looking at. The videos (because I was slowly starting to realize that the whole campaign encompasses multiple of them and also other media such as photography and set/window design for the stores) guide the viewer through a tale about the adventures of four superheroes inhabiting the streets of London. The idiosyncrasy of the narrative lies in the rapid tempo of the presentation of those stories and scenes. The ad lasts 20 seconds and during that time you follow the four “Heroes’” (title of the campaign, one hero per season of the year) seeing them navigate a multitude of scenes and situations, of which some of them appear on the screen only for a split second. All that is accompanied by a piano piece by Joe Armon-Jones.

After thinking about it more I think that what made this stand out to me so much is the extreme level to which the narrative and storytelling methods were utilized in such a rapid slideshow of images. Everything seems to be working very well together here, the set designs, the make-up and costumes, the choreography and design—to me: a handbook example of the usage of those, along with the filming and editing, with the goal of creating an entrancing visual narrative from seemingly very simple ingredients. It’s the music score that constitutes the magical aspect of the perception of the work. The hopeful sound implies a future for the characters, making the tale that much more engaging.

This campaign sent me out on a constant lookout for those works that recklessly break the conventions of (fashion industry) marketing campaigns. I’ve been in pursuit of specific embodiments of visual communication methods that could still entertain and tell stories, interesting scenes, that felt like slices of life.