Issue #112

Welcome to your weekly dose of TooXToo, this week featuring Balenciaga’s pink furry fit-out, Jacquemus X Nike, Hearst’s new experience division, Adidas & innovocean, and Corona’s surprise billboards…

Balenciaga’s pink furry fit-out

Fashion house Balenciaga created a space on mount street that paid homage to noughties maximalism. The store was created to celebrate the brands new ‘La Cagole’ handbag and fashion line, which symbolises an unapologetically ‘over the top’ and bold attitude.

The shop’s interior is blanketed head-to-toe in faux pink fur – it’s maximalist look and feel makes it a dopamine destination for customers who want to come and be immersed by the brand. The La Cagole pop up meaningfully reflects the handbag, and the accompanying accessories’ bold identity that celebrates a sassier form of female expression.

Customers can purchase a bag and personalise it with foil-stamped, or crystal-studded initials, offering them a more tailored and unique retail experience. As well as this, on the launch day – visitors were given free candy floss, and influencers visited the store throughout the day for events to engage and entice city-dwellers to come and explore the brand.

The store was constructed from metal fixtures used in previous pop-ups and projects making the design more sustainable. The brand is conscious to maintain this sentiment as they have made an effort to research into different ways of donating the faux pink fur from the store so it can be repurposed.

La Cagole is a retail concept designed to turn your head, and embed you fully in the bold, playful maximalist character of Balenciaga as a brand. If you missed it, keep your eyes peeled as the brand plans to pop up at several other locations worldwide.

Jacquemus X Nike

The collaboration made for sports aficionados and cool minimalists: Jacquemus x Nike. Set to drop this June, the love child of these two brands will feature a range of sporty, on-trend, minimalist ready-to-wear clothes, shoes, and accessories.

Designer and founder of Jacquemus, Simon Porte Jacquemus expressed: “I wanted to create a collection that reinterprets athletic women’s sportswear in a minimal way, so we designed women’s athletic wear with sensuous details and neutral colors”.

A key part of designing this range was ensuring that the pieces were accessible for a range of different body types. Both the brands are tapping into the demand from consumers for products and services that are inclusive and promote authenticity.

The inspiration guiding this collaboration stems from vintage ACG pieces, neutral color schemes, and Nike campaigns from the ’90s. The not-yet revealed pieces will intermingle Jacquemus' clean aesthetic with Nike’s technical cutting-edge performance defining the brand.

The hope for both these brands is that their union will expand reach and relevance for the needs of the nest generation of athletes.

Hearst’s new experience division

Hearst has made a defining ‘meta-manoeuvre’ with the recent announcement of their new experiences division – HearstX, incorporating AR and VR to focus on bringing consumers bespoke, curated experiences.

Hearst has a well-established reputation when it comes to hosting successful brand events- for example their Country Living shows, or the Harper’s Bazaar Women of the Year Awards. Over the years such events have attracted a variety of A-List celebrities and loyal guests or audiences.

Hearst X will see the organisation levelling up on their hosted events by offering guests a forward-thinking, future facing experience. Now readers and fans of Hearst will be able to explore not only a physical, but digital world of Hearst.

New HearstX initiatives that will be part of their new division will include the first ever ELLE UK Virtual Influencer, a Cosmopolitan metaverse experience and a suite of AR products designed to drive further engagement with Hearst content.

Hearst is still wanting to offer its readers a unique physical presence by creating new localised experiences for its audiences. The Delish brand, for example, is launching the Bite Club’, a series of pop-up style events to engage different communities around the country.

The launch of this new ‘phygital’ experience division for Hearst will allow them to successfully find novel ways of interacting and engaging with their loyal audiences.

Brands looking ahead will need to envision how they can tailor their product or services so that it is viewable or consumable for a multi-platform audience, this will allow them to stay relevant in the fast-changing and flexing world we live in.

Corona’s surprise billboards

Corona is well-known for creating campaigns and adverts that are out of the ordinary, keeping their identity fresh and exciting. This latest billboard ‘surprise’ is no exception!

Enter – the “Corona natural billboard” that relies on the sun to make the brand’s bottle appear. Each day when the sun shines on the canvas, a shadow is cast on the brand’s label, creating the silhouette of a bottle. This clever little activation can be found on Brighton’s seafront- a prime spot to soak up natural light.

Corona’s marketing director for Europe, Irini Komodikis, commented, “Corona believes that the best things are made from the natural world. From the natural ingredients we use to brew our beer through to our mission to help more people reconnect with nature, we’re now even extending this thought into our advertising.”

This is not the first time the drinks brand have celebrated nature in their advertising or marketing. In 2021, celebrating their all-natural ingredients in a different light Corona sold sustainable packs made from Barley straw fibers in Colombia as part of a pilot that could see the innovative packaging introduced globally.

The brand has allowed nature to relinquish control in this latest campaign, and they hope the hidden message behind this campaign emphasises the power and beauty of utilising natural ingredients in their famous bottled drinks.