G-Star Campaign Uses Epic Visual Poetry and Deepfake Tech to Land an Unconventional Message

G-Star RAW has launched a beautifully shot and atmospheric film with an unconventional message: a pair of G-Star jeans should be worn for considerably longer than just one season. The film, directed by HALAL’s Paul Geusebroek, parallels the gradual wear and tear of jeans with the graceful ageing process of a man. The central character appears to walk through time from spring to winter, and appears to grow gradually older, from a fresh-faced youth to an older characteristic man – an effect achieved by using deepfake technology. Featuring a poetic voiceover, the film’s message to ‘Wear your denim till the End’ shows how your jeans’ process of ageing is something natural, responsible, and beautiful. 

The new film launches simultaneously with 8 Raw Responsibility initiatives of the denim brand – showing the durability of denim by demonstrating that it can last a lifetime. It is a shout-out to embrace jeans in every phase of their life cycle: from fresh off the shelf through rips and tears, towards something beautifully worn in. 

“At its core, this film is about G-Star’s mission to  improve the social and environmental impact of their products, without compromising what makes it a special and universally loved brand.” says Joris Kuijpers, Executive Creative Director at The Family. “Waste is amongst the biggest issues in the fashion industry. What’s special about denim is that it can last a lifetime, if you take care of it and embrace its different stages of life. Which is exactly what Paul Geusebroek has expressed in this film. Once again, he has directed a spot that transcends mere marketing, telling a very human story with elegance and panache.”

The film follows a man from his twenties through to old age, walking through a mysterious hall of concrete monoliths. Time-lapse photography and dramatic cinematography signal the passing of time at a rapid pace around the man and his jeans as the elements ripple around him through monolithic corridors, revealing subtle changes to both man and denim as they are eroded by wind, sand and snow. But the man and his jeans continue remorselessly on, changed but unbowed – shining a positive light on the subtle signs of ageing and wear. 

The sophisticated and thoroughly convincing ageing process of the spot was the result of a collaboration between creative production studio Ambassadors and in-house AI unit Revel.ai, using deepfake technology to show a person at different stages of their life. This involved a process of physically capturing multiple facial expressions, before filming the actor from all angles with a multi-camera set-up. An AI algorithm in combination with proprietary software from Revel.ai then created a digital human that looks exactly like the main character. That digital model – in combination with shots of different actors at different ages, plus VFX – all helped create the realistic story of a man and his jeans. The team at Ambassadors further integrated each aged and de-aged version of the protagonist into the film by transferring the subtlety of human expression from one face to another, removing lines, augmenting certain parts, and completely reshaping heads when necessary.

G-Star RAW’s message is straightforward: high-quality raw denim is a more responsible choice for your wardrobe and our planet.“Raw denim is at the core of our brand DNA,” says Gwenda van Vliet, G-Star CMO. “At G-Star we embrace the ageing process of denim and we are proud of how we have been able to capture the beauty of this journey in the latest global brand campaign. I really see this as a call out to value your denim and wear it longer.”

To celebrate this durability, G-Star is offering a ‘lifetime warranty' for its new capsule collection: a range of raw denim garments for both men and women.

The ‘Wear your denim till the End’ campaign has launched as part of G-Star’s RAW Responsibility Strategy, underpinned by a global social and digital marketing push, which includes TV in the Netherlands and a global rollout focused on Germany, Japan, South Africa and the US. 

The RAW Responsibility strategy presents eight new initiatives: from a brand-new transparency tool on their web shop to efforts to extend the life of their garments through repairing, reusing or recycling. They have hired a new Head of Sustainability, Rebecka Sancho, and are working towards using solely organic, recycled, bio-based and compostable materials by 2030 at the latest.