Jacob Elordi Stars in Bottega Veneta’s New Dreamy Campaign

Bottega Veneta introduced its new campaign “What Are Dreams,” featuring actor Jacob Elordi. The project was conceived and photographed by renowned artist and filmmaker Duane Michals.

Behind the Concept

Shot in black and white at Michals’s New York home, the series explores his lifelong fascination with surrealism. The campaign merges reality and illusion through twelve images and a short film.

Visual and Poetic Elements

Elordi appears in poetic, dreamlike settings—by a flowing curtain, a curved mirror, or beneath a floating feather—each reflecting Michals’s distinctive visual language. Handwritten lines from his 2001 poem “What Are Dreams” are interwoven throughout the visuals, enhancing the meditative tone of the project.

“I’m very much interested in the realm of the invisible. My problem is, ‘how do I make the invisible visible?’”

“Of course movie making is also a dream, and Frankenstein is a scary dream. Jacob understood exactly what I was trying to do with the project. He was right there for the magic and the mystery of it.”

Creative Collaboration

Known for combining text and photography to express the unseen, Michals described the partnership as a joint exploration of magic and mystery.

Author’s summary: The Bottega Veneta campaign “What Are Dreams” pairs Jacob Elordi and Duane Michals in a poetic study blending surreal imagery, handwritten verse, and reflective artistry.

CR Fashion Book — 2025-11-03