Kiton Takes a Spin With Formula 1 Driver

Alexander Rossi, 22, and the only American driver on the Formula 1 circuit, will star in a minute-long Web film showcasing the label’s spring/summer 2014 collection (for women, no less.) The bit of creative casting, said the film’s writer and director Joseph DeAcetis, represented a dual opportunity for the brand: To book a rising star before he gets too pricey, and to emphasize the brand’s Italian heritage in a way that’ll resonate with American audiences.

“I sort of played with the yin and yang of this,” DeAcetis said. “Even though the film is geared toward the launch of a women’s collection, I felt it needed a masculine appeal. I also told them to stick with their heritage, and Rossi is young, good-looking and Italian."

Shot in Naples' Museo di Capodimonte, the film features an equally good-looking female model breezing through the galleries of art, miraculously undergoing 12 clothing changes in a dreamlike world accessed via a crystal ball (hence the short’s title, “A Neapolitan Dream.”) Rossi is on hand as a kind of Prince-Charming figure. “It’s every girl’s fantasy that there’s a prince out there—they’re taught this when they’re young,” DeAcetis explained. (Besides, swarthy men appearing in ads for women’s brands isn’t so much of a stretch; remember Brad Pitt’s pitch for Chanel No. 5 last year?)

Despite the sex appeal of Rossi’s dashing profession, DeAcetis and Kiton elected not to mix up Formula 1 cars with the film. Never mind that asphalt race tracks aren’t a great thematic fit with a 275 year-old Bourbon palazzo, the director believes that Rossi will soon be a well known face on his own, never mind the car. “He’s already considered a sex symbol and that’s only going to grow,” DeAcetis said. “Soon, he’ll have more brands approaching him.”

Kiton has not announced a release date for the film, but it’ll be viewable on the Kiton site and, most likely, YouTube. After all, pictures of hunks are pretty easy to find on the internet.