Selfridge’s Latest Campaign Explores Luxury as a Concept in Surrealist Film

Marking what the brand calls its first cinematic ad campaign in 40 years, Selfridges has released “Radical Luxury,” a 60-second film appearing in movie theaters across U.K. cities like Birmingham, London and Manchester from April 20 to May 19.

Conceived and directed by Norbert Schoerner, the work is replete with both symbols of luxury, old and new, as well as references that inform our ideas about it in art and history. It opens in a way that’s almost jarringly gaudy, with images of retro-futuristic disembodied lips, palm trees, gold bars and a veritable explosion of fashionable trinkets.

Then the work relaxes dreamily into itself; a hand reaches for a cloud, which fills the screen and parts to reveal classical statues and columns, then a number of rich Surrealist and film references informed by the likes of Man Ray, Kubrick, Powell & Pressburger, Dalí, Magritte and Duchamp.

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