GAP — "Basic Being Basic." ft. Djo / Joe Keery
​​​​Gap has been called basic for twenty years. The brand that made the white t-shirt, the straight leg jean, the navy crewneck into American wardrobe staples — pieces so iconic they became invisible. Nobody brags about being basic. In fact, it's practically an insult. It's the thing you wear when you're not trying to make a statement.
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This campaign makes a statement out of that.
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Joe Keery is the most lovably basic guy in recent television. Steve Harrington — four seasons of Stranger Things, that hair, thick and slightly overgrown and somehow perfect, the earnestness, the complete absence of irony — beautiful and unbothered and always the most nostalgic person in any room. He's been wearing the cultural equivalent of a Gap t-shirt his entire career. This campaign just makes it literal.
He also happens to be Djo — the artist behind "Basic Being Basic," a song that does in three minutes what Gap has been trying to do for twenty years: make you feel good about being basic.
I think you're scared of being basic / that's ironic 'cause it's reading like you're even more basic. The brief wrote itself.
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Gap's recent campaigns have been big, choreographed, euphoric — Katseye doing "Milkshake," Young Miko and twenty-six dancers, Troye Sivan getting loose. All high energy, high production, designed to make you want to move. This campaign does the opposite. No choreography. No dancers. No performance. Just Joe, the clothes, and a song that already says everything.
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Joe against a white background — the same white background Gap has shot against since 1994. White t-shirt. Straight leg denim. That hair. Close on the cotton. Close on the fit. Close on his face, completely unbothered. "Basic Being Basic" playing.
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The line: Basic. And?
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Why it works: Nobody owns basic. Brands spend millions trying to escape the label. Gap leans into it completely — and in doing so becomes the only brand confident enough to say what everyone already knows. The song, the casting, the setting all say the same thing: we're not ashamed of what we are. Neither should you be. There's a quiet confidence in owning basic that turns out to be the least basic thing a brand can do.
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Visual world: White background. Natural light. The Gap color palette unchanged since 1994. Joe in a white t-shirt and straight leg jeans — nothing else, nothing extra. Tight product shots that let the simplicity speak: the weight of the cotton, the clean hem of the denim. Then back to Joe. Still. Unhurried. Shot on film, slightly warm. Every frame could be a Djo album cover. Which is exactly the point.
Extensions:
The spot: 60 seconds. "Basic Being Basic" plays in full. Joe against the white background — walking slowly, turning, existing in the clothes. No choreography. No production spectacle. Just presence. Ends on the Gap logo. Nothing else.
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Print:
Joe, white t-shirt, white background. The only copy: Basic. Underneath, smaller: Who said that was a bad thing? Gap logo. Done.
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Out of home:
Billboards in New York and LA — the two cities where being called basic stings the most. Joe in a white t-shirt and straight leg denim against the white background. No copy except: "Joe Keery is basic." Gap logo.
Social:
Completely deadpan. "Joe Keery. Basic." "White t-shirt. $34.95. Also basic." "Straight leg jean. Also basic." "Own it." "Basic Being Basic" plays.
Joe Keery for ELLE. Photo: Piers Greenan.
Gap Classic White T-Shirt. Photo: Gap.
Gap x Young Miko, "Sweats Like This." Video: Gap.
Gap x Katseye, "Better in Denim." Video: Gap.
Djo, "Basic Being Basic." Spotify.
Joe Keery as Steve Harrington in Stranger Things. Photo: Netflix.
AMTRAK — "Take the Long Way"
ft. Chloe Sevigny
​Everyone is optimizing. Faster flights, shorter commutes, direct routes, no layovers, carry-on only. The entire infrastructure of modern travel has been engineered to eliminate the journey in favor of the destination.
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This campaign is the opposite.
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Amtrak is the most genuinely luxurious way to travel in America and nobody is saying it. Not because it's fast — it isn't. Not because it's the obvious choice — it never will be. But because it gives you something no flight ever has: the actual experience of moving through the country. Window light changing. Landscape shifting. Hours that belong entirely to you — no middle seat negotiation, no altitude announcements, no tiny cup of water handed to you by someone who would rather be somewhere else. Just motion and stillness at the same time.
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Chloe Sevigny has never done a brand like Amtrak. She is one of the most fashionable women alive — downtown New York royalty, a Cannes regular, someone whose personal style has been referenced by designers for three decades. She has done plenty of fashion. She has never done this. That gap is the whole idea.
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She is literary and unhurried and genuinely, unperformatively cool in a way that cannot be manufactured. She looks like someone who would take the train not because she has to but because she wants to. Because she understands that the long way is sometimes the only way worth taking.
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The line: Take the long way.
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Visual world: Golden hour through a train window. Chloe reading Joan Didion's The White Album — a real book with a cracked spine. The landscape outside is cinematic and slightly out of focus. She is in sharp focus. She looks completely at ease in the way that only people who have genuinely opted out of the hustle ever look. Shot on film. Warm. Unhurried. The whole campaign feels like an exhale.
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Extensions:
A short film: Chloe on the train, no dialogue, just the sounds of movement and landscape passing outside. Two minutes long. Released as a standalone piece of content, not just an ad.
Out of home:
Large format posters inside Penn Station and Grand Central — the two busiest train stations in America, where everyone is rushing, checking their phones, stressed about connections. Chloe, completely still. Everyone else, running. The contrast between the image and the chaos around it does the work.
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This campaign works because it repositions Amtrak's biggest liability — that it's slow — as its greatest asset.
Slow is the product. Slow is the luxury. In 2026, the most radical thing a brand can offer you is time.
Chloe Sevigny for W Magazine. Photo: Pat Martin.
Sunset countryside train, golden hour. Video: Window Journeys, YouTube.
SKIMS — "The Support You Really Need"
SKIMS built a brand on a word. Support — the physical kind, the kind you can measure in inches and compression levels and before-and-after photos.
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But there's another meaning of that word that never makes it into the brief.
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Women carry everything. They support everyone — their partners, their friends, their families, their colleagues, the entire emotional infrastructure of every room they walk into.
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A woman at home. Wearing SKIMS. In a quiet moment that isn't quite peaceful — it just looks that way from the outside. Her partner is in the background, soft focus, blue TV light, the coffee table covered in everyone else's stuff — keys, mail, a half-finished soda. She's in sharp focus in the foreground. Soft natural makeup, hair slightly undone, real. The campaign's face is someone who carries that quality naturally — Laura Harrier, or someone who brings that specific combination of beauty and capability. Someone who looks like she has it together because she does.
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There is no music. The sound is the sound of her life — a sports game on in the background, a dog barking somewhere. The world is loud. She is calm. SKIMS is on.
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SKIMS' recent campaigns have been playful, nostalgic, performative — Sabrina Carpenter in a teenage bedroom, fully the center of her own universe. Kim Kardashian holding her daughter, soft and intimate, the whole world cream and quiet. This campaign is the grown woman version of that. She doesn't get to be the center. She's too busy holding everyone else's world together.
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Women perform an average of four more hours of unpaid labor per day than men. That number doesn't live in the ad — it lives in the press materials, the campaign footnotes, the conversations the campaign starts. It gives journalists something to write about without turning the ad into an infographic.
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The line: The support you really need.
It doesn't land like a tragedy. It lands like recognition.
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Visual world: Late afternoon golden light through sheer curtains. Neutral tones — beige, cream, ivory, the whole SKIMS palette. Minimal styling. Real skin. The composition does the emotional work: she is sharp, he is blurred. She is present, he is elsewhere. The distance isn't sad. It's just true.
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Extensions:
The Work Call: She's on a video call, fully professional from the shoulders up — blazer, hair done, game face on. Below frame: SKIMS underwear, no pants. Her kid walks in behind her. She doesn't miss a beat.
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Same line. Different woman. Same energy.
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This campaign works because the insight is universal and the product is the most honest possible vehicle for it. SKIMS is literally what you put on when you need to hold yourself together — and these women are holding it together beautifully. The support is real. So are they.
​Laura Harrier. Photo: @adrianmartinn via @lauraharrier.
