The Growth Foundation, the leading consumer retail growth specialist, has partnered with luxury menswear brand Private White V.C. to launch a new campaign for the brand’s Autumn/Winter 2024 collection. Developed in collaboration with visual arts charity The Lowry and inspired by the landscapes, figures and colour palette of the artist L.S. Lowry, the collection celebrates Manchester’s rich cultural heritage.
Tasked with launching the collection with a bang, The Growth Foundation delivered a visually arresting campaign that reimagines one of Lowry’s most iconic paintings, A Street Scene, St Simon’s Church, with the clothing brand’s craftsmanship at the heart of it.
The original was painted by Lowry in 1928 on the steps of Cottenham House, the 171-year-old factory where Private White V.C. handcrafts its clothes today. So, to launch the new collection, The Growth Foundation commissioned local Manchester artist Mel Champs to reimagine the painting in Lowry’s iconic style, this time extending the original scene to include Cottenham House itself.
Lowry’s distinctive figures stand in the foreground, but a closer look reveals them to be models wearing garments from the collection – all a modern take on the cuts of L.S. Lowry’s time. Renowned photographer Sam Barker was brought in to shoot the work, bringing the vision to life with models mimicking the jagged postures and silhouettes of the matchstick men found in Lowry’s paintings.
Jamie Romain, chief creative officer at The Growth Foundation and creative director of the campaign, says: “We’re presenting the Lowry-inspired collection in a bold way that at first looks bleak and cold, but that, upon a closer look – as with Lowry’s work – reveals depth, craft and beauty. By placing Private White V.C.’s historic factory within Lowry’s iconic industrial scenes, we’ve found a way to celebrate both Northern history and modern craftsmanship. It’s a campaign we’re really proud of – as well as being a beautifully executed idea, we know it will also deliver business growth, which is always our goal.”
Alongside the main artwork, the brand and creative departments at The Growth Foundation crafted hundreds of additional visual assets – from individual model shots and headline-driven ads to films, working with a composer to create a soundtrack that embodies the collection. These will all form the basis of a new, three-month campaign.
Sam Barker, photographer, comments: “Much like Lowry’s paintings, we’ve used a lighting setup that appears simple but is in fact extremely complex. We’ve created this huge soft light over the top to emulate the atmospheric, industrial Manchester skyscape characteristic of Lowry’s works. It produces this beautiful, dreamy light that captures the silhouettes of the clothing in quite a dramatic way.”
James Eden, Founder of Private White V.C., adds: “I have been fascinated by the iconic matchstick men in all of Lowry’s most famous portraits for many years, so when The Lowry approached us to collaborate with them, I was so excited, so privileged, so flattered.”
L.S. Lowry shone a light on the reality of Northern working life, spending much of his life in Salford and Manchester, with which his work is strongly associated. But while at first glance the hunched figures and grey palette of Lowry’s paintings could be seen as bleak, a deeperlook reveals them to be pulsing with life, emotion and hidden narrative.
The Growth Foundation’s creative and brand departments are led by two ex-agency creatives, Jamie Romain and Ed Cox. They left adland careers forged at Ogilvy, VCCP, Publicis, Digitas and others to go back to the traditional way of making creative work – sitting with founders and being trusted to use creativity to grow their business.
The Private White V.C. x The Lowry collection is now available at PrivateWhiteVC.com.
