From Rachel Sennott to Pharrell Williams: how luxury brands are turning ads into short films

Ahead of its Spring/Summer 2027 menswear show in Milan, Louis Vuitton unveiled a 75-second micro-film on Instagram. Directed and narrated by Ebony Beach Club founder Brick Howze, the teaser uses water as its central motif, setting the tone for Pharrell Williams’ latest collection.

In April, Marc Jacobs leaned into the same trend with ‘The Scene’, a short film starring, written and directed by Rachel Sennott, following an actor racing across New York in a bid to land a Met Gala invitation. In May 2026, Balenciaga released ‘A New York Minute’, a three-part, three-minute film directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Celine Song and starring actor Sarah Pidgeon, spotlighting the house’s Le City, Le 7 Bowling and Rodeo bags from its Fall 2026 collection.

Luxury brand consultant Saurabh Sankpal says the production quality on these films is cinematic, unlike disposable mass-market micro-dramas. ‘In The Scene, the bag is not the subject of the narrative. It is simply a character within it,’ he explains, noting that luxury brands deliberately distance themselves from the AI-assisted, intentionally melodramatic style associated with cheaper micro-dramas.

Micro-dramas, bite-sized mobile-first stories lasting just over 30 seconds to a few minutes, originated in China and have since spread globally, with the US now the largest market outside China, according to research firm Omdia.