ABOUT

Concept
The Grow Beautiful campaign specifically seeks to raise awareness of the role Regenerative Organic Agriculture (ROA) can play within sustainable beauty, and put Davines squarely at the centre of the conversation. By communicating how soil health is intrinsically linked to everything from plant health and human wellbeing to the future of our planet, ROA represents a positive, viable solution to tackling the climate crisis head-on. Through this campaign, Davines wanted to challenge its peers from their notoriously environmentally unfriendly industry to follow suit.

Davines has led the way in sustainable beauty for many years. The proof point of this commitment is their very own European Regenerative Organic Centre (EROC) based in Parma. Its 16 hectares are dedicated to research around ROA with a focus on soil biodiversity, carbon sequestration and farming education. Just as ROA is at the heart of everything Davines does, it also needed to be at the heart of all our campaign assets.

Davines was also keen to incorporate an artist collaboration into the Grow Beautiful campaign, to bring them more into the world of culture. Through this lens we needed to amplify the brand’s mission with the hope of both engaging new audiences and showcasing an optimistic new narrative to tackle climate change. They described it as their ‘megaphone moment’.

Execution
ROA is a complex topic to get to grips with, so we really had to scratch our heads to think about how we could effectively deliver the messaging in one digestible piece of communication. Our idea of creating a dance film was an abstract alternative; we wanted it to highlight the subject in a softer, more ethereal, more human manner. After all, it would run alongside a larger, more strategic piece which would do most of the heavy lifting as far as drilling down on the nitty gritty of the ROA messaging.

Building on Davines’ recently launched ‘We Sustain Beauty’ brand platform (which outlines the brand’s numerous ethical pledges), HarrimanSteel collaborated with French choreographer and dancer Fanny Sage to create a film with purpose. It had to be as beautiful as it was powerful to bring the conversation into a new cultural space, and make it resonate with the discerning owners and clientele of Davines salons across the world.

French choreographer and dancer, Fanny Sage, created and performed a dance from dawn till dusk in response to the environment around her – her own, personal, poetical interpretation of what it means to ‘Grow Beautiful’. Natural elements such as soil and sky became accompanying heroes of the film – dance partners alongside Fanny – a dance with nature, for nature.

Results
As soon as we talked with Fanny, we knew she was the dancer for the job. She believed in the subject matter and the message we were trying to convey, and this was essential to the quality and integrity of the final film.

The concept sees Sage born from the soil, then slowly beginning to grow and bloom alongside the greenery surrounding her. The film highlights the fragile beauty of the natural world and was an optimistic rallying call to the rest of the beauty industry ahead of its launch in Earth Month this year.

Crucially, it also amplifies Davines’ core purpose – to foster a closer, healthier relationship between humans and nature.