The Dog at the Top of Fashion

The fashion industry has handed the keys to worse people than a small dog. At least a dog has consistent taste—they know what they like, they don’t care about your opinion, and they’ll ruin expensive things without guilt or apology. There’s a kind of philosophical honesty in that.

The premise of the #NEVERESTABLISHED campaign from the label REVIEW is this: Italian fashion mogul Salvatore Reviu, on his deathbed, passes his empire not to any of his staff but to Domenico—his lapdog. What follows is the dog running fashion, presumably better or at least no worse than the humans who usually do it. The campaign videos each tell the story from a different angle, each claiming to be the real version.

It’s a good bit. The fashion world runs on mythology anyway—the founding genius, the visionary, the impossible standard—so replacing the genius with a small animal who doesn’t know it’s an animal is more honest than satirical. The dog doesn’t know it’s not supposed to be there. That might be the whole point.