Country Road honours community heroes of Glen Alice in spring campaign
Heroes from communities affected by last summer’s bushfire crisis are the faces of Country Road’s spring campaign.
The theme of the campaign is ‘regeneration’. The launch film reflects the regeneration of the land and of the people who lived in the bushfire-affected Glen Alice, where the campaign was shot.
Glen Alice is a community at the base of the Blue Mountains in Capertree Valley.
Those featured in the campaign are captain of the Capertree Fire Brigade Steve Dalli, traditional land owner and artist Peter Swain, and Terrie Wallace, who led a group of volunteers in cooking meals for RFS firefighters.
Country Road managing director, Elle Roseby, said it was an honour to put community heroes in the spotlight.
“When we heard Steve talking about the importance of regeneration, it really hit home for us – and, that was honoured in this year’s Spring campaign name. It provides a sense of moving forward, of growth – and that’s exactly what you see from the people of Glen Alice, and no doubt, other fire-affected, communities,” Roseby said.
“The incredible stories that are told in this year’s campaign – quite simply couldn’t have been told without the people at the heart of them.”
The spring collection features natural fibres, which creative director Kai Tunley said perfectly aligned with the stories Country Road wanted to tell.
“We really wanted to tell an authentic story of a community recovering and banding together after the bushfires. The Australian spirit is something we wanted to convey with this campaign, as this is something our brand has always aimed to represent,” he said.
“It’s important to use our brand to tell real stories with real people. Ultimately, we still use fashion models but for campaigns like this, where the focus is our land and our people, in order to tell the story authentically, we need to have the two running parallel.”
Members of the Glen Alice community modelling Country Road’s spring collection
Wallace reflected on her history with the brand: “I was blown away with how Country Road has developed our story – and how they’ve used real people and their clothes to showcase how fabulous our community is. As a teenager, my first pay check bought me a Country Road jumper – I never thought I’d be asked to participate in anything quite like this.”
Swain said regeneration in the wake of the bushfires was about more than the land.
“The land itself is healing after the fires. Regeneration is about us as people engaging with the land and the animals in a way again that we are equals and that we are growing together. We must put magic back into the land,” said Swain.
Dalli added: “Being a firefighter during recent times has been particularly stressful. After 2.5 years of drought and the bushfires, to now see the trees and local bushland slowly coming back to life is absolutely fantastic – and seeing our community’s story at the forefront of the Country Road campaign for the world to see is quite an honour.”
The campaign will be running across email, social media, search, mobile app and out of home advertising in collaboration with Afterpay.
Credits
Country Road:
Managing Director: Elle Roseby
Creative Director: Kai Tunley
Senior Art Director: Rupert Carr-Gregg
Styling: Paris Johnson
Design: Alex Buccheri
Talent:
Firefighter, Steve Dalli
Farmer, Terri Wallace
Land owner and artist, Peter Swain
Production:
Photographer: Simon Upton
Motion Director & Editor: Ned Donohoe
Motion DOP: Marcus Cropp
PR:
Enthral
