Charlotte Lanser for The Capsule 2025

A collaborative work with Fine Artist Charlotte Lanser for the Tibi 2025 Capsule Collection

It all started with a picture. A picture of a painting, this one right below to be exact.

by Charlotte Lanser

Back in February the Tibi creative team began to think critically about our 2025 Capsule - how we would capture the essence of the collection while doing something new and creative that incorporated some humor, ease, and chill to the campaign. We knew we would travel to Antwerp, Belgium to shoot the campaign - the editorial images and the film. We also knew that we would shoot the The 2025 Capsule specifically in a centuries old Belgian castle on the outskirts of the small city. The clothing from the capsule is elegantly rich, the setting majestically grand and royal, which meant the photography would naturally follow suit. The castle’s towering drawbridge, vastly wide and deep moat, and monumental stone walls provided a dream backdrop that would encapsulate much of the inspiration behind the clothing itself.

The campaign is stunning, elevated to the highest degree, chill, modern, and classic, the perfect trifecta. At this point, you might be wondering how the painting of a swan with a hotdog is relevant. Well, back around the time when we were conceptualizing this Winter capsule campaign, Amy discovered Charlotte Lanser, a French-American fine artist from SCAD, the brilliant college of art and design in Savannah, Georgia. This painting of Charlotte’s, with the hotdog and swan, struck a chord with Amy and our team. It was the precise blend of luxury and humor that we were looking for in possible, ulterior creative additions to the campaign. We speak often of not taking things too seriously, we have had models jump into pools in their dresses, photographed goats on the side of the road with red shoes, hired dogs as film-makers, the list goes on. Charlotte’s merger of fine art with quirky objects like hotdogs and pickles is an extension of this laid back, but highly refined ethos, and we wanted to incorporate her vision with our campaign in some way.

When we traveled to Antwerp for the campaign, we had Charlotte’s painting in mind and thought constantly about how she could potentially paint onto an editorial image of ours. So, at the castle we asked Noor to pose a few times as if she were holding an item in her hand. See an original below.

Upon returning from the trip I reached out to Charlotte, and explained the project. We went back and forth on the item, and eventually decided on fruit - clementines and pomegranates specifically. Why? Well Charlotte believed that the fruit should be seasonal, that winter fruit would be appropriate for a winter capsule, and because both objects are quite messy and a pain to open, they would juxtapose well with the capsule pieces, ushering in disarray, while the polish of the clothing and the setting maintained the luxury. The colors of the fruit also bring a bit of warmth to a colder winter collection - the photography, the clothing, the painting, all work hand-in-hand.

A first sketch by Charlotte

We collaborated with Charlotte over the course of the summer to develop what would be the final works, experimenting with the addition of branches, twigs, and leaves, even experimenting with other fruits like grapes. Her process began with a pencil sketch to achieve the right form of the fruits, mostly for the clementine and its cascading rind. She then digitally transcribed the sketches to determine the placement of the fruits within the context of the general composition. Once these details were determined, Charlotte painted, by hand, the clementines and pomegranates onto the printed images to asses the differences in texture, shading, and how the color translated from the digital realm into reality. These images were then scanned, with the painted fruits, and edited to achieve the greatest accuracy of texture, shading, and depth. The final work is below.

Originally an aeronautical engineering student, Charlotte has always loved realism, still lifes, and painting what she sees - for the sake of the art and not the product. Her main inspiration is life, using and appreciating that which is beautiful in the world and portraying it through her lens of color and depth. The painting of the fallen hotdog in Copenhagen was an accident, the crude object amongst beautiful swans on an awe-inspiring canal spurred a realization that life need not always be that serious. From that recognition arose a new form of expression, inspired by romanticism and impressionism, but with her own touch.

The Tibi 2025 Capsule collection is now available at Tibi.com. Unfortunately, no pomegranates or clementines will be included with your purchase.