Simons has been a beloved fashion retailer in Quebec, Canada for over 180 years. This past holiday season, the brand wanted to forgo a traditional sales campaign and instead use their voice and the privilege they have to speak and create everyday to provide more meaningful commentary on the world. The result would be the first “art” instalment of a multi-year platform that would transform people’s perspective and facilitate societal change for good.

The new platform, “All is Beauty”, was created to inspire the act of finding beauty in all of life’s moments, both positive and classically challenging. To launch, a short film captured the real-life immersive experience between a dying woman and her friends. It was a celebration of our heroes’ favourite moments and the most cherished chapters of her life to provoke conversation around her desire to focus on the beauty, not the tragedy, in life and bring that beauty to other people—even as she neared the end. This was to be her message, her unedited words, and Simons was simply providing the platform.

The years leading up to this campaign were a particularly dark time in society. With a never ending loop of bad news, it was easy to only see the world as one-dimensional, full of sadness, ugliness, and destruction. But there is beauty lingering just below the surface if you are strong and courageous enough to look for it. And finding beauty in the most difficult moments can lead to understanding, empathy, generosity, hope, and human connection.

To reinforce the concept of “All is Beauty” and honour Jennyfer's desire to approach her MAID process with beauty and truth we attempted to render a visually beautiful film that tried to capture her and her friends’ spirit and approach without unduly interfering with what they were experiencing.

Through extensive planning regarding time of day and integrating practical lighting into the art direction we tried to minimize the presence of film equipment to preserve the authenticity of the experience for Jennyfer and her friends while still attempting to elevate the visuals beyond a documentary approach.

Simons “All is Beauty” campaign ran for four weeks, garnered over one million views on YouTube and sparked a fierce debate about our existence–what it means to live and die, and how we can honour the (sometimes brutal) beauty of our life, as well as a brand’s role in participating and shaping culture. Discussions flooded Twitter and international news outlets like the National Post, Daily Mail, CTV News, the Globe & Mail, and New York Post covered the story, including and a three-and-a-half minute conversation on Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News that resulted in exposing the uglier side of humanity and ironically also exposing the beauty that surrounds us, even in the darkest of moments.