Jacob Elordi and Bottega Veneta Finally Hard-Launched Their Relationship

Photographs: Courtesy of Bottega Veneta, Backgrid

This week, Bottega Veneta announced Jacob Elordi as its newest ambassador. Technically speaking, the actor joins the K-pop idol RM of BTS and Taiwanese-born actress Shu Qi as the Italian label’s only official ambassadors, although the brand has recently featured stars like A$AP Rocky and Kendall Jenner in its campaigns.

Accompanying the announcement was a new photo of Elordi wearing a salmon-pink, bi-layered V-neck sweater, layered over what appears to be a knotted leather necktie. The actor is holding his hands up above his ears, as if he were imitating a doe-eyed deer or Barry Keoghan’s antler-wearing character Oliver in Saltburn.

But in many ways, Elordi’s connection to the brand—and his rising stock as a highly visible fashion darling—has been in the works for a while. Last fall, Elordi himself told GQ’s Gabriella Paiella that he “never bought a bag” despite having been photographed with many such luxury satchels: a padded Bottega Cassette, an envelope-sized Valentino Locò, a bright yellow Louis Vuitton Speedy, a crossbody Fendi Baguette, to name only a few.

“Maybe that should be something that is exposed about Hollywood,” Elordi told GQ then, about the free bags. “All these people think, I wish I had that lifestyle. I mean, yes, to get them for free—that’s great. What a great lifestyle. But people that have all this money aren’t spending it. You just get sent stuff. It blows my mind.”

Indeed, in their press release, Bottega Veneta included eight photographs of Elordi wearing the brand over the last several years: in custom suits on red carpets as well as casual—and in some instances, viral—paparazzi photos of him carrying the label’s braided-leather Andiamo bag while wearing Carhartt overalls, walking his dog outside of an airport, and even balancing two beverages (by the looks of them, a hot coffee and a matcha latte) in one hand.

All of them were taken before the actor’s official appointment, therefore illustrating a longtime—and seemingly organic—relationship with the brand. The implication here, presumably, is that this partnership must be a natural fit.

Bottega recently enacted a similar strategy with their Rocky/Kendall campaign from December, which deployed faux-candid paparazzi photos—a popular visual medium on platforms like Instagram, X, and TikTok, and thus increasingly in ad campaigns—to enact a natural-style press strategy. Similarly, there were paparazzi photos of RM carrying the Andiamo bag in an airport around the time of his ambassador announcement in March 2023, as well as more candid shots of singer Omar Apollo rocking the bag not long after a matcha-toting Elordi wore his. As I wrote then, “RM is the only official Bottega Veneta ambassador of the bunch, but Elordi and Apollo are clearly friends of the house.” Now, Elordi has leveled up.

Other brands, too, are in the practice of “soft launching” their celebrity ambassadorships. Gucci did it with tennis star Jannik Sinner on the clay courts of Wimbledon, and Versace did it with Oscar-winner-to-be Cillian Murphy right here on our March 2024 GQ cover. Think of it as the marketing equivalent of test-driving an Italian sports car around the lot.

“When I leave home, I need to have a certain thing from every category with me in case I get bored.”

If you start seeing lots of Adidas x Gucci Gazelle sneakers and Bottega Andiamo bags on your timeline, thank Jacob Elordi, Austin Butler, BTS’s RM, and Omar Apollo.

Originally Appeared on GQ

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