Thanks to Åkestam Holst agency and EuroPride, we have witnessed the transition of a transgender person from female to male. She starts her journey as a woman but with every testosterone shot she takes, her voice becomes more masculine. By the end of the video treat, we see the spectacular experience of this butterfly leaving the cocoon, concluding the adventure as the person she has always identified with: Being a man. His dream became true!

Now, it is time to see what happens in the case of a transition from man to woman, right? Daniel Harlow was 16 years old when he (at that moment) came out to his family as transgender. Daniel was a self-destructive person until Harlow came to light: “I look at Daniel as someone who has moved on and won’t be missed but whom I’ll never forget. I wouldn’t be the same person I am now without Daniel,” says Harlow, who is now a pretty woman and has the job many girls want: That of a model. She walked the runway for Dior, Gucci, Loewe, and Valentino, and most recently, for DIESEL.

The walk for the Italian retail clothing company unfolds in a way that you have never seen before. Planned by Publicis Italy and directed by Francois Rousselet, the catwalk happens inside four walls and focuses on Francesca, the protagonist of DIESEL’s latest campaign, played by the Canadian model. Assigned as a male at birth, Francesca “wears” pills and make-up to complete her transition to a woman. Throughout the visual experience, viewers can see her embracing her true identity. But somewhere within the video, an unexpected motif appears, adding a twist to it and changing the whole story of the girl.

“I am very proud of ‘Francesca,’ and of the DIESEL values that inspired this story. When we created ‘For Successful Living’ many years ago, our thought was the same then as it is today. Individuality, pride, and the power to live as one wants is the ultimate success in life,” says DIESEL Founder, Renzo Rosso.

“I truly responded to the story of ‘Francesca,’ because, like me, she has always been a believer. I’ve always known my true identity, and I’ve never stopped believing in my ability to live the life I wanted. It takes personal bravery and family support, but we both made our truths a reality, and now we can tell the world our story and how we reached our version of successful living,” says Harlow Monroe.

“Francesca” is DIESEL’s ode to Pride Month and expresses the brand’s “For Successful Living” spirit, as the company has been continuously supporting people to do whatever makes them happy and express their real individuality. As part of this month’s celebrations, DIESEL will partner with world-renowned Club Quarantine for the first 24-hour global digital party: A one-of-a-kind event held on Zoom where people from all corners of the world will meet in late June.

Such a campaign raises a lot of questions. Yet, we think that the most important one is: “How does the church view this act of conversion?”

“If a man’s private parts have been crushed or cut off, he cannot belong to the Lord’s people,” says a biblical passage quoted from Deuteronomy 23:1. But doesn’t religion also teach us to be tolerant of others? So, why not accept transgender people in the bosom of the church? Pope Francis is tolerant of this community and, in 2013, he said that the Catholic Church should welcome and love all people, regardless of their sexual orientation. One year later, Londoner Tia Michelle Pesando, who identifies as a hermaphrodite but who was born as a man, tried to apply as a nun. Whether the Catholic Church accepted her request is unknown.

“To determine true social change towards gender equality and inclusion, it is essential to speak to young people, and not only, in the right way, offering them stories of breaking and overcoming stereotypes, and the short story ‘Francesca’ by Diesel fully responds to this need,” says Francesca Vecchioni, Founder and President of Diversity, the group that collaborated with DIESEL in the making of this campaign.

There are plenty of articles that give helpful advice to women who want to thrive in a male-dominated world. But, you see, it goes the other way around too: Accessing a domain that’s reserved exclusively for females is equally hard for men, be they gay, transgender, or even straight…

Credits:

Client: DIESEL

Agency: Publicis Italy