For too long we’ve thought of love in one way: romantic love above all else. Whether it’s the fault of romantic comedies or seasonal marketing, we’ve grown up with the prescriptive idea that all love needs to be romantic love, and that we need to condense all of that romance into a specific day, or a specific occasion. Pandora’s newest campaign, an invitation to live love and embody love in all its forms, turns that archaic and reductive thinking on its head. A new platform, BE LOVE is about loving as an act, as a language, as more than just a feeling.
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Launching with a campaign today that celebrates love from Pandora faces Sasha Pivovarova, Aviana McClish, Thara, Salem Mitchell, Jocelyn Corona and Saiyan Marley, as well as newly announced brand ambassadors Chloe and Halle Bailey and Selma Blair, BE LOVE is a rejection of the notion that love is an occasion, whether in February or otherwise. Love, it reminds us, is the opposite of that, it’s a language, it’s an atmosphere, it’s omnipresent. “The most important thing in life is love,” says supermodel and i-D cover star Sasha Pivovarova. “You cannot get anywhere if you don’t love.”
The campaign also launches with a specially created, sunkissed and beautiful video, directed by Academy Award nominated documentary maker Sofia Nahli Allison, and produced by Melina Matsoukas, the brain behind some of the best music videos of our time from Lady Gaga, Bey, and Rihanna (amongst other things she gave the world most of the Formation album, Queen & Slim and the video for “Rude Boy”, and if that’s not an act of love for us all then we don’t know what is). The video lets us see some of Pandora’s collections up close, from sterling silver padlocks and delicate 14k gold-plated bee chains to the flashes of colour in murano glass beaded necklaces and solid 14K gold rings with lab-grown diamondss. Halle herself appears in a custom made top, a dreamy creation that catches the sunlight, made totally of Pandora jewels and metals.
The kaleidoscope of talent, from models to Grammy nominated musicians, actors to singers, is reflective of the kaleidoscopic, deeply personal nature of love. Love is different for us all, after all; we all have different ways of showing love, or, as we might know them better, different “love languages”. “My BE LOVE language might be a little mischievous. Because only the people that I really love am I a prankster with, like my son”, says Selma Blair. For Saiyan Marley, love is music and creation – “I feel like music is the number one way to spread love in this world” – and for Salem Mitchell it’s food. “I really like cooking for my friends,” she says. “So, any time my friends come to my house – or my family or anybody that I love – they know that I’m going to make them a meal. And they can’t come in the kitchen while I make it. You just get to sit and enjoy and that makes me feel very warm and full”.
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It’s different for us all, but Pandora’s campaign confirms that none is more important or valid than the other. Most crucially, BE LOVE explores the reality, often overlooked: that love is not a noun but a verb, an act we choose to embrace every day, and one we need to embrace today – in our divided world – more than ever. It’s that embrace that BE LOVE cements itself on. “I turn any negative energy around to be love and spread positivity,” says Salem of this ethos.”Just reminding myself to treat people the way that I would like to be treated.”
And for those of us who do struggle with Valentine’s Day and its singular definition of what love is and who we celebrate love with, this is a timely reminder that we don’t need a partner to love or be loved. The love of friends and family, often overlooked, is just as important if not moreso. “I would definitely say my BE LOVE role model is my sister”, says Halle, who with her sister Chloe re-recorded the Bee Gees classic, “To Love Somebody” for the launch of the BE LOVE campaign. “Unconditional, infinite love”, she adds of the boundless, limitless love that is sisterhood.
“Something that is never-ending. That you know is always there. Never questioned – no matter if you fall off a cliff, she’s there to catch you.”
Knowing that someone will always be there for you, loving yourself, loving the world around you, loving music, loving food, loving a stranger, a sister, a mum, a dad, a boyfriend or girlfriend, or simply a friend – all of these are forms of love in their own right, and BE LOVE is a timely reminder that just because they don’t come gift-wrapped with chocolates and soppy cards doesn’t mean they’re any less important, today, or the rest of the year. Love isn’t something that we give or receive. It’s something that we live.
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