Acne Studios has enlisted Nan Goldin to shoot its 30th-anniversary campaign, the Swedish fashion house announced. The American photographer made a series of portraits of artists, musicians, and actors from the brand’s orbit, each dressed in denim—the material the label built its name on—in a mix of new, archival, and reissued styles from its three decades.
Goldin photographed nine friends of the house: artists Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Sandra Poulson, and Peter Schlesinger; actors Rila Fukushima and Juliette Lewis; models Raya Martigny and Guinevere Van Seenus; musician Ellie Rowsell; and photographer Jordan Hemingway. A 10th portrait, of an unnamed friend, will follow at a later date. All the sitters have worked with the brand before: Chase designed the runway set for its Spring/Summer 2025 show in Paris, and Poulson’s sculptures have appeared in its stores.
“I have been inspired by Nan and her work for years,” said Jonny Johansson, co-founder and creative director of Acne Studios, in a statement. “So, when we realized we had 30 years to celebrate, it felt like the right moment to ask her. I wanted an icon, but I also wanted something very intimate and personal. She does that.” The sitters, he added, are “individuals we have collaborated with, spoken to, or had some kind of exchange with over the years. I wanted friends, not models.”
The commission is a natural fit for Goldin, who has spent five decades photographing her chosen family of friends and lovers, most famously in “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” (1985). In 2017, she founded the group P.A.I.N., whose museum protests pushed institutions worldwide to drop the Sackler name over the family’s role in the opioid crisis. Laura Poitras’s documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022) chronicled her life and that campaign. Goldin has shot for fashion houses before, including a 2024 Gucci campaign featuring Debbie Harry and Kelsey Lu.
