Common Hours was never about being pretty, palatable or conventional; their second campaign acted as a showcase of the brand’s willingness to embrace oddity, in a punk subversion of elegance through a surrealist lens.

Our often alien-like natural world inspired the collection. In the campaign, a sense of exhilaration pervades: these are clothes for brighter times, a signal of renewal and optimism, sometimes shocking and disruptive, other times reflective and restrained. The campaign's characters appear in this world alone, otherworldly creatures in an inhospitable land where the earth is scorched and cracked. They stand tall, unperturbed, oddities in the searing heat. The horizon is endless, the world bright with blinding light. Suddenly, dark. Wooden shutters close in, the darkness of night. From the parched land, wetness now appears, luscious and opulent. A sense of urgency, immediacy, ecstasy. An imperative need for action. Chaos and rapture explode in perpetual dance and never-ending motion: flowers bloom, a succulent jolt of possibility.

Captured by two of Australia’s leading photographers, Georges Antoni and Jake Terrey, the campaign emphasises the season’s exploration of duality. Embracing each photographer’s shooting styles, it offers different perspectives on the same collection, playing on debauchery and restraint, elegance and chaos, crescendo and silence, austerity and hedonism. The short film, created by Ribal Hosn, begins with an endless expanse of noise and land and ends with an urgent, explosive climax, an echo of mischief and anarchy. The music, recorded specifically for the campaign, sees internationally renowned cellist Umberto Clerici compose and perform an interpretative piece, bringing the Common Hours' focus on artistry and collaboration full circle. The track includes open noise, a Bach element of jolting familiarity, and a single-instrument rendition of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre. Originally written as a tone poem for orchestra in 1874, Danse Macabre is based on an old French superstition; according to legend, Death appears at midnight and calls forth the dead from their graves for an enraptured dance that lasts until the rooster crows at dawn.  It was construed as a memento mori, a reminder of the fragility of life and a symbol for universality: no matter who you are in life, the Danse Macabre unites all.