Actress Anna Sawai and Hibiki Whisky Celebrate the Kimono
A new campaign, The Masterpiece of Japanese Artistry, includes a film that finds common ground in kimono making and whisky blending
On Monday, The House of Suntory’s Hibiki Whisky introduced its first global campaign titled The Masterpiece of Japanese Artistry, a collaboration starring Shōgun’s Anna Sawai and the historic Chiso kimono house. The campaign, which celebrates the artistry and style of the kimono, also introduces Sawai as the house’s first-ever Global Brand Ambassador.
To mark such a momentous occasion, the campaign imagery features Sawai styled in a bespoke Chiso kimono, created using traditional yuzen dyeing techniques inspired by Japan’s landscapes. “Seasonality is central to kimono design in Kyoto,” Imai Atsuhiro, Chiso kimono house’s senior designer, tells Galerie. “Motifs are not chosen only for their beauty, but for their timing and symbolism, water for eternity and flow, plants for renewal, and subtle shifts in color to reflect the passage of seasons. It is this shared sensibility that allows the Chiso-Hibiki collaboration to feel both natural and meaningful, with each side strengthening the other’s expression.”
Additionally, the campaign features a film that finds parallels between kimono making and whisky blending. “Beauty lives in balance, in the rhythm of nature, in the quiet mastery of the hand,” Sawai says in a voiceover. “Hibiki is born from this harmony, shaped by the purity of water. We do not simply create whisky, we compose it, like a kimono, like a poem, like a season slowly unfolding. Hibiki, the masterpiece of Japanese artistry.”