• by Sarah Mahoney , January 11, 2018

For its new spring campaign, Stuart Weitzman is going for a supermodel combo, teaming up Kate Moss with Gigi Hadid. 

Photographed by fashion great Mario Testino, the effort features the 40-something Moss with the 20-something Hadid together for the first time, in an ad campaign it says emphasizes the luxury shoe brand’s multi-generational appeal. (Each model has appeared solo in plenty of Weitzman ads.)

The duo is shot in both black and white outfits and the new collection, sometimes with shoeless male model Jordan Barrett, in images the company says “captures the essence of strong, powerful women.” 

Print ads are scheduled to run in the U.S., Canada, Asia and Europe, with video and additional creative content running on its website and in its stores. Stuart Weitzman, recently acquired by Tapestry, the parent company of Coach, reported sales of $96 million in its most recent quarterly results, an increase of 10% from the $88 million reported in same period of the prior year.

But it’s not an easy time to sell sexy luxury shoes. Rival Jimmy Choo, owned by Michael Kors, recently got blasted in social media for an ad featuring supermodel Cara Delevingne walking through the streets of New York enjoying the way men catcall her sparkly booties. The ad was released in in November, just weeks after Delevingne revealed that she, too, had been a victim of Harvey Weinstein, and twitterites called it sexist, tone deaf and terribly timed.

And overall, consumer spending on footwear in the U.S. is in a major slump, according to the Footwear Distributors and Retails of America, showing little to no growth in the 12-month period that ended in October. It predicts that the total for 2017 will show the slowest rate of growth “since the dark days of the Great Recession.”