Harmony Korine’s Christmas: Why Gucci and Burberry Both Hired the Spring Breakers Director for Their 2026 Holiday Campaigns

Back when Spring Breakers hit cinemas, nobody would have bet on Harmony Korine becoming the busiest Christmas director in luxury fashion. This was the man who put James Franco in cornrows, cast the rapper Gucci Mane and turned a beach holiday into a neon fever dream. Fast forward to the first week of November 2026: the filmmaker who once worked with Gucci Mane now works for actual Gucci. He has directed not one but two of the season’s most talked about holiday campaigns. Gucci released its film with Mariah Carey on 2 November. Burberry followed a day later with a country house party hosted by Pierce Brosnan.

Yes, it is early November. Yes, you are already reading about Christmas. Think of this article as the fashion version of the supermarket shelf that stocks gingerbread in September: slightly too early, completely inevitable.

Gucci: the Queen of Christmas checks in

Gucci’s film unfolds inside a lavish hotel where the staff are in full panic mode, preparing a suite for the arrival of Mariah Carey, the self-proclaimed Queen of Christmas. There is a decorated tree, there are wrapped presents and the bulb ornaments are so oversized they look like they need their own planning permission. The soundtrack is, of course, “All I Want for Christmas Is You”, the 1994 single that returns every winter with the reliability of a utility bill.

Carey wears pieces from Gucci’s new Butterfly special collection. Its shimmering wing motif is a direct nod to her 1997 album Butterfly, which is the kind of archive reference fashion people love because it rewards both pop fans and brand historians. Gucci describes Carey as “a cultural icon and a fixture of the holiday season”. That is a very polite way of describing a woman who personally opens the Christmas season every year on 1 November. She did it again this year with a video called “It’s Time”, posted one day before the campaign landed.

Around her, the gift edit reads like a greatest hits album of the house: Horsebit loafers, GG Marmont bags, the suede Paparazzo bag, GG Monogram boots, Ace sneakers plus Vittoria pumps. The Horsebit in particular is pure heritage, a piece of equestrian hardware Gucci first put on a loafer in the 1950s. The campaign runs under the Gucci Gift banner, so let nobody pretend this is purely an art project.

Burberry: 170 years, a golf buggy and a disco ball

Burberry’s film is called “Wrapped in Burberry: Celebrating 170 Years” and it moves the party to Longleat House in Wiltshire, the historic seat of the Marquess of Bath. Pierce Brosnan and Fiona Shaw play the hosts. If you grew up on GoldenEye and the Harry Potter films, that means James Bond and Aunt Petunia are throwing you a Christmas party, which sounds like a casting idea from a British pub quiz. The guest list includes Cara Delevingne, Dwyane Wade, Gabrielle Union, Nico Parker, Kim Min-ha, Wu Lei and Brosnan’s son Dylan. Emma Thynn, Marchioness of Bath, makes a cameo in what is, after all, her own house.

What follows is very un-Bond behaviour: golf buggy races, party games and a disco-ball finale set to “Do You Wanna Funk” by Sylvester and Patrick Cowley, with Brosnan joining the dancing. Chief creative officer Daniel Lee summed up the brief with refreshing honesty. “We wanted to celebrate 170 years of Burberry with a proper party,” he said, adding that it was about “family, friends, great gifts and everyone dressed up.”

The anniversary is real history. Thomas Burberry opened his business in 1856 and later developed gabardine, the weatherproof fabric that made the brand’s outerwear famous long before the check became a status symbol. The campaign leans on exactly that inheritance: cashmere outerwear, check scarves, children’s clothing plus the brand’s first collaboration with the stationer Smythson, featuring English-made leather notebooks and folding chess and backgammon sets for travel. In other words, Burberry is selling you the fantasy of a long British winter weekend, with or without the stately home.

Why Korine, of all people?

On paper, Korine is an odd choice for the most commercial weeks of the fashion calendar. He wrote the screenplay for Kids as a teenager, directed Gummo in 1997 and later made Spring Breakers and The Beach Bum. His films love excess, chaos and glitter that is one step away from decay. Neither brand has explained the double booking in the material released so far, so what follows is our reading rather than an official explanation.

Luxury holiday advertising has a sameness problem. Snow, firelight, ribbon, a model looking wistfully at a window: you have seen it a thousand times and your thumb has scrolled past it a thousand times. A director with a recognisable signature turns a campaign into something closer to a short film, something people talk about and share instead of skipping. Korine also brings a kind of credibility with audiences raised on indie cinema and A24 trailers, a group luxury brands badly want to reach.

The more interesting point is how differently he handled the two jobs. For Gucci he delivered American maximalism: a diva, a hotel, a song everyone knows. For Burberry he went for British eccentricity: old money, slightly silly games and a dance floor in a stately home. That range is exactly what a fashion house pays for. The director’s name becomes a promise that the film will feel like an event, while the brand codes stay firmly in charge.

The business behind the baubles

It would be naive to treat these films as pure cinema. The weeks before Christmas are prime gifting season and both campaigns are carefully built around things you can buy, from a loafer to a backgammon set. The trick is to make the shopping list feel like a party invitation. Gucci does it with star power, Burberry with a sense of belonging to a slightly chaotic, very well dressed family.

For you as a viewer, the honest test is simple. After watching, do you want the bag or do you mostly want to rewatch the disco finale? The brands, naturally, hope for both.

What this says about fashion’s next Christmas

If one auteur can make Mariah Carey and Pierce Brosnan look like residents of the same glittering universe in the same week, expect more houses to book film directors with a strong signature for their seasonal campaigns. That is a prediction, not a fact. But the direction of travel is clear: the holiday campaign is turning into a release in its own right, complete with cast, soundtrack and premiere date. The gingerbread, as always, will be on the shelves early.