Loro Piana, the Italian luxury brand known for its high-end wool and cashmere garments, shot its fall/winter 2026 ad campaign at a trio of unexpected (for a fashion brand, at least) locations in Houston: the Menil Collection and private de Menil residence, both run by the Menil Foundation, and the nearby Rothko Chapel, a non-denominational space founded by John and Dominique de Menil that is full of serene, monochromatic canvases by the Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko.
The fashion house approached the Menil Collection last fall, and the campaign was shot—by Mario Sorrenti—over four days this spring. The four teaser photos below utilize the Rothko Chapel and the de Menils’ private home as settings to showcase luxurious coats, trousers, sweaters, and dresses, not to mention furniture and artworks from the de Menils’ collection by artists like Tomás Yepes, Francesca Fuchs, Wayne Thiebaud, and, of course, Mark Rothko.
The house, designed by Philip Johnson, was built in 1948, soon after the family immigrated from Europe to Houston. The building was bequeathed to the Menil Collection and is not open to the public. Loro Piana also shot on the grounds of the Menil Collection and in two of the museum’s gallery spaces.
Check out a few photos highlighting the fall/winter collection below.
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Rothko Chapel
Image Credit: Photo Mario Sorrenti/Courtsey Loro Piana The Rothko Chapel opened in 1971, seven years after John and Dominique de Menil commissioned the Abstract Expressionist painter to create a series of 14 canvases for the non-denominational contemplative space. In a 1966 letter to the Menils, Rothko wrote that the chapel commission was teaching him “to extend myself beyond what I thought was possible for me.” The simple wood benches in the chapel are the same height as the one Rothko had in his studio while creating the Rothko Chapel paintings.
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Entryway, de Menil Residence
Image Credit: Photo Mario Sorrenti/Courtsey Loro Piana Model Sigrid de L’Epine is pictured on a 19th century green silk setee in the entryway of the de Menil home. The sofa looks out on a glassed-in atrium full of tropical plants, a design feature inspired by the two years that the de Menils spent in Venezuela. The alabaster lamps, like much of the de Menil’s furniture, were purchased at a Houston flea market in 1951. The painting above the sofa is Francesca Fuchs’s Red Matisse (2024), inspired by a photograph of a Matisse cutout the de Menils once owned.
The photo’s art direction appears to be an homage to Decadent Young Woman, After the Dance, Ramon Casas’s 1899 painting of a young woman in a dark blue dress lying languidly on a lush green couch.
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de Menil Residence
Image Credit: Photo Mario Sorrenti/Courtsey Loro Piana Model Long Li at the Menil Collection, surrounded by a carved wooden chair designed by John Henry Belter, Francesca Fuchs’s painting Venus, and (through doorway) Wayne Thiebaud’s Lipstick and Compact (1965). The Thiebaud still life is hung on a wall between the powder room and a coat closet.
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Dining Room, de Menil Residence
Image Credit: Photo Mario Sorrenti/Courtsey Loro Piana In this photo, a group of models poses in the de Menils’ dining room where two artworks are visible: Four Vases of Flowers in a Niche by the 17th century Spanish artist Tomás Yepes on the left, and, through the doorway, Francesca Fuchs’s Magenta Ernst (2024). Fuchs’s painting was made for a recent exhibition at the de Menil residence, “The Space Between Looking and Loving.” Magenta Ernst references Shell Flowers, a 1933 painting by Max Ernst the de Menils particularly liked and was hung on a magenta-colored felt wall in a hallway of their home, adjacent to their children’s bedrooms.
