Clothes help you shape your identity. This has always sat underneath the creative in fashion advertising. Director and creative, Tim Darmenov, has brought it to the fore in a visually unexpected film that allows Levi’s Mexico to own it.

The idea was to let the performers disappear while their photographed clothes, tools and original movements remain. Darmenov used tracking, selective AI-assisted image reconstruction, compositing and manual Photoshop clean-up to preserve as much of the original image as possible.

Here is his story of a strikingly different Levi’s campaign that began with Levi’s belief clothing does more than serve a function – it gives visible form to who you are.

“We cast real people working across Mexico City. Even without seeing their bodies, you can recognise something about them through their clothes, their tools and the way they move. Small gestures carry years of experience — handling a tool, polishing a shoe, riding a bike or playing an instrument. Removing the performers made those details the focus. Their bodies disappear, but their presence remains,” Darmenov explained.

“The voiceover follows the same progression. It begins with what things do for us — entertain, communicate, fix, clean, move us — before arriving at “there are things… that already know who you are.” In the final shot, the figure puts on a Levi’s jacket and becomes visible. That is the payoff: clothing gives visible form to an identity that was already there.

The campaign was filmed in Mexico City on a Kodak VISION3 500T 7219 16mm, using an ARRI SR2 and a Carl Zeiss Vario Sonnar 10–100 T1.8 lens, with Santiago Tróccoli the director of photography.

“The real performances were essential. We wanted to preserve how people actually moved and interacted with their surroundings, rather than create those movements in post. The locations, camera movement, light and physical texture of the film were the foundation,” Darmenov added.

Post-production began with a custom workflow built around the footage.

“First, I isolated the visible parts of the performers that needed to disappear and tracked those areas through the shots. Automated removal and AI-assisted image reconstruction rebuilt the image information behind them,” Darmenov stated.

“Those reconstructed regions were then composited back into the original footage, retaining the photographed clothing, tools and movement. The amount of reconstruction varied by shot; the aim was to preserve as much of the original 16mm image as possible. It wasn’t a one-click process. The work involved frame-by-frame processing, checking the reconstructed areas across successive frames, and manually correcting artefacts and failed results. Difficult frames needed additional Photoshop clean-up before being integrated back into the moving image.

“AI was used selectively within post-production, not to generate the complete film. The custom element was the workflow connecting reconstruction, tracking, compositing and manual fixes. Automating part of that work made it possible to complete the post-production in approximately five to seven days.”

Watch the before & after scenes:

The result refreshes thinking about Levi’s in a category that heroes newness.

Credits:

Client: Levi’s Mexico
Director & Creative: Tim Darmenov
AI-assisted Post-production & Compositing: Tim Darmenov
Director of Photography: Santiago Tróccoli
Editor: Mykyta Bereg
Music & SFX: UN Studios
Colour: Diego Flores | Atomica Mexico
Camera Assistants: Juan Ignacio Roca, Ciro Zanela