There are cities that merely frame a fashion campaign, and then there are those that occupy the entire picture. Rome, with its operatic light and ancient grandeur, is (rightly so) a top contender of the latter, and so Michael Kors returns to the Eternal City to introduce the latest campaign from the New York-born brand, with Suki Waterhouse and Logan Lerman standing in as leading duo.

Lensed by Lachlan Bailey, the campaign unfolds like a mid-century film imbued with a modern gloss, a series of glamorous stills moving from the Piazza Navona to the Spanish Steps, the Fountain of Acqua Paola to the sumptuous interiors of the Grand Hotel Plaza. Against the backdrop of the Eternal City, statement coats swing with fringed flourishes, the new Nolita and Hamilton bags tuck into scenes like hand props, and silhouettes feel as if they belong both in a Fellini frame (V155’s primary influence) and on Fifth Avenue.

“Rome, for me, is just a city that inspires awe,” Kors says in the campaign notes. “It’s cinematic, it’s dramatic, it’s urban, it’s got a pulse.” And it maintains that this sensibility is unmistakable. Kors has long made a signature of marrying jet-setting aspiration with practical elegance, but for his latest campaign the stakes are noticeably more playful. His protagonists (Waterhouse in particular) slip into each outfit as easily as they step into a myriad of personas.

In a campaign short directed by Samuel Rixon, Waterhouse inhabits her role with freedom. She begins by dancing barefoot in a palatial hotel suite, strumming a guitar before slipping into oversized sunglasses in a mood of impromptu rebellion. A sultry re-recording of Don Henley’s “All She Wants to Do is Dance,” by Waterhouse herself, serves as soundtrack, while Lerman’s vignette presents a quieter, more introspective fashion fable.

As part of Kors’ ongoing Hotel Stories series (a fashion-travel content hybrid that has become a signature for the brand), the Grand Hotel Plaza (a longtime favorite of international film crews) becomes both a location and a metaphor, at the intersection of luxury and narrative.