Founded in 2021, ASTA RESORT took over the ‘cool girl’ resort-wear scene by offering designs that were perfectly suited to be worn around all of the dream-like coastlines of the world.

Cue summer holidays in Sardinia, sun-soaked beach sides of Puerto Rico, and the humidly hybrid city-to-beach scape of Miami—all of which happen to all locations where the brand has shot their campaigns previously. With the brand DNA being inherently feminine, the vitality of ASTA RESORT serves as a mood board for the ‘joie de vivre’ lifestyle, evoking a feeling of nostalgia and femininity that, upon one scroll of their Instagram grid, transports you to an ideal warmer climate, a full-picture dream-like world. With their new Spring/Summer 2024 campaign being set in an idyllic Italian hillside villa in Firenze, it is characterized by poignant imagery that follows various vignettes of the new collection in different scenography.

To learn more about the new campaign, V chatted with Founder and Creative Director Helena Ammitzboell to uncover what the inspiration was, some of her favorite pieces from the collection, and who exactly is the ASTA RESORT woman.

V Magazine: What is the inspiration behind the campaign? 

Helena Ammitzboell: Location is my most emotional point of influence, growing up hybridly across Australia and Europe, frequenting Florence has imprinted a sincere cultural impact in both my methodology and way of creating as I have a lot of fond memories of spending time there in my youth. The eleganza and the way women are portrayed in Italian cinema is interesting to me. The female characters in films like “La Grande Bellezza” are quick-witted and carry a halo of elegance and fashion-forward flamboyance. Artistically, in this campaign, we also drew from the cinematic composition of other Italian cinematic works like “La Dolce Vita” and “Cinema Paradiso”. My mum was a nanny when she was young for an Italian aristocratic family, she showed a lot of these cultural loves to my sister and I as we grew up. With ASTA’s knitwear yarn production rooted in such regions surrounding Florence, I wanted to focus on the air of artisanship there, and tie the physical origins of the collection intrinsically with their creative purpose and narrative. There is also a feeling of home ties and family memories. All things that are represented in the tricot motifs and gold hardware, I like to think of them as ornaments like family crests. We always incorporate these botanical, star-like symbols into the clothes, and this time took direction from a Florentine, spring-time setting. 

I’m part of a generation of ever-snapping and uploading, to me the area resonates with a stillness and in-the-moment tranquility that I love. It’s here you also find the best connoisseurs in knitwear such as Missoni and Loro Piana. Crossing paths with people from these houses really inspired me to develop ASTA’s offering and craft. 

V: What is your favorite piece from the collection?

HA: We worked quite meticulously on a pair of pants knitted from sequin-spun yarn in a hexagonal stitch. They turned out so great. They are fringed, sparkly, decadent, and fit so well. A tribute to my personal aesthetic ideal! We also made an ultra-feminine, dress from a rosy-pink yarn in a stitch that incorporates our signature ‘delilah’ flower motif and looks like lace. Making these fabrications from scratch is always super rewarding to see photographed. We used a lot of pastel satin throughout the set to make them pop.

V: Who is the ASTA RESORT Woman?

HA: I don’t like to encase a rigid set of variables around the ASTA customer, but what is important to me is that they can wear the pieces with freedom and a note of attachment to a memory, a melodic tone set by a defined location or just a celebratory spirit. I’m not interested in making black trousers. ASTA RESORT is very much about making her pieces for quality fun, and for her important moments of self-reward and indulgence. I think this comes from the vibrant lifestyle of Australians, I’ve always been fixated on materials that illuminate.

V: What was a special moment on set? 

HA: My personal idealism came to life with the talent of the team and the close dynamics. We actually all stayed inside the 18th-century villa we shot in, where we shared candle-lit dinners as a team during the shoot, blurring the barrier between reality and the ASTA dreamworld. That’s my biggest goal with images we make, because only then do they feel authentic. This was ASTA RESORT’s biggest production to date, and after adrenaline-fuelled days and frantic episodes of my sister finishing hand-embroidery details last minute on-set (up until the final seconds of the camera click shutter), to come together and have a cozy glass of chianti and tiramisu in an incredible heritage villa was obviously very reinforcing. 

We treated each photograph as its own scenescape. For one image we wanted to create an old beauty parlor atmosphere and we spontaneously asked our chef, Sophie to stand in as the beautician character. She accepted so generously. The photos are a vignette of inimitable Italian hospitality and villa life, both of which underscore the values of the brand.