Benetton launches a new ad campaign with no clothes in sight

 In Benetton's autumn 2018 campaign, the models are entirely naked -- a return to the daring messages that characterized the brand's advertising in the 1980s and 1990s, now that Oliviero Toscani is back at the helm.

Benetton has unveiled an unusual campaign for its 2018 autumn collection. Instead of presenting clothing and accessories for the new season, an ethnically diverse group of naked models pose with their arms around each other.

"Against civil war, against the mafia and urban violence of identity, against ferocious ethnic conflict, against religious wars and fault line wars, against terrorism and against all forms of resurgent racism," announces the accompanying voiceover for the video by photographer Oliviero Toscani.

Back at Benetton as art director after an absence that lasted several years, Toscani was the creator of some of the most controversial advertising campaigns, which came to be the Italian brand's signature in the 1980s and 1990s.

For instance, he was responsible for the photograph of a man dying of AIDS in a hospital bed. Often just images without any slogan, the campaigns of the period raised controversial issues such as disease, the death penalty, racism and homosexuality.

Starting in the first week of August, Benetton's latest campaign will be visible on billboards, in print, on the web and on the brand's social media pages.