The Best of Autumn/Winter 2013 Fashion Ad Campaigns

The fall Lanvin campaign takes its inspiration from a little thing called Multiple Personality Disorder. Though each ad seemingly stars a different woman (most of them clearly troubled), Edie Campbell is the only model throughout. The lighting calls to mind vintage horror films, and the whole look is very troubled-1960s-housewife.

What would you do if you were stuck on a sad boat in the middle of a flat gray sea with nothing but another depressed model for company? You'd have a photo shoot, of course! Miu Miu's impeccably dressed models are trapped in this 2-D world of unreal skies and unnatural ocean, and the effect is claustrophobically compelling, as though the clothes are the only portal back to reality.

Apparently Armani's models are intended to look as though they're walking away from the runway, backstage after a show (love the vaguely meta commentary), but it's hard to look at these ads without thinking film noir. The best photos seem to leave the viewer with a question instead of an answer, and while gazing at these ads, it's hard not to wonder: Are they leaving, or are they escaping?

Karl Lagerfeld has an incredible knack for infusing the classic chic of Chanel with the impetuous punch of pop art — the man can turn anything into a couture fantasy (remember his fashion barn?). The fall Chanel campaign seems to place Alice in Wonderland in space: Gravity is abandoned, teapots and models float through the air, furniture is overturned, and nobody seems to be very upset about it.

Fashion has always loved a madwoman, and sitting in a tree full of birds — indoors — is a great way to look a little crazy, even if you're wearing head-to-toe Mulberry. Cara Delevingne's petulant pout makes her look like she was caught playing dress-up in her mother's expensive closet and let in a flock of birds for revenge, which lends the entire campaign an off-kilter air — who is this strange young girl? Where did the birds come from? What will she do with them?

If the goal of a picture is to create the effect of a world, Dolce & Gabbana have succeeded marvelously with this campaign. Each exquisite photo looks like the still from a movie — the models are captured mid-sentence, the background characters gesticulate wildly. We strain to hear their conversation and interpret their covert glances, but the picture never moves. It's endlessly intriguing.

The silky lingerie, matching haircuts, and languid poses of this ad campaign (which features supermodels Gisele, Karen Elson, Carolyn Murphy, and Isabeli Fontana) almost calls to mind a brothel, but there's nothing particularly man-friendly about these photos. The models look at the camera with dark, threatening gazes, as though warning you not to walk into their private sanctuary.

Mr. Jacobs has always liked unconventional beauty, and his fall ads are no exception. This is a '90s teenage nightmare; the models' expressions go beyond angsty and into the realm of the possessed. They carry their heads at weird angles and pose among smoke and greasy rocks. And yet you kind of want to be there, because it feels like this is where the magic happens.