Levi’s has gone old school for Christmas, reviving Claymation for a festive campaign featuring a very hairy new character.
Titled ‘Let’s Get Fuzzy’, the denim brand’s Holiday 2026 campaign puts knitwear centre stage, bringing its seasonal collection to life through a handmade stop-motion film starring Fuzzyeti, a large and rather hairy character affectionately known as Gus.
Gus’s journey from feared outsider to welcomed Christmas guest gives the campaign its warm-and-fuzzy heart, with a story about belonging, acceptance and finding a place at the table. Naturally, there’s also a good amount of sweater action.
But the real star is the production itself. The entire film was made using Claymation, with every set and character crafted by hand and each outfit recreated by artisans. It took four hours of filming to produce just one second of animation.
The creative choice also has some advertising history behind it. Levi’s has revisiting its love affair with the painstaking animation technique, nodding to ‘Clayman’, its 1995 campaign, created by BBH, that became the first full-length commercial made entirely using Claymation.
While Gus does much of the heavy lifting on screen, the campaign was designed to sell the joys of a good winter wardrobe. Levi’s is pushing its range of men’s and women’s sweaters. The brand has also extended the campaign into personalisation, with its Levi’s Tailor Shops at select locations to introduce holiday customisation options featuring fuzzy embellishments and more.
“Our Levi’s ‘Let’s Get Fuzzy’ campaign was an opportunity to experiment with immersive and tactile world-building across retail, digital and social. Anchored by a film created entirely with stop-motion Claymation, it’s also the celebration of the craft and human creativity synonymous with the Levi’s brand. Let’s Get Fuzzy is another step in our ambition to be the world’s leading denim lifestyle brand, putting into focus our range of sweaters as the perfect pairing to our iconic denim this holiday season and building on our ambition to grow across categories,” said Levi’s global chief marketing officer Kenny Mitchel.
With AI making ads increasingly easy to produce, there’s something refreshing about a Christmas campaign that took countless hours to make.
The campaign launched globally on November 2 across retail, digital and social channels.
Credits
Production Blink / Blinkink
Director, Stevie & Essy
Executive Producer, Bart Yates
Executive Producer, Josef Byrne
Head of Production, Alex Halley
Producer, Rebecca Little
Producer, Adriana Piasek-Wanski
Production Manager, Calum O’Toole
1st AD, Sandy Liddle
Director of Photography, Toby Howell
1st AC, George Warren
Gaffer, Pearce Crowley
Animation, Andy Biddle
Animation, Laura Tofarides
Animation, Henry Nicholson
Animation, Honor Price
Production Designer, Gordon Allen
Assistant Director, Areeya Bass
Brand, Levi Strauss & Co.
Chief Marketing Officer, Kenny Mitchell
Creative, Chad Hinson
Marketing, Anne Cambria
Marketing, Rachel Sundberg
Executive Director, Kaede Matsumoto
Creative, Renée Perdomo
Copywriter, Robin Lenhart
Art Director, Sarah Harris
Director of Brand Marketing, Rashad Drakeford
Director of Brand Marketing, Josh Farrell
Creative, Jenny Fewell
Producer, Rena Fink
Manager, Michael Giordano
Manager, Sharon Maloney
Project Manager, Tess O’Dwyer
Assistant Manager, Elizabeth Swarm
Copywriter, Courtney Vincent
Post Production / VFX, Blink / Blinkink
VFX Supervisor, John Malcolm Moore
Compositing, Simone Ghilardotti
Compositing, Corinne Ladeinde
2D Animation, Andreu Campos
Post Production / VFX, Black Kite Studios
Colourist, Tom Mangham
Producer, Carla Thomas
Music / Sound, Fitzrovia Post
Sound Designer, Jonny Allan
