A tennis campaign can live on a billboard, or it can move. Ralph Lauren’s new Wimbledon campaign chooses motion, pulling Tom Hiddleston into a semi-animated world where live-action footage is stitched to CGI, and the brand’s long-running Polo Bear becomes a co-star rather than a mascot.
Inside Ralph Lauren’s Wimbledon campaign: live action, CGI, and a familiar bear
The premise, as teased by the house, is a “look behind the lens” at the making of a semi-animated series that pairs filmed scenes with computer-generated elements. Hiddleston appears alongside Polo Bear in an adventure built around Wimbledon, with Ralph Lauren flagging its tennis codes through the #RLTennis tag and a promise that the series will roll out imminently.
Ralph Lauren has history here. The brand has served as Official Outfitter of The Championships, Wimbledon since 2006, a relationship that has quietly shaped how modern tennis is dressed off court as much as on it. The campaign’s location cues and iconography lean into that heritage, using storytelling to connect a heritage character to a heritage tournament, without needing to shout either one.
For the brand’s official partnership note, see Ralph Lauren’s Wimbledon page.
The craft of a semi-animated fashion film
What makes this execution worth watching is the form, not the plot twist. Semi-animated work lives or dies by its seams, the blink-and-you-miss-it edges where real fabric, real light, and real movement meet something built in post. The promise of “behind the lens” matters because it invites the viewer to notice production decisions: where the camera lingers, how the textures are rendered, and how the CGI presence is calibrated so it can share a frame with a human performer without turning the whole thing into a novelty.
Ralph Lauren has often treated sport as a language: crests, cable knits, striped trims, blazers that look born for club steps. Here, that language is translated into cinematic grammar. A character like Polo Bear can change scale, step into spaces it would never physically occupy, and pull brand signatures into the foreground without forcing the clothes to do all the talking.
Why Tom Hiddleston, and why now?
Hiddleston is an actor with a public persona that leans precise when the camera is close. In a hybrid format where micro-expressions share time with animated timing, that matters. He can play to the lens without overselling it, allowing the bear to carry the whimsical charge while he anchors the scene with human rhythm.
The scheduling is also strategic. Wimbledon is one of the few sporting stages where style commentary travels as fast as match results, which helps explain why a Wimbledon campaign is being framed as episodic content rather than a single hero image.
What to watch for when the series drops
As the series rolls out, the interesting question is less “what are they selling?” than “what are they teaching the audience to notice?” A hybrid production invites scrutiny of texture and movement: the snap of a lapel when someone turns, the way a knit catches daylight, the choice to render a bear with a certain surface finish so it can plausibly sit beside real-world tailoring.
If you are tracking how luxury houses are building narrative universes around house icons, this Ralph Lauren Wimbledon moment sits neatly in that lineage, with Polo Bear doing the work of continuity across years and collections. For more on fashion’s relationship with sport staging, you might also enjoy our Culture coverage, and our latest on Fashion campaigns shaping the season’s visual language.
For updates as the episodes go live, the campaign teaser and tags are being shared via Ralph Lauren’s official Instagram.
Photo Credits
Images courtesy of their respective owners.
