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SSENSE / CG Watkins
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Temperatures are rising, as are the hems of clothes up our limbs. Ice chimes in sweaty glasses, beads pouring down their sides like a neck... One can't help it, there's something inherently raunchy about the straining warmth of summer months.

SSENSE leaned into this exact mood, with a season campaign that juxtaposes the banal unease and primal sexiness of being just the right amount of too hot — in every sense.

Titled "HEAT", the Montreal-based retailer's steamy editorial was staged atop a sun-soaked parking lot. Sticky and sensual, models galavant across the boiling asphalt, leaning out of open-flung car doors, dressed skimpily in the likes of Aaron Esh, Connor Ives and Martine Rose.

Oversized polo shirts, shorts that aren't actually that short, and an interplay of tight and baggy, fitted and relaxed, muted and colorful, masc and femme reign over the styles in question here.

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These exclusive designer capsules are all about contrasting elements rather than neat alignments, and offer up past years' careful cleanliness in favor of something more impulsive and daring and messy even.

To accompany the visuals, SSENSE tapped the linguistic prowess of Dream Baby Press's Matt Starr. The independent micro-publisher and events collective co-founded by Starr hosts readings of erotica in unconventional spaces across New York City, all of which share an air of intimacy, kindness, and connection.

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Here, Starr's words extend on the sweltering vibe, setting the atmospheric scene of a summer that's about to kick into full gear. Call it Summerotica, if you will.

It is, indeed, getting hot in here. So put on all these clothes here, why don't you?

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