nununu's CELINUNUNU campaign, created by Twentythree in Israel in 2018, launched a gender-neutral childrenswear collaboration with Céline Dion across more than
How nununu and Céline Dion Made CELINUNUNU a Statement in Children's Fashion
CELINUNUNU is a gender-neutral children's apparel collaboration between global pop icon Céline Dion and Israeli fashion brand nununu, launched in November 2018 and promoted through a film campaign created by Tel Aviv agency Twentythree, challenging conventional assumptions about how children are dressed from birth.
nununu is an independent Israeli children's fashion brand. Founded in 2009 by Iris Adler and Tali Milchberg, as reported by Ads of the World, nununu built its identity around rejecting the pink-and-blue binary that dominates conventional childrenswear, favouring neutral palettes, unisex silhouettes, and designs intended to encourage individual expression rather than gender conformity. By 2018, that founding philosophy had matured into a recognisable aesthetic — primarily black, white, and grey, accented with motifs including skulls, stripes, stars, and lettering — and it was this aesthetic that Céline Dion reportedly sought out personally, approaching nununu approximately one year before the November 2018 launch, according to Vox.
The resulting CELINUNUNU collection comprised more than 70 silhouettes, spanning infants through children of approximately age 14, as reported by Vox. In Israel, where nununu originated, the campaign represented the brand's most prominent international moment — a film that carried a founding message stated plainly within the work itself: "our children, they are not really our children." The campaign's proposition, as documented by Ads of the World, positioned gender-neutral clothing not as a stylistic preference but as a parental act of freedom, inviting adults to allow children to choose their own identities. The single film asset produced by OG Group and directed by Ofir Lobel became the primary vehicle for that argument, circulating well beyond Israel's borders and sparking widespread international commentary on both its creative ambition and its cultural provocation.
nununu operates at the premium end of a childrenswear market defined by volume competition at its base and values-led differentiation at its apex. The global childrenswear market was estimated at approximately two hundred billion US dollars in 2023, according to GlobalData, with projected growth of more than two percent compound annual growth rate through 2028. While no directly verified 2018 global market value is available from named sources, the structural dynamic nununu navigated was already well established: a market dominated at scale by Nike, Adidas, Zara, H&M, and Primark — with H&M identified as global market leader in 2023 by GlobalData — while premium-positioning brands competed on identity and ethos rather than price.
nununu's peer group in the premium-contemporary segment includes Stella McCartney Kids and Tinycottons, as noted by Clapboard's editorial research. Against those competitors, nununu's differentiating logic is foundational rather than seasonal: where Stella McCartney Kids built its premium argument on sustainable materials and heritage luxury adjacency, nununu built its position on a rejection of gendered design codes entirely. The CELINUNUNU campaign made that argument louder and further-reaching than nununu could achieve through product alone. Céline Dion's involvement — reported by Vox as initiated by Dion herself, a pre-existing customer of nununu — gave the brand's gender-neutral philosophy a mainstream platform, translating a niche Israeli fashion position into a globally legible cultural statement. In Israel, where the brand was founded and where the campaign was formally published, this moment affirmed nununu's standing as an internationally consequential independent label, not merely a domestic success. The strategic insight animating the collaboration was precise: that a celebrity who embodied mainstream aspiration, visibly choosing a brand built on the rejection of convention, validated that brand's entire premise for audiences who might otherwise never encounter it.
The CELINUNUNU film is a single-asset campaign. Directed by Ofir Lobel and produced by Gilad Shneider at OG Group, with photography by Lael Utnik, the work was conceived by a creative team at Twentythree, Tel Aviv, comprising Creative Director Benny Bronsky, Art Director Carmit Bronsky, and Copywriters Anton Eldar and Yossi Tzarfati, as published in the campaign credits documented by Ads of the World on 22 April 2022.
The film's narrative is constructed around a single, deliberately surreal image: Céline Dion, pursued by police, enters a hospital neonatal unit and uses what the work frames as magical intervention to transform newborns' pink-and-blue clothing into the black-and-white palette of the CELINUNUNU collection. The sequence is theatrical rather than documentary, deploying the visual language of fantasy to make an ideological argument that a more literal treatment could not sustain without becoming didactic. Benny Bronsky's creative direction and the writing by Anton Eldar and Yossi Tzarfati anchor the film's tone in something closer to dark fable than lifestyle advertising, a choice consistent with nununu's longstanding use of skull motifs and stark monochrome in its product design. The work attracted significant commentary — including critical attention from outlets such as CBN News and Faithwire, which objected to the film's framing of gender-neutral clothing as something done to newborns without parental consent — and that controversy itself became part of the campaign's cultural footprint, as reported by Exclaim. Regardless of one's reading of the film's rhetoric, the craft decision to make the ideology visible and dramatic rather than ambient is what gave CELINUNUNU its international reach. Lael Utnik's photography for the still assets maintained the same tonal austerity, ensuring coherence across the campaign's outputs.
No verified performance data for the CELINUNUNU campaign is publicly available in terms of sales lift, campaign reach, or measurable brand-awareness shift attributable directly to the film. What is documentable is the campaign's structural effectiveness, assessed through the conditions it created rather than figures it generated.
The film generated international editorial coverage across entertainment, fashion, and cultural commentary outlets. Vox, CBN News, Exclaim, Faithwire, and El Tiempo each engaged with the campaign's content and implications, evidence that a single-asset film produced in Israel for an independent childrenswear label crossed into mainstream global discourse without a paid media budget commensurate with that reach. The mechanism was the campaign's controversy: by staging its gender-neutral argument inside a neonatal unit with a globally recognised celebrity, the Twentythree creative team produced a film that demanded a response, and responses — whether affirmative or critical — extended the campaign's distribution organically.
For nununu specifically, the structural outcome was a demonstration that the brand's founding values, built in Israel over nearly a decade, were legible and provocative enough to function at international scale. The CELINUNUNU collaboration and its campaign did not require nununu to dilute its aesthetic or soften its position to achieve mainstream visibility — a meaningful strategic validation. Clapboard rates CELINUNUNU at 74 out of 100, recognising strong creative clarity and cultural provocation offset by the single-asset format's inherent limitations in sustaining narrative across a longer campaign arc.
CELINUNUNU is a film campaign created by Twentythree in Israel in November 2018 for nununu's gender-neutral childrenswear collaboration with Céline Dion. The campaign centres on a single film directed by Ofir Lobel, arguing that children should be free to choose their own identities, expressed through the collection's black, white, and grey aesthetic.
Twentythree, Tel Aviv, created the CELINUNUNU campaign. Benny Bronsky served as Creative Director, Carmit Bronsky as Art Director, and Anton Eldar and Yossi Tzarfati as Copywriters. Ofir Lobel directed the film, Gilad Shneider produced it through OG Group, and Lael Utnik served as photographer, as documented by Ads of the World.
Céline Dion reportedly approached nununu herself, approximately one year before the November 2018 launch, according to Vox. Dion was already a customer of the Israeli brand before pursuing the collaboration, making her involvement a consumer-to-collaborator story rather than a conventional celebrity-licensing arrangement.
The CELINUNUNU collection features more than 70 silhouettes for children from infants through approximately age 14, as reported by Vox. Design elements include a predominantly black, white, and grey palette alongside motifs such as skulls, stripes, stars, and lettering, consistent with nununu's longstanding gender-neutral aesthetic founded in Israel in 2009.
The film depicts Céline Dion entering a neonatal unit and transforming newborns' pink-and-blue clothing into black-and-white outfits. Outlets including CBN News and Faithwire objected to the framing, while Exclaim reported on the broader cultural debate. The controversy significantly extended the campaign's international reach beyond its original Israeli publication context.
nununu is an independent Israeli children's fashion brand founded in 2009 by Iris Adler and Tali Milchberg, as reported by Ads of the World. From its founding, nununu rejected gendered colour coding and stereotypical design conventions, building a neutral-palette, unisex aesthetic that became the direct foundation for the 2018 CELINUNUNU collaboration with Céline Dion.
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