Dolmio strips down for World Pasta Day, and it’s surprisingly tasteful

I had to double-take at Dolmio’s new ad campaign, and I’m sure that’s the point. This World Pasta Day, Dolmio isn’t shouting about flavour, convenience, or family dinners; instead, it’s gone for something far more daring: pasta in the nude. The brand’s new outdoor and social campaign takes a stripped-back look at the humble carb, celebrating what happens when it meets its better half, the sauce.

I’m obsessed with Ikea’s ridiculous new mattress ad, but even that feels tame next to this. The concept is disarmingly simple. Naked pasta, shot like a sultry fashion or perfume ad, the allure of nude pasta becomes a metaphor for incompleteness. The images are provocative, humorous, and oddly elegant. I can’t believe I just wrote that about pasta.

The campaign is the work of T&P (formerly The&Partnership), who teamed up with acclaimed photographer Sophie Harris-Taylor, best known for her intimate portraits exploring texture and skin. Here, her eye for natural form and surface detail translates seamlessly to pasta, and at a glance, this nude meal could be something much, erm… saucier?

Dolmio brings the sauce

In each shot, the composition borrows from the traditions of nude portraiture, including light, shadow, and curvature to guide the eye, but the subjects are familiar ingredients, reimagined through a human lens. A pile of spaghetti suggests intertwined limbs; conchiglie and fusilli echo shoulders and torsos. (I’m sure there’s an old Seinfeld joke in here somewhere.)

It’s subtle, not salacious. The genius lies in the restraint. The photographs flirt with the boundaries of taste without ever crossing them, allowing texture and tone to do the talking. Every ridge, fold, and shadow carries the same sensual care you’d expect from a still-life masterclass or skincare ad that lingers, but it’s pasta, it’s just pasta.

At its heart, the message is universal: pasta needs sauce. Dolmio’s research even found that 44% of Brits think eating plain pasta is “criminal”. The campaign turns that cultural truth into an aesthetic one. “We wanted to strip things back to the essentials,” says Hana Hutchinson, European Brand Director at Dolmio, as reported on Creative Salon. “Pasta and sauce belong together. This was our way of showing that relationship, not telling it.”

Less is more for pasta ads

That emotional simplicity mirrors the wider trend in food branding, away from polished product shots and towards tactile storytelling. It’s a risky ad, but it’s not Big Pasta’s American Eagle Sydney Sweeney moment, yet for a mainstream food brand, this kind of visual risk-taking is rare. There’s always a danger of crossing into gimmick or innuendo, but T&P’s direction finds the balance between humour and sophistication. The collaboration with Harris-Taylor gives the imagery an authenticity that feels grounded in art rather than advertising.

And it deserves a place among the best print ads ever for its visual confidence alone. The mix of wit, texture, and tone feels timeless, a reminder that great print work still has the power to surprise and seduce. You could even ask, 'Is this really the most 'creatively effective' print ad ever? It’s too soon to say, but it’s certainly one of the most talked-about.

It helps that this campaign is built on craft: real textures, real photography, real visual confidence. If this were AI-generated, the joke wouldn’t have landed, but Dolmio seen through the lens of Harris-Taylor feels authentic. Dolmio’s World Pasta Day campaign succeeds because it understands the power of visual metaphor. It takes something everyone knows – pasta and sauce – and reframes it through a lens of intimacy and artistry.

Visit the T&P website for more.