Skirts and Shorts

The most fun ones have a less obvious display of the product. The British newspaper, Telegraph, calls Wren’s First Kiss “the fashion film that’s not really a fashion film” for this reason. Inspired by photographer Richard Avedon’s pictures of people kissing, Wren’s founder Melissa Coker and her director called in their friends and colleagues, and mixed them up to make for kissing strangers. The awkwardness of a first kiss has connected with people and the film has enjoyed 23 million views in its first three days. The women in the video are wearing Wren but you don’t notice it, or care. But that’s the idea, as Coker tells the paper, “I don’t want to see any close-ups on shoes or skirts or boring things like that.”

At Mumbai’s Lakme Fashion Week last week, Vogue India’s fashion director Anaita Shroff Adajania took the stage to show and discuss fashion films she had curated for the Week. The entries were Gaga, Valliyan by Nitya, Jewels by Queenie, Sreejith Jeevan, Mawi London and Vogue’s own film. After each film, the label’s founder and the film’s director were invited to discuss their concepts. Mawi’s film showed a sweet-faced blonde devouring her baubles course after course; it has the audience in
consistent giggles.

Humour was the enabler for US Vogue’s short film, introducing their February cover and featuring female actor Lena Dunham and international editor-at-large Hamish Bowles. In the video, Bowles instructs Dunham how to pose, aping past models and erstwhile covers. In the end, the two break into a little dance. The film has been shared 14,800 times
on Facebook.

Berlin has its own fashion film festival. Kering, the group that owns Gucci and Bottega Veneta, has sponsored Paris’ shorts festival on fashion and style films and brought it to New York last week.

Last year, lingerie label Agent Provocateur had Penelope Cruz direct their steamy fashion film. Italian label Trussardi’s film this year, Sky Watcher, was in brilliant animation. Louis Vuitton’s is a travelogue set in South Africa, filmed by Peter Lindbergh, styled by Carine Roitfeld and starring Karel Elson, Edie Campbell and a few giraffes, cheetah cubs and zebras. Prada’s Spring/Summer 2014 video campaign has their Warhol-dressed models behave like an audience in a tennis match, tossing popcorn at a movie and screaming as if at a rock show.

Fashion’s experiments with different formats only show that it’s a business that constantly seeks at reinventing itself. But mostly, it takes great advantage of the internet. It turns ad campaigns into an art form, and of course, free advertising as well.

namratanow@gmail.com

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