Maison Martin Margiela, the embodiment of Antwerpian avantgarde and intelectual fashion design, has relied on film content for product presentation and branding purposes for quite a long time, by now. Mainly working with French directors, the brand was quite successful in translating the brand’s edginess and sophistication to film. “La Fiction” by Camille Vivier is only one of many examples of this reliable sense of style. Vivier’s unagitated work focusses on the contrast between calmness, or even ennui (yeah, that’s french and affected=sophisticated) and agitation but also manages to close with a note of fun. The styling in it’s simpleness is amazing, as well as the work of art itself.
“When you give someone a piece of jewelry, the vibration that you are passing on is also part of that gift,”
Marcus Tomlinson assembled the creme de la creme in brands and talent in order to shoot this great little short. Brands featured include Bulgari, Faberge, Louis Vuitton and Dior, while AnOther Magazine’s fashion editor Agata Belcen and new rising star, model Ajak Deng take care of the adequate “packaging”.
Tomlinson used different light sets and some nice special effects to create an unique visual eye candy for the viewer. Last but not least, the score adds additional strength, power and (cosmic!) energy to the film.
We just stumbled over this wonderful film collection for the “Selfridges Film Project”. The aim was to promote the opening of the Womens Designer Galleries at London department store Selfridges with seven matchless short films from different directors which all represent the strength and beauty of seven unique designers, including: Comme de Garçons, Alexander McQueen, Gareth Pugh and Rick Owens. Antwerp based director Stef Viaene created this little short for minimalist and dynamic label A.F. Vandevorst. Wearing just some A.F.V. boots, model Delfine Bafort’ performance morphs from a sleeping beauty to a wild-hearted animal. Which animal? Well, see yourself…!
Directed by Pierre Debusschere
Fashion: Melina Nicolaide
Models: Yannick @ Success and Yumi at Dominique
Make Up & Hair: Sofie van Bouwel
Editing and Visual Effects: Pascal Oberlin
Sound Design & Music: Frederic Ameel @254forest
Voice by Valerie Leclercq (Half Asleep)
Director Assistant: Ismael Moumin @ 254forest
There are a lot of photographers who just shoot some nice (and mostly static) images in the studio and then try to turn it into an interesting film in the editing room. It’s the approach introduced by Showstudio/Nick Knight/Ruth Hogben in the genre’s early days and, admittedly, bought to perfection in the last few years. But that doesn’t mean anyone can pull it off. Well, Belgian photo- and videographer Pierre Debusschere sure can. We have featured one of Pierre’s more cinematic pieces before, but what really amazes us is the sheer wide range of awesomeness that he&his team can get out of more mundane footage from castings, fotoshoots, making-ofs etc. It’s always clean, stylish, original and, most important, it looks like it was always intended that way.
This time Pierre used footage from a shooting for Under/Current Magazine, and the photographic output is just as beautiful as the film.
As the fashion film scene evolved, numerous fashion film festivals were brought to life. Diane Pernet’s ASVOFF in Paris and Barcelona, the London-based Fash/On Festival or even La Jolla Film Festival indicate the worldwide interest in our favorite genre. Now, fashion film has even caught the eyes of the heads behind vimeo, who have decided, for the first time, to add the category of fashion film to their anual vimeo film festival + awards. We are happy to see the genre gaining a wider audience and maybe becoming something one might call “mainstream”. The more eyes are on fashion film, the more brands will finance projects, the more fashion films will be available at Ravished by Illusions! Great!
That being said, we would like to invite you all to vote for your favorite fashion film. The shortlist is composed of 12 wonderful films, all top-notch of course, and of which we featured some on our blog. You will find for example Daniel Askill’s viral film “Ksubi Kolors” for Australian denim brand Ksubi, our favorite Dane Martin de Thurah with “Film 2” or the incredible “Submission” by Ama. Very tough competition!
Our vote (please don’t get us wrong, we do not want to influence you in aaaany way), of course, goes to Cristian Straub, founder and now contributor to this blog, with his amazing last piece “Game of Things”.
Watch the 12 films and vote for your favorite here.
The public voting is open until April 30th. The vimeo festival will be on June 8th - 9th and the winners will be awarded on June 8th in New York.
Oh and, don’t forget: you can vote once a day, so you might as well include voting to your daily chores for now.
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