Virgil Abloh’s latest creation for Louis Vuitton is not a clothing collection. She’s a lovely frog named Zoooom.
As male artistic director of the French luxury house, Abloh was unable to present the spring/summer 2021 line at a classic fashion show, so he created a short film with animated characters dressed in pieces from the collection. This movement is a component of a broader trend. In the world of haute couture, designers are locating new tactics to express their artistic vision beyond catwalks. Many have turned to film and their new paintings perfectly sum up the disconcerting feelings that a pandemic brings to their minds.
But there are also sophisticated signs that this is declining in the COVID-19 era. Louis Vuitton staff wears bandanas on their faces; The streets of Paris are empty. As the day turns into night, the photographs become darker and more psychedelic. It all sounds like a child’s feverish dream – or a nightmare – to live this moment of history.
At the end of the film, it becomes transparent that it was never about fashion, or promotion of garments, at all. It was about immersing the client in a fantasy and allowing him to temporarily escape his harsh reality.
Men’s clothing designer Véronique Nichanian also captures the spring/summer 2021 collection in a film, but hers is rooted in reality. The film aired live on July 5, directly from the company’s workshops in the Paris suburb of Pantin. It’s a way for consumers to join the designer herself and get close to the garments. This works very well for Herms, which is known for its know-how and handcrafted technique for making garments and accessories.
For a logo known for its very good in-store presentations and advertising campaigns, this eight-minute film is strangely raw. We get close-ups of Nichanian giving the finishing touches to the sets; production assistants are heard giving orders to others on set; we see two models taking a selfie, waiting to be photographed.
The unexpected thing about the film is the physical intimacy that we indirectly enjoy through cinematography. After months of social estrangement, there is something radical about feeling surrounded by so many other people running together, touching their hands, speaking softly in the ears of others.
In the video, 3 models walk through empty rooms at the Waldorf Astoria in Amsterdam. While the other two films do not have voiceovers, it is narrated through singer MIKA, who describes the outfit with specific details. It is precisely this frankness that highlights the absurdity of the moment of providing and the ridiculousness of seeking to design garments in the midst of a pandemic. Instead of seeking to escape the existing reality, Viktor Rolf invites us to face it head-on and appreciate the irony.
Like the pandemics of the past, the COVID-19 epidemic is most likely to stimulate wonderful art. We are already starting to see designers experimenting to bring their craft to the screen. Let’s hope fashion cinema continues long after the back of the catwalks.
Elizabeth Segran, Ph.D., is editor of Fast Company. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts
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