Curation Thoughts on a Particular FashionFilm

Recently Fashion Films have become a part of my weekly updating, not only because of their talked popularization but because their elaborated production sort of forces me to speak about them. Comments sections on youtube or vimeo are always well and good for people to express their opinions, and it must be very rewarding for creators to know how many people "Totally adored" their films. However, in my case it is important to respond in almost the same elaborated way to something that has enriched my senses so gloriously and therefore dig into what made me fancy it.

GARETH PUGH PITTI 2011 - FILM BY RUTH HOGBEN from SHOWstudio on Vimeo.

There is no doubt that the impact generated by audio-visual media in the fashion audience turns out to be highly effective. The reiteration of a moving image reinforces the link between viewer and clothes, prolonging it in the memory through the narrative and sensory experience that Fashion Films manages to generate.

From the hand of Gareth Pugh's collection, inspired by Renaissance religious imagery and Florentine style brought to their extreme modern idea, this fashion-film directed by Ruth Hogben catches my attention with the special monochromatic and minimalist dynamic of this director who using a set of light and shade contrasts achieves, as Renaissance painters did, enhancement of organic forms, showing off a human figure close to perfection and fashion garments highlighting the concept of volume, geometry and proportion.

The repetition of symmetric figures based on mirrors enhances the geometric character of the collection, while elements such as Air, Water and Speed call attention to the organic shapes, reminding us a continuous juxtaposition of two poles, geometric and organic, light and dark, man and God. A type of perspective where actors are seen from below turns the scenes into animated paintings displayed in the dome of a cathedral, explaining the collection from the reinterpretation of its own context.

The accurate atmosphere this production has given to the clothes, plus the obvious sensitivity the garments were displayed with and the power and magnificence of its visual and audio content support and convey a clear idea of luxury and modernity proper to Gareth Pugh’s work and likewise, demonstrate the acquired value of new media into the highly perceptual world of fashion.