DESIGNINVESTIGATION

Design InvestigationFashion Film

“We are in the midst of a revolution in fashion imagery”

-Nick Knight

What Is A Fashion Film?The Fashion film industry started in 2009 where the worlds of filmmaking and fashion design were brought together. These films are either perceived as inflated product sales concealed in a form of art, or a way in which designers play the role of a director to express the notion of creativity. Some may argue that majority of fashion films are made purely as an advertising strategy. Through this design Investigation my aim is to find out the main purpose and ideas behind Fashion Films.Fashion Films come in many formats, for example the fashion designer Tom Ford created a Hollywood movie with his inspiration of fashion. Although he found success in this form, mainstream fashion films are short and sometimes in the form of a music video. Fashion films give upcoming directors more freedom, as they are not restricted to certain themes. Due to the numbers of fashion magazine consumers decreasing the numbers of fashion bloggers started increasing allowing Internet media to control trends and current fashion affairs. This only means that the fashion film industry is evolving into greater and effective form of fashion. Fashion films also allow new designers to circulate their designs within Internet media, as some cannot afford the flash runway show.There are two types of fashion films; ‘Communication’Films in which the brand/designer is in control of the film and ‘Reflection’ the expression of the filmmaker’s vision of fashion and beauty. Fashion film is no longer just about showcasing the designer’s product because it relies on the vision of the director to not only use the medium of film to break out from still images but also deliver a strong concept for the brand.

SHOWstudio is a fashion website established by Nick Knight in 2000 to bridge the gap between fashion and the internet, pioneering the fashion film. As fashion films weren’t as popular as they are now when he started this company he set up a project called ‘Moving Fashion’ in 2005. This was a move taken to embrace the idea that fashion can be appreciated more through film rather than stills in a magazine. In 2009 SHOWstudio was involved with an exhibition that elaborated on his ‘Moving Fashion’ idea further alongside celebrating the ninth anniversary of SHOWstudio. This establishment

has allowed fashion films to evolve according to the new generation of the consumer society who interact with the world around them through online media. SHOWstudio works alongside the new forms of technology allowing international viewers around to world to link with the new mediums of high fashion. SHOWstudio has championed film and moving image as the ideal medium for fashion in the digital age, and has utilised online streaming and real-time reporting methods including blogging and tweeting via multimedia - enabled mobile phone handsets – to deliver fashion live, as it happens.

“Moving away from illustration and

stills photography, we are now

entering the restless world of interactive, self-created, digital

imaging: accessible, downloadable and constantly

changing.”

Secondary ResearchShow Studio

FINAL PIECE& DEVELOPMENT

For my final piece I have put together a fashion film, inspired by Nick Knight’s work at SHOWstudio. Nick Knight was a photographer before he started creating fashion films; he often sticks to his photography techniques within his films as he makes editorials as well as films. My secondary research has allowed me to gain a great amount of knowledge within this area of the industry. Using the idea of ‘Reflection’- the expression of the filmmakers vision of fashion and beauty, a term taken from A shaded View on Fashion Film Festival, I have based my film on the expression of fashion through a Graphic Design New Media student at this digital age. I have tried to create a fashion film as if it has been made for Show studio. Nick Kinght has a theme throughout some of his pieces, So I have decided to use his time-lapse technique to create my fashion film. He also often has a collection of photographs that he presents with these films soI have also added a few photographs that I have taken as part as my fina artefact.

Final OutcomeFashion Film

Choosing an area to focus my design investigation was not as straightforward as I expected it to be. My interests have always been drawn towards the fashion industry, so I decided to research into fields that were relevant to new media as well as fashion. Both fashion and technology are constantly changing and evolving. So I wanted to target my project on an area in the field that is current and new. As I researched into graphic design/new media jobs in fashion, I came across many fields that were based more on graphic design rather than new media. I found that during this process that I was directed more towards motion graphics for fashion, but this field is one that is not really established as a well-known department in fashion. The elements of fashion that do use motion graphics would be advertising, however this was still a huge topic to investigate.My first point of contact in investigating a new media role within the fashion industry was Chris Ratcliffe- a New Media and FPI tutor and also Ivana, another FPI tutor. I found that they could probably help me narrow my field down as they would be more aware of fields of study that are available within the two design industries. Once I had emailed and met up with the two tutors I was left with a decision to make, am I going to focus on how new media is used to represent fashion, or how is new media changing fashion? I decided to keep my focus on how new media is used to represent fashion, I researched into companies and websites such as Rankin, Hint Mag, Dazed, Vice and Show Studio.Show Studio directed me towards the core of my investigation, which is Fashion Films. Nick Knight is the founder of Show Studio, his earlier working field was fashion photography but he used techniques such as time-lapse photography and developed them further by using this within his fashion

films. When I started looking into fashion films, my first question was what was the purpose behind them. Majority of the fashion films I came across were either for big name brands or the film was made by a photographer, designer or director and then made into his or her view or opinion on fashion, I found this out through some secondary research about a film festival. As Nick Knights Fashion films interested me, so I decided to contact him to ask him more about the field. I was curious to find out his opinion on how fashion films were different to advertising. If the films were more about branding or promoting products and if the rise of fashion films were linked to the fact that it is a product of Internet media. As I did not receive any corresponding emails, I contacted Zoe Hitchen; she is also a fashion film director who worked alongside Nick Knight with some of his recent projects. She was willing to answer my questions about fashion films but due to a deadline she had to meet she said she would reply to my questions in a few weeks. As the fashion film directors themselves weren’t answering my questions I started to research the answers through different sources of bloggers and researchers. I could answer my question about internet media being one of the main reasons as to why the growth of fashion films have increased over the past few years. Secondary research allowed me to relate this idea to the attention span of a modern Internet consumer. As these consumers would much rather have the newest form of technology thrown at them rather than the same old traditional forms that we were used to. Although I could not contact the fashion film directors, I have gained a lot of knowledge through my research about fashion film directors and the companies.Fashion Film IndustryContact Report

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