Music and Fashion are natural bedfellows. Both enjoy a freedom of expression that allows boundaries to be explored and attitudes challenged.
In the first of an occasional series here are five top fashion moments on film, this time chosen by our friend Rachael Mathews.
1. Chicks on speed
Fashion is fun, fast and really furious. Sometimes it becomes serious by developing complex regulations and ruthless forms of production. Chicks on Speed insist that we break all those rules. Fashion is best when played out with friends. Seasonal looks were meant to change with the weather, but became a good excuse to change our minds about who we want to be. Showing multi-faceted natures by changing our clothes many times a minute is a great way to throw a party. Shooting results with black backdrop and singing your song about the experience is a great way to encourage this sane behaviour.
2. Kenneth Anger - Puce Moment
Dresses dance into the day. A shimmering number, settles on a long lashed woman who mindfully plans her next movements. Easing a foot into the punctuation of a shoe, her heart then flies with her perfume and like a blinged up cat, she sprawls over her day-bed to indulge in the glamour of the moment.Pleasure of dressing up on an afternoon where time is inconsequential is captured by speeding up the film of the slowly moving queen. Paroxysm movements of fabrics, jewelry and the body deny gravity. Filmed in technicolour, this illustrates how Fashion brings us out of life’s drudgery and floats us in a timeless era of fabulousness.
3. Alexander McQueen / Nick Knight – Bellwether
Fashion would be spineless if it weren’t for highly developed drawing skills of talented individuals. The best designers are the ones who push the silhouette with the pencil and make fabric flow through the brush. Drawing is the most authentic opening into a designer’s mind. Through a glass table, Lee McQueen illustrates looks from 2003’s ‘Scanners’ and ‘Irere’ shows. As the picture completes, the subject is eclipsed by moving image from the catwalk.
4. Tim Walker - Lady Grey
We are hired as fashion voyeurs at a crumbling stately home, Howick Hall, Northumberland. It’s unclear whether the inhabitants, Earl Grey and his scandalous lover of Georgina Duchess of Devonshire are at home, as the models and the Hall have become one being. Stylists, lighting designers and technicians, make-up artists, hairdressers, wardrobe managers, and runners and the photographer, uncover scenes in reciprocal times.
As morning light floods the room, we sense the many hours it took the team to construct the fantasy this far. As daylight fades and candles are lit, camaraderie generates perfect images, exalting us to a place beyond tiredness.
5. Levis
In the 1990’s we started living in the space age. Plugging into the telephone socket, we surfed through loud, bouncing, white static noises, into a scene of intellectual freedom. Permission was granted to share films, music, and business. Meeting aliens was possible as the US government planted conspiracies that little green people were already here.
A spaceship flies over Philip K Dick’s suburbia, and lands in a back garden. As would be expected the alien emerges through bright lights, but much to our relief, she looks sexy, savvy and completely at ease in her classic Levi denim jeans.
About Rachel Matthews
Rachael Matthews is a writer, artist and knitter. Her art uses knitted objects through which she aims to shift people's perceptions of textiles. Rachael teaches in London at Central Saint Martins and is a 'Brother' of the Art Worker's Guild.
http://www.rachaelmatthews.co.uk
EPiK in Fashion
We’ve been making fashion videos since we started making music videos. It’s just that we’re not known for fashion. We want to change that. Music videos and Fashion videos require the same understanding of ideas, what is possible and the same process of production. Find out how we can help you – get in touch by email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.