Believing fashion to be intrinsically political, Nick Knight is staging a multi-level film project, encouraging creatives to use the medium of fashion to convey their political beliefs, agendas and thoughts. From the beginning of December 2007, the first stage of 'Political Fashion Films' invites visitors to the SHOWstudio website to submit a film of between 30 seconds and 3 minutes that articulates some kind of political point using fashion. Inkeeping with previous film seasons 'Moving Fashion' and 'Editing Fashion', in February 2008, this invitation will be opened up to a wide selection of fashion industry, art world and celebrity figures, whose Political Fashion Films created to the same brief will also be broadcast on the SHOWstudio website, one film per weekday. The end of the project will be marked by a screening event to be held in London during Spring 2008. All films received before Friday 15 February 2008 will be considered for inclusion.
Helen Storey
A product of a groundbreaking exploration of chemically-fabricated, biodegradable materials by the artist and fashion designer Helen Storey and the scientist Tony Ryan, 'Wonderland' uses fashion as a 'trojan horse' to demonstrate radical scientific findings. From 29 January–29 February 2008, Storey will construct her first fashion collection in 12 years, in front of a live audience. These garments are designed to deconstruct over time in water and this amazing quality will be showcased during the residency, during which time SHOWstudio will document the full process in picture diaries and live webcasts. When the collection is completed, our task will then be to photograph the garments in a live shoot in Spring to document their design and appearance before dissolving them for a film that will showcase their miraculous scientific secret.
Nick Knight/Freja Beha Erichsen
If clothes maketh the man and your purpose is to demonstrate the masculinity of the Spring/Summer '08 womens' collections, then who better to explore their gender-bending potential than androgynous beauty Freja Beha Erichsen?
Nick Knight/Victoria Beckham
Filmed amidst the nuts-and-bolts of the photographic shoot, Showtime is a sneak preview of Nick Knight’s editorial for the April 2008 edition of British Vogue starring the indomitably glamorous Victoria Beckham.
Nick Knight/Natalia Vodianova
In tandem with his shoot for supermodel Natalia V’s guest-edited issue of Russian Vogue, Nick Knight captured a short film featuring the world-famous model doing what she does best.
Yves Saint Laurent
To show his Autumn/Winter 2008 menswear collection for Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, creative director Stefano Pilati broke the mould of the traditional catwalk show by presenting his collection via film. Originally displayed on a triptych of screens, the film plays across three frames of action and is here shown in its entirety. Romantic, ethereal and yet technologically complex, the film manages to evoke the twin dynamics of familiarity and formality and the tension of old and new constantly at play in Pilati’s offerings for men.
Nick Knight/Bernhard Willhelm
The latest designer electing to create a film to showcase his fashion collection, Bernhard Willhelm will be in the studio on Sunday 13th and Monday 14th January 2008 with Nick Knight, creating a movie to be previewed at the Menswear shows in Paris on the 20th of this month. Of course, we can't say too much about the collection, but Bernhard has supplied us with the working title "Men in Tights" so you can draw your own conclusions and tune in from 11:30 to get a load of the nylon and lycra action on set!
Nick Knight/Kate Moss/Jonathan Kaye
Say it with flowers: on 12 & 13 December 2007 we photographed a story for V magazine featuring the one and only Kate Moss. SHOWstudio offered its viewers an unique chance to be part of the shoot by sending a personal floral greeting to Kate.
Nick Knight/Stefano Pilati
A unique chance for SHOWstudio viewers to influence the narrative of a high-end fashion shoot to create a catalogue and film for Yves Saint Laurent’s forthcoming ‘Edition 24’ collection. SHOWstudio is inviting submissions for a twenty-four-scene screenplay that will form the basis of a twenty-four hour, live fashion broadcast, over the night of 15 July, during which Nick Knight and Stefano Pilati will transform your ideas into imagery. The names of those authors selected will be credited in the final film to screen on SHOWstudio and YSL.com!
Showcasing a new genre of amateur print photography that has emerged from South East Asia over the past decade - Purikura- we have invited a Tokyo-based team to interpret the Autumn/Winter collections using nothing more than a souped-up Photo-Me booth. See how photographer Kenji Hirasawa, stylist Takumi Iwata, illustrators Kai Ohta and Yumiko Suzuki envisage model Ayako Hayamizu in looks by Givenchy, Martin Margiela, Balenciaga, Comme des Garcons, Alexander McQueen, Christopher Kane, Christian Dior, Chanel, Prada and Yves Saint Laurent in their own inimitable way in five, fun film shorts that detail the amazing construction of the resultant 'fashion spreads'.
Hussein Chalayan/Nick Knight/Antony Hegarty
To present a collection about the dynamic between icons and their audience Hussein Chalayan is staging a live broadcast of a film shoot in collaboration with Nick Knight, Antony Hegarty and the global SHOWstudio audience. We are soliciting musical directions from SHOWstudio viewers for Antony to perform during the broadcast at the end of September. The resultant footage will create the soundtrack and a film, so it's your big chance to show in Paris at last!
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Nick Knight/Alister Mackie
Invited by Another Man magazine to shoot men’s underwear for its A/W '07–08 issue, Nick Knight and Alister Mackie took inspiration from imagery Robert Mapplethorpe and Horst P. Horst, only translating the monochrome power of their stills into colour. Featuring new work by a range of designers, the results offer a fresh perspective on men’s underwear, its representation in fashion imagery and on masculinity itself. Boned also features a film of the shoot, an accompanying essay by Shaun Cole and clips and interviews from the live broadcast.
Ross Phillips
An interactive video installation created in collaboration with Evian, The Replenishing Body consists of a giant grid of screens which can each record a short loop of film. Participants can create and orchestrate a giant composite moving creature, or simply a collage of moving snapshots by recording a close-up section of their body part. The Project will comprise two parts. First, guests will be invited to the studio to trial run the installation and film themselves in a series of abstract portraits. To commence the second part of the project, Sunday 16 September will see the installation move to Beyond the Valley gallery on Newburgh Street where SHOWstudio welcomes you to try the installation for yourselves.
For London, Milan and Paris fashion weeks SS’08, Henry Holland and Agyness Deyn gallantly take up the challenge of bearing the SHOWstudio picture phone. The British designer and model who have known each other since childhood juggle a busy schedule of shows and parties in almost a month of live fashion coverage.
AItor Throup/Jez Tozer
Launching simultaneously with his first on-schedule catwalk presentation as part of the MAN showcase at London Fashion Week, watch menswear designer Aitor Throup's film collaboration with photographer Jez Tozer, The Funeral of New Orleans - Part One. A narrative response to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Throup's collection tells the story of how five members of a marching band protect themselves and their instruments, which are interpreted through the cut and structure of the garments. See how Throup's acclaimed research process lends itself to motion image.
Andrew Gow
It has been said that Catalonia’s longstanding separatist identity is best characterised by its offerings to the creative arts. The capital, Barcelona, has been ascribed a design temperament at odds with the rest of Spain – a mixture of ‘Reason and Craziness,’ Seny i Rauxa, that delights in the biomorphic forms of art-nouveau and surrealism yet which maintains an unwavering reputation for technical excellence. Fashion has been central to Barcelona’s mercantile history since the end of the eighteenth century with its textile industry maintaining it as a hub for high quality clothing production. From the 9th to the 11th July Andrew Gow will be there offering coverage of the city's fashion week.
Featuring 651 exhibitors and 760 brands, the Pitti Immagine Uomo show has opened the trading calendar for mens contemporary fashion and textiles for 67 seasons. Writer Hywel Davies was in Florence to report on the exhibition’s highlights as well as to offer coverage on the mens international clothing and accessories collections.
Fred Butler
For the first time SHOWstudio did live coverage of the Arnhem Fashion Biennale, possibly one of the best places in Europe to see what’s happening in the world of art and fashion crossover. The exposition, which took the theme of ‘Happy Fashion’ for 2007, showcased a host of designers, some new, some more established, in a highly unusual ‘multi-sensory’ setting. Art Director Fred Butler was there to send us all her impressions of the event via picture phone.
Viewpoint on the creative legacies of designer Steven Robinson (1968–2007) and fashion director Isabella Blow (1958–2007)
Nick Knight
For the 2007 CFDA Awards, America’s most prestigious fashion awards ceremony, Nick Knight was asked to make a film featuring the nominees for the Best Womenswear Designer category, a list that included Marc Jacobs, Proenza Schouler and Oscar de la Renta. On Friday 20 April SHOWstudio broadcasted the making of the film from a London-based studio, starring model Agyness Deyn who wore creations from each designer’s last two seasons’ collections. The finished film was later shown on the SHOWstudio website at the time of the CFDA awards ceremony in June.