Birds Eye View: Fashion & the Moving Image
Founded in 2002, Birds Eye View is the UK's first major women's film festival. Recognising the growing medium of 'fashion film', the festival launched a fashion strand for the first time last year. Following its successful debut, this year's impressive 12-strong selection curated by Kathryn Ferguson, highlighted the sheer volume of fashion film created in the past year. Reflecting SHOWstudio's continued commitment to promoting this new medium, a number of the films on show were ones drawn from our own Archive, namely Toyin's Eyes of the Beholder, Soma Holiday from last year's Future Tense series and fresh from its highly-acclaimed Paris Fashion Week debut last week, Ruth Hogben's Gareth Pugh A/W '09.
Both Ruth and myself were invited to join the panel discussion after the screening, alongside Kathryn (also a filmmaker, she showed her recent short for designer Erika Trotzig), Sarah Chatfield who co-directed a series of seven short films for the Yves Saint Laurent Menswear Spring/Summer 2009 collection and Monika Elkelv who co-directed a short for British designer Hannah Marshall to showcase her Autumn/Winter 2009 collection. Held at the ICA last night, the lively panel discussion was captured by the SHOWstudio film crew and will be launched in coming weeks.