Stretching our live fashion broadcast series to its ultimate conclusion, we will be staging a twenty-four hour, interactive shoot this July in collaboration with the definitive prestige fashion house of the moment, Yves Saint Laurent. Showcasing the brand’s forthcoming ‘Edition 24’ collection, the event will be staged to create a catalogue and film featuring looks styled on SHOWstudio by Head Designer of Yves Saint Laurent, Stefano Pilati himself and filmed by Nick Knight.
SHOWstudio is offering you, the viewer, a unique chance to be involved in structuring the event and ultimately, the catalogue and film. We are currently casting a model or actress to act out a sequential story that will span the twenty-four hours: what we need from you is assistance with the ‘screenplay’.
Below you will find scenarios for four acts –a hotel room, a plane, a studio and a cocktail bar- each of which will encompass six scenes that represent six hours of the model/actress's day. SHOWstudio has given each hour a nominal title as a prompt for viewers to write a potential treatment for what will happen between that title and the next. We have written a draft first entry to get you started, but feel free to write an alternative using the Submission Form opposite.
To give our Set Designer adequate time to design a set and props around the requirements, you have until Friday 6 July to submit your treatments. We will be posting submissions intermittently as they come in. SHOWstudio will then review them, choose their favourite entries and then refine them to make sure they are consistent from hour to hour. All writers whose work is used will be credited in the final film.
Length
We imagine that the images for the catalogue will be drawn from film footage, which will reduce ‘set up time’ for each shot. Nevertheless, the final film needs to be edited down to 5-10 minutes, which means the action occurring in each scene needs to be concise and focused. We welcome dialogue but remember to make it brief.
Tone/Background Information
The house of Yves Saint Laurent was founded on a bold philosophy of transforming contemporary street and ethnic cultures into luxury couture via extraordinary cutting and tailoring skills. Above all, its designs are associated with the intellectual, politicized and sexually liberated women who first wore his Rive Gauche Ready-to-Wear line after it was launched in 1966, including Talitha Pol-Getty, Loulou de la Falaise and Catherine Deneuve.
Though now regarded as a venerable, traditional house, Yves Saint Laurent has a history of engaging with experimental new technology: it was the first Couturier to show his Haute Couture show live on the Internet, the same year he stepped down as head designer of the house. Since taking over as Head Designer in 1994, Stefano Pilati has endeavoured to preserve the brand’s progressive spirit, constantly exploring new ways to question luxury clothing and imbue it with subversive contemporaneity.
Nick Knight is taking the Nouvelle Vague films of the period that the house of YSL was founded as a visual starting point for the shoot. The aesthetic of Jean Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut’s work –as well as its episodic structuring, graphics and political and philosophical content – will inform the overarching look of the film.
ACT I: HOTEL ROOM
Scene 1: 07:00 - Wake Up Call
A few shafts of light fall across a bed to reveal a woman, partly concealed by her eiderdown, wearing a man’s white shirt and an eyemask. She is woken by her mobile phone. Ringer plays Theme from Dallas. She peeks under her mask at the screen and lets it snap back on her face as she answers, still lying in bed.
[Model]: What time is it?
(Inaudible answer)
[Model]: Ugh, I’ve still another hour until I ordered room service.
(Inaudible answer)
[Model]: Really? What time are they arriving?
(Inaudible answer)
[Model]: Ten? Right. I’d better get showered then. And when are they arriving for the interview?
(Inaudible answer)
[Model]: Ok, could you e-mail me through the questions so I can have a think about them then? Would you also change my seating allocation this afternoon so I’m further forward and have an aisle seat?
(Inaudible answer)
[Model]: Thanks for sorting that out then. You’ll smooth over what happened last night, won’t you? Maybe send some flowers.
(Inaudible answer)
[Model]: Speak later.
She switches off her mobile and peels off her mask as she walks into the bathroom.