LONDON, United Kingdom — Last night on X-Factor, one of the most popular shows in British television history, Lady Gaga laid down the digital pop star gauntlet again, dressed in Gareth Pugh’s fantastical creations from Spring/Summer 2007 while performing Bad Romance, the first release from her second album The Fame Monster. The song originally debuted at the seminal show of the Spring/Summer 2010 collections staged by Alexander McQueen. As was widely reported at the time, when Ms. Gaga announced the song’s debut to her more than 1 million Twitter followers, it promptly crashed the SHOWStudio site which was live-streaming the McQueen show.

Since then, Gaga has performed Bad Romance at the American Music Awards, the Ellen Degeneres Show, the Jay Leno Show, and now X-Factor, reaching millions of viewers around the world. But even more interestingly, she has gone beyond the typical old media promotion circuit, using the internet to create viral interest in her music and day-to-day antics.

The results are impressive to say the least. Since the Bad Romance video was launched on YouTube on November 10th, it has been viewed more than 30 million times. To put that into perspective, Madonna’s current single, Celebration, has only been viewed 1 million times since it debuted on YouTube on October 14th. In total, Lady Gaga’s videos have been viewed more than 500 million times on YouTube, the equivalent of almost 40 appearances on X-Factor, which attracted an estimated 13 million viewers yesterday evening.

It’s no wonder that Forbes Magazine recently declared that “Lady Gaga isn’t the music industry’s new Madonna. She’s its new business model.” However, what the Forbes article failed to note is that Lady Gaga may very well be revolutionising the fashion business as well.

… Continue Reading

Screenshot from David David fashion film | Source: David David

NEW YORK, United States — Fashion film was everywhere this season. Emerging and established designers alike dreamt up new ways to use the medium, proving it to be an increasingly powerful and flexible format for capturing, heightening and transmitting the energy of the collections.

In New York, designers Gareth Pugh and Tim Hamilton presented films that acted as prequels and sequels to their respective Paris runway shows, extending their presence across multiple fashion capitals. While in London, DAVID DAVID presented a series of clean and cost-effective films in lieu of an expensive runway show, Richard Nicoll showed a haunting short to introduce his catwalk outing, and luxury knitwear manufacturers Pringle of Scotland returned to London Fashion Week with a beautiful film featuring Tilda Swinton.

Fashion film was a powerful force in Paris, as well. Alexander McQueen integrated film into his visionary, technology-infused show, creating a heightened, multimedia experience for the editors and buyers in attendance, while beaming the spectacle to the world via twin robotic cameras and a link up with Nick Knight’s website SHOWstudio.

Fashion film also made an appearance alongside the collections. In a timely homage to an early pioneer, Parisian department store Le Bon Marché held a beautifully installed exhibition titled “Guy Bourdin: ses films.” Meanwhile, across the Seine at the Palais de Tokyo, fashion blogger Diane Pernet staged her second annual fashion film festival, screening recent films by Steven Klein, Nick Knight and others.

What follows is a BoF Best of the Season selection of what we think were the most innovative and captivating fashion films (and fashion film happenings) we saw this season. (RSS and Email subscribers, click here to view the films).

… Continue Reading

Gareth Pugh Spring Summer 2010 Film Installation

NEW YORK, United States — In recent seasons, digital fashion film has been gaining momentum as an emotionally charged and cost-effective presentation format. But this season is the first time designers have started using film in a way that tightly complements their runway shows and lets them extend their presence across multiple fashion weeks, in different geographic markets.

Yesterday evening, English enfant terrible Gareth Pugh, who has been showing in Paris for the last two seasons, established his first presence at New York Fashion Week by showing not one, but four short films. Created in collaboration with fashion filmmaker Ruth Hogben, the films set the tone and outlined the inspirations for Pugh’s upcoming Spring Summer 2010 collection to be unveiled on the Paris catwalks in early October.

After speaking with Ruth about her previous films for Gareth, I was especially excited to see what the two had dreamt up. Their stunning installation did not disappoint.

… Continue Reading

Watch in High Quality at SHOWstudio.com

LONDON, United Kingdom — Digital fashion film has gained real momentum over the last couple of seasons. Using sound and movement to communicate fashion in a way that’s emotionally charged, cost-effective and easily distributed, the format has been adopted for online editorial and fashion week presentations alike. But it’s important to remember that new formats are only as successful as the image-makers and stylists who embrace and sustain them with their creativity.

Over the last year, on the strength of two breakthrough films for Gareth Pugh, London-based Ruth Hogben has emerged as one of the most influential and passionate young filmmakers working in fashion film today. It’s a genre she helped to pioneer while assisting Nick Knight between 2005 and February 2009, both as his first photographic assistant and editor of his fashion film projects for SHOWstudio.

With her third major film — a short for Christopher Kane’s highly anticipated new Topshop collection — due to launch during London Fashion Week, BoF recently caught up with Ruth to talk about her first experiments in film, the power of sound and movement, balancing concept with clothes, the importance of the internet, and her hopes for the future of fashion film.

… Continue Reading