LONDON, United Kingdom – As four weeks of fashion shows came to a close last week in Paris, it was hard to believe it had only been a month since the start of a fashion week season that had many designers, editors and buyers holding their breath. Thankfully, optimism reigned supreme as the industry finally got its groove back.

But even before the regular jam-packed four week fashion marathon was Fashion’s Night Out — possibly the biggest global fashion extravaganza ever­. This was followed by a month full of magazine and book launches, the U.S. Coco Avant Chanel film premiere, and the debut of perhaps the most anticipated high street fashion line ever, J+ by Jil Sander for Uniqlo.  The fashion pack is understandably exhausted.

Lucky for you, we at the BoF have been scouring the shows, talking to CEOs, observing the front rows and getting the skinny on all the important news and market trends over the past month. So, in what has now become a seasonal tradition, here is our take on Spring/Summer 2010, the season that was.

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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.

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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.

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