New Rodarte movie travels to Paris for new Fashion Film Festival

“Fashion film” is a genre which not too long ago was barely on the radar and is now booming! The launch of “A Shaded View on Fashion Festival”, the newest fashion film festival, will open Paris Fashion Week this weekend and is the new “must-attend” for editors and buyers and the new “must-submit” for every fashion house and designer. Festival creator, Diane Pernet has defined “fashion film” into 3 categories: music videos, commissioned works by designers and film inspired by clothes, and made independent of the brand. Diane Pernett is co-editor in chief of Zoo magazine and runs the only recognized fashion film website, A Shaded View on Fashion.

VOX HUMANA directed by Griffin for Rodarte Featuring Jenny Lewis, Kenneth Anger and Jonathan Rice.

“Fashion film in 2010 is what music videos where in 1983″ says Griffin of PRESENT FUTURE FILMS‏, and director of Rodarte’s 2008 video. Watch it on Griffin’s website http://www.presentfuture.net/. Griffin is en route to Paris today to represent the film in Diane’s festival for Rodarte’s designers, Kate and Laura Mulleavy. Rodarte’s film is meant to represent the darker turn they took for their fall ‘08 which was inspired by Japanese horror films. (3:32 mins)

The three day film festival opens Paris Fashion Week for the second year in a row and is called “A Shaded View On Fashion Film“. Griffin’s film, “Vox Humana”, stars L.A. Native Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley fame and has a special cameo from another L.A. Native, Kenneth Anger who is also a legendary avant garde filmmaker. Rodarte is one of several major brands to be recognized in the festival for their participation in the new genre. Others include Gucci, House of Waris, MATTHEW WILLIAMSON/H&M (which stars Eva Herzigova & Vincent Gallo), Gareth Pugh, Galeries Lafayette, Sergio Rossi, MAC Cosmetics, Rick Owens, Jeremy Scott, Yohji Yamamoto and oddly enough – Wonderbra. *(all videos can be viewed here)

GARETH PUGH AW09 directed by Ruth Hogben for Gareth Pugh

MAC KITTY directed by Floria Sigismondi for MAC Cosmetics

SCIENCE OF SEXY directed by Ali Mahdavi for Wonderbra

The Wonderbra film stars Dita Von Teese, who just had a party in London last night to launch the “Party Edition” bra. The film shows a bunch of scientists all looking for the cure under microscopes and then Dita comes in with lab coat and snakeskin Louboutins to solve the crucial problem. (2:16 mins)

Griffin’s Rodarte film was also just shown at Nick Knight’s “Fashion Revolution SHOWstudio exhibition,” which closed British Fashion Week, and will run through the end of the year, Dec 20, 2009. Photographer Nick Knight has worked with Vogue, Kate Moss, Dior, etc. and also runs the fashion/photography website SHOWstudio.com. Nick Knight is another name to watch in fashion film. A popular piece from Nick Knights’ show is his Brad Pitt short film in which Brad violently throws paint on a blow-up wall photo of himself and reads poetry.

Guests arrive at Nick Knight’s “Fashion Revolution SHOWstudio exhibition” in London September 23, 2009
Left to Right: Nick Knight with Naomi Campbell, model Lily Donaldson, Robert Konjic with Julia Restin-Roitfeld

“Flora by Gucci”, directed by Chris Cunningham and starring Gucci model Abbey Lee was also selected in Diane Pernet’s upcoming fashion. Chris is an English music video film director and video artist who is most famous for his work with the the late Stanley Kubrick on the then-unfinished project A.I., which was picked up by Steven Speilberg. (1 min)

Fashion brand “House of Waris” designer, Waris Ahluwalia, directed his own video “Omina Vincit Amor,” which was selected for consideration in Diane Pernet’s film festival as well. Waris based the film on a journey into the old world as he explores his love of gold.

Fashion film began in the 60s with pioneering projects like William Klein’s Qui Etes Vous Polly MagGoo and William Claxton’s Basic Black starring Peggy Moffitt (not on my youtube playlist, view here) and trend offers viewers an ever deeper level of insight into the artistic side of fashion. Nick Knight, along with fashion designer Alexander Mcqueen, have done loads of fashion film collaboration. The genre has lurked in the cult and industry depths of art but is now receiving it’s place in the fashion industry spotlight -perhaps largely due only to the recent financial crisis which has made the less expensive forum more appealing than a full-blown show or a traditional print campaign.

William Klein’s Qui Etes Vous Polly MagGoo

“Basic Black: William Claxton w/ Peggy Moffitt,” 1967

Last spring, many shows were canceled and scaled back due to the recession. Balleniaga moved their show to the Hotel de Crillon, Karl Lagerfeld showed his pre-fall Moscow/Paris collection in a theatre and created his first ever silent short play to play behind the handful of models who walked through the intimate gathering.

Some designers skipped the show all together, opting for stand alone films that ran at parties or showings as we saw from Montcler in the basement of the old Paris Opera house, and this fall, Marchesa continued the trend with another gellery-esque “showing” with statue-esque models simply posed at the Chelsea Museum.

The trend of film in fashion is further being popularized by Chanel No.5’s recent mini-film, starring Aurdey Tautou, that shows her searching for, and finally finding, her lost lover on an old fashion train.

Dior has also commissioned a 4-part mini-series, each set in a different city, starting with “Lady Dior Paris,” which is pure Hitchcock, and features the iconic Lady Dior handbag, and the Oscar-winning Marion Cotillard.

Earlier this year, Roman Polanski & Italian performance artist Francesco Vezzoli put out a faux ad based on the non-existent perfume “Greed” with Natalie Portman and Michelle Williams having a cat fight over the fake item. The film is meant to accentuate the problem with vanity.

David Lynch, who can always be counted on to support the merging worlds of weird and lovely, shot a mini-film for Gucci’s real perfume in 2007, featuring models Raquel Zimmerman, Natasha Poly and Freja Beha Erichsen, who are shot to the sound of ‘Heart of Glass’ by Blondie.

Tom Ford could have had an edge into the coming genre as he, himself, is an aspiring director. This year, we will be able to see his first try at film in “A Single Man” starring Colin Firth, Julianne Moore and Ginnifer Goodwin. The stylized suspense drama follows a widowed man around Los Angeles for a day and was screened at the Venice film festival this summer and opens in theatres soon.

Opening Ceremony recently jumped on the bandwagon for their store opening Tokyo, with three short films starring Jason Schwartzman, Chloë Sevigny and Jena Malone directed by M Blash & Gus Van Sant.

“Starring” by designer Jeremy Scott – which was in Diane’s festival last year – is inspired by TV soap operas and the gorgeous women who inhabit them, featuring Asia Argento, Tori Spelling, Lisa Marie, China Chow, Amber Valletta, Liz Goldwyn, & Monet Mazur.

MORE ABOUT RODARTE’S FASHION FILM DIRECTOR GRIFFIN:
Griffin is a director and producer, who has worked in Tokyo, Los Angeles, Mexico City and points between for the past 10 years. Griffin is in the process of developing two features film project which he will direct and produce, one about Mexico City, and the second written by the creator and editor of dune magazine, Charlie Brown (Fumihiro Hayashi). Currently, Griffin is working as one of the curators and producers of the 42 x 42 onedreamrush film festival as well as directing his own short film for the festival. 42 Filmmakers make 42 second films for 42 Below spirits. Griffin wrangled shorts films submissions from David Lynch, Kenneth Anger, Sean Lennnon, actor James Franco, and Harmony Korine. Griffin also produced The Harmony Book in conjunction with American Rag Cie. to showcase a select group of artists, designers and eccentrics based in Los Angeles.

Watch the 42 x 42 onedreamrush film festival trailer: