Pugh’s second fashion film for Autumn Winter 2009/10 oscillates between notions of gender, other worlds and fragmented preconceptions. The key visual elements that Pugh embraces in this film are wind, movement and ink. The beauty of these natural elements is in stark contrast to the figure that comprises an unnatural and alienated sensibility through her robotic and repetitive movements. This is Pugh’s way of juxtaposing the real and the artificial. We are introduced the female figure as if she were a fetishised doll. She wears a cage-like body-con top that fully exposes her breasts, to which she is clutching. Later on we see this costume again but what previously looked like a full-length skirt is actually revealed as billowing low-crotch pants. This is interesting as it highlights a blurring between gender specific visuals. Whilst the female model parades forward with a posture that would indicate that of a power-woman, through computer editing she becomes sliced, at the waist, the knees, the chest and the neck. Her body becomes broken. Graphic editing presents robotic and fragmented distortions. Preconceptions about gender and the body are obliterated in this metaphorical effort to fragment consumer ideals. Pugh persists with this idea of gender blurring throughout the duration of the film. We encounter the naked body and its silhouette a few times, but it is ambiguous amongst the bleeding ink that swallows it.
With much of the film having been edited resembling a sophisticated mash-up whereby frames repeat themselves over and over again, the overall effect is closely associated with the whole Youtube phenomenon and of course the notion of digital narcissism. It is a surreal fantasy world of fashion fuelled by technology. Pugh takes this further by looking at it in terms of other worldliness and alienation. We are presented with a figure whose costume inflates and rises up, as if to mimic a spaceship. This is further exaggerated with space-ship sounds in the complementary audio compilation. Perhaps Pugh has done this to emphasize the ugly irony of an isolated cyber reality. The film’s visuals maintain pace in tune with the electronic rhythm of the complimentary audio beat, consisting of clanging, echoing voices, winding sounds, fluttering of wings and space ships. The entire experience feels closely related to the unnatural world. However there still remains a beauty in the clothing itself and its behaviour with the body (including movement), which is where the spectacularity of the clothing becomes relevant in the realms of the film.
Gareth Pugh Skips Runway, Screens Film
By Christina Binkley
For those of us who have wondered, now we know for sure: Nope, a runway show isn’t necessary. The British fashion designer Gareth Pugh made that clear when he invited a room full of fashion-goers to his latest film.
The film, directed by Ruth Hogben, was Mr. Pugh’s revolutionary statement about the future of fashion marketing. Instead of a catwalk show, he issued a statement: “I really want to present my clothes to a wider audience and in a more freeing and interesting context than a standard fashion show,” he said.
He added that fashion film should be a “modern alternative” to live catwalk events.
He also said that film enables him to “regain total artistic and creative freedom.”
His 10-minute dialogue-less film featured model Kristen McMenamy wearing several sets of Gareth Pugh looks and striking a variety of poses and stretches that can be summed up as … trying really hard to be artistic.
Computer graphics enhanced this with repeats and other effects. Avatar, it wasn’t. In fact, it took neither fashion nor film anywhere they haven’t already been in the past decade.
Still, given that it’s fashion week in Paris, the fashion-goers arrived expecting to attend a fashion show. They sat, pens and cameras at the ready. And when the film started after the requisite half-hour waiting period (which usually goes to get make-up and clothing on the last models, but in this case seemed just a nod to tradition), they scribbled notes and shot pictures anyway. Just for the honest record, so did I.
But we still haven’t seen Mr. Pugh’s clothes.
SEPTEMBER 29, 2010, 8:24 PM ET
The Wall Street Journal
Link: http://blogs.wsj.com/runway/2010/09/29/gareth-pugh-skips-runway-for-film/, viewed 25 June 2011
INSENSATE
GARETH PUGH, NICK KNIGHT, AND RUTH HOGBEN
Inspired by the sinister, serpentine illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley, Insensate showcases the brutal geometry and raw creative fire of Gareth Pugh's Autumn/Winter 2008-09 collection to truly bewitching effect. Created alongside an editorial for August 2008 Dazed & Confused, this film conjuring a macabre phantasmagoria that unfurls before your eyes like a chilling but beautiful bloom.
2008
ShowStudio
Link: http://showstudio.com/project/fashionfilm/insensate viewed 25 March 2011
The term ‘phantasmagoria’ links Pugh’s fashion films to early forms of the moving image. In 1802, Philipstal’s Phantasmagoria in London held the famous magic lantern shows in which early forms of moving images haunted audiences with optical illusions, darkness and unexpected disappearing/reappearing acts. Similarly we see the exact same cinematic techniques reoccur in all of Pugh’s fashion films. Dramatic visual display and deception are at the forefront of his chilling creations.
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