Last night was the second annual New York Fashion Film Festival, which consisted of a public screening and panel to honor and discuss the past year’s top shorts and the strides that are being made in this ever-growing genre.
Fashionistas, artists and fans of fashion films gathered at the SVA Theatre in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood to watch short films from some of the world’s leading fashion brands, many shot by high-fashion photographers like Inez & Vinoodh, Tim Walker and Steven Meisel.
Included in this year’s showing was a mix of both highly popular fashion films — like Lanvin‘s Fall/Winter 2011 film that featured Raquel Zimmerman and Karen Elson dancing to Pitbull as well as Mulberry‘s Fall/Winter 2011 film featuring an excellent soundtrack from Miike Snow – and shorts from lesser-known brands and photographers, such as the two-part film for London-based label A Minute Silence that seemed to pay tribute to the 60s French New Wave film, Who Are You Polly Magoo?.
After the hour-long viewing of the year’s crme de la crme of fashion films, a panel of industry insiders consisting of advertising creative wiz John Jay, T: The New York Times Style Magazine‘s Alix Browne and photographer/director Poppy de Villeneuve discussed some of the highs and lows of the previously viewed shorts, as well as other fashion films from the past year that hadn’t made it into the festival (mainly, Harmony Korine‘s disturbing Snowballs fashion film for Proenza Schouler).
The legendary Glenn O’Brien moderated the night’s discussion and he, along with the panel, managed to tackle a few interesting comments and questions from the crowd with smart, expert responses. One thing that became apparent by the end of the night was that both new and old fans of the fashion film genre were more than eager to share each other’s passion for the vastly under-appreciated form of artwork (or commercialism, depending on who you talk to).
