FASHION FILM X SHOWSTUDIO Curated by Raquel Couceiro

SHOWstudio is an award-winning fashion website, founded and directed by Nick Knight, that has consistently pushed the boundaries of communicating fashion online.

Established in November 2000, SHOWstudio’s innovative and ground-breaking projects have defined the manner in which fashion is presented via the Internet. SHOWstudio has pioneered fashion film and is now recognised as the leading force behind this new medium, offering a unique platform to nurture and encourage fashion to engage with moving image in the digital age.

SHOWstudio collaborates with some of the most influential and acclaimed figures of contemporary fashion, including John Galliano, , Rick Owens, Comme des Garçons and Alexander McQueen. Alongside these established names, SHOWstudio has also supported and nurtured emerging talent, including Giles Deacon, Gareth Pugh, Rodarte and Mary Katrantzou, offering exciting new designers an important global showcase for creative expression. SHOWstudio has also worked with pop culture icons and creatives from the world of art, music and film including Tracey Emin, Björk, Brad Pitt, Lady Gaga and Kanye West.

For the festival, SHOWstudio has chosen eleven fashion films spanning the years 2000 to 2018. The selection acts as an overview of the journey - and works - which have come to define fashion film as a medium.

NICK KNIGHT, ‘SWEET’, 2000 Believing fashion to be intrinsically political, from December http://showstudio.com/project/sweet/film 2007 through summer 2008 Nick Knight staged a multi-level Stylist Jane How recreated her favourite looks of Spring / film and essay project titled ‘Political Fashion’ , encouraging Summer 2000 from sweet papers, cupcake wrappers and creatives to use the medium of fashion to convey their political doilies, Nick Knight recording the result on a 3-D scanner. A beliefs, agendas and thoughts. Contributors include Beth technological exploration of the frontiers of fashion imagery, Ditto, Gareth Pugh, , Steven Klein, Vanessa presented here through fashion film. Friedman and Vivienne Westwood. “Photography, along with the other arts, is communication. NICK KNIGHT, ‘SHOOT’, 2003 And if you’re communicating you should have something to Contextualising the Spring/Summer 2003 haute couture say. If you’re in the privileged position of doing a global collections as photographed for W magazine, ‘SHOOT’ proves advertising campaign or if your work is on the back of every that couture is far more than just dresses. Treating the studio magazine, on every bus stop, every billboard and in every shop as a blank canvas upon which surreal fashion performances window in every city worldwide, it’s an enormous audience could be staged, this fashion film shows the influence and you’re talking to. The idea that you’re not saying anything with machinations of the world of big business these talismanic this opportunity seems a waste. In this ‘Political Fashion’ film garments ultimately represent. project, I’m really looking to encourage people to say something with the voice they’ve been given; to realise the possibilities KATE MOSS, ‘MOVING FASHION’, 2005 that they have at their fingertips and the absurdity of not The printed page has determined the way fashion looks since using them.” - Nick Knight women’s magazines were first introduced. Nick Knight’s key motivation for founding SHOWstudio was to investigate the NICK KNIGHT, ‘TO LEE, WITH LOVE, NICK’, 2010 representation of clothing through sound and motion; perhaps ‘This film is my way of speaking about a very unique and the last great challenge in fashion image making. ‘Moving important person who changed my life. My desire was to Fashion’ aimed to exploit this exciting new opportunity through speak in some way about the dark and the light contained an in-depth study of fashion film. within Lee, and within us all.’ - Nick Knight “When a designer produces a piece of clothing it is to be seen in movement. Over the years, I think designers have NICK KNIGHT, ‘DYNAMIC BLOOMS’, 2011 had to accept that’s not how their clothes would be seen. Colliding contemporary dance, abstract blooms and fashion, Hitherto, fashion has almost solely been represented by the still Nick Knight and Alister Mackie transformed contemporary image. To some degree, I would argue, this has compromised fashion into breathtaking modern flowers for AnOther the representation of fashion. But with the advent of the magazine’s Spring/Summer 2011 issue. Alongside Knight’s Internet, the garment can now be shown in the way that it editorial, a unique fashion film created by Tell No One brings was intended.” Nick Knight the incredible fashion and inspirations behind the shoot to life.

MARCUS WERNER-HED ‘THE RED SHOES’, 2008 FASHION FILM X SHOWSTUDIO Curated by Raquel Couceiro

PHILLIP TREACY & NICK KNIGHT, ‘HATSTAND’, 2012 NICK KNIGHT ‘GARETH PUGH S/S 18’ In September 2012 Philip Treacy made an explosive return This is not a show.’ Nick Knight and Gareth Pugh offer an to London Fashion Week with a star-studded Swarovski- exclusive visual insight into Pugh’s S/S 18 collection presented sponsored show featuring black models clad in outfits from here as fashion film. In collaboration with philosophical artist Michael Jackson’s stage wardrobe and amazing, gravity-defying Olivier de Sagazan, Pugh explores the extremities offered by headwear. To celebrate the fierce attitudes and fabulous the elements and the raw physicality of humanity. fashion on show, Nick Knight and Ruth Hogben collaborate on Nick Knight and Gareth Pugh continue their longstanding ‘Hatstand’, an energizing film starring Grace Bol. friendship with a film that expresses the intensities of Pugh’s collection for S/S 18, as conceptualised by Knight, Pugh and NICK KNIGHT ‘BEATSXEE25’ 2016 Carson McColl. French philosophical artist Olivier de Sagazan Beats collaborate with Nick Knight and SHOWstudio to present interacts with Pugh on both a physical and cerebral plane, The Seven Deadly Sins of Edward Enninful, a film honouring pushing the boundaries of fashion imagery in their collaborative 25 years of fashion by the acclaimed stylist. Featuring seven work with clay, water and paint. sins, seven colours, seven sounds and eight top models - naturally, gluttony demanded two - the film is a celebration NICK KNIGHT ‘BRIGHTON SORTS’ 2018 is a celebration of both Enninful’s illustrious career and the Britt Lloyd’s fashion film, ‘Brighton Sorts’ draws on Nick interplay between fashion and music. It stars Maria Carla Knight’s April 2018 editorial for , inspired by Boscono, Naomi Campbell, , , Anna Skinhead girls or ‘sorts’. Adwoa Aboah, Jazzelle Zanaughtti Ewers, , Kate Moss and in clothing and Lina Hoss, the stars of Knight’s editorial, are captured selected by Enninful. in motion by Lloyd’s lens as they lark about the streets of A range of designers are featured, from established labels Brighton. such as Celine, Maison Margiela, Alexander McQueen, Prada In 1982, Nick Knight’s debut publication, Skinhead, launched and Yohji Yamamoto to emerging talents such as Marques his photographic career. This now-iconic document presents a Almeida and Vetements. vision of Skinhead culture in the eighties as seen by Knight’s The soundtrack has been hand selected by Beats and unflinching lens. This series contextualises Knight’s artistic encompasses artists who represent the future of music. trajectory and has inspired and influenced his work to come. Featured songs are Bury Me by Brodinski ft. Maluca & Bricc Skipping forward to 2017, British Vogue hired Knight’s longtime Baby Shitro, New Level by A$AP Ferg [ft. Future], Sticky collaborator Edward Enninful as their new Editor-in-Chief - a Drama by Oneohtrix Point Never, Gosh by Jamie XX, Have move hailed by the industry as the coming of a ‘New Vogue’. Mercy by Eryn Allen Kane, Girl by The Internet [ft. Kaytranada] For his debut work in Enninful’s new Vogue, Knight looked and Bout the Business by Hopsin. The work also features a back to the subculture that first inspired him, shooting three narration by Travis Scott. On the 29 January 2016 the film models who embody a modern take on the spirit and scene was released on the ultimate big screen - the Beats billboard of Skinheads. in Times Square, New York.

NICK KNIGHT, ‘UP’, 2016 Nick Knight’s vision of current and contemporary fashion is reflected in ‘Up’, fashion film created for the 2016 British Fashion Awards. Emphasising both strength and delicacy, intimacy and discordance, this pair of films celebrate the freedom and diversity that Knight consistently promotes through his work. Both works are set to tracks from rapper Travis Scott. Work by designers of the moment such as Molly Goddard, Nasir Mazhar, Hood By Air, Givenchy and Balenciaga is celebrated in these freewheeling, vibrant pieces of moving image. Nick Knight’s vision of current and contemporary fashion is reflected in ‘Up’, edited by SHOWstudio’s Raquel Couceiro. Created especially for the 2016 British Fashion Awards. Emphasising both strength and delicacy, intimacy and discordance, this film celebrates the diversity and spirit that Knight consistently promotes through his work.