Raquel Zimmerman dancing awkwardly (and then collapsing and laughing at the end) to Lady Gaga wearing the dress Gareth Pugh made on a live broadcast on Nick Knight’s Showstudio — how adorable can you get? Who doesn’t love this kind of garbage? (The video at the above link of him making the dress is also awesome, if only for the hilarity of some of the music in the background.)
Even though the whole “democritization of fashion” means I have access to images of the runway you know, about an hour after Anna Wintour does, this sort of low-key, personal, and straight-up fun media is another one of the more awesome side effect of the internets, as well as the accessibility of the “process” and all things “behind the scenes” to those of us that wouldn’t have been able to access ANY of that five to ten years ago.
This interview with Jamie Perlman of Vogue UK and Test Magazine brings up a lot of good points about things like this — sure, the “magazine” and the “editorial spread” are going the way of the dodo, but between all the hoopla about new publishing formats and tablets, and the very recent ability to create and distribute high-quality video media for very, very little money — I think it’s really “exciting” watching how “fashion” is “adapting” to “new media,” which I still can’t say without laughing or using irony quotes, but I mean, seriously, lots of cool stuff going on.
Both media outlets and designers have done so much rad shit in the past year — Rad Hourani showed off his diffusion line in a video; Santa Lolla’s promo video with Jessica Stam ; Twin Magazine’s behind-the-scenes video of a shoot Freja Beha (side note: let’s all take a moment to collectively drool there) ; Purple Fashion’s absurd Diary; Metal Magazine’s strange Happy New Year video; Herve Leger using Lissy Trullie’s Richard-Kern-directed music video as a showcase for their collection, McQueen’s live broadcast of the lobstersaurus-claw-shoes-SS10-show, Cass Bird’s film for Sophomore’s lookbook… the list (and that’s just of media I can think of off the top of my head in a few minutes like that) goes on and on, and unlike so much of what I’d witnessed in the music industry (I’m not even going to get into that OK Go debacle) it’s all, for the most part, actually really rad and creative and for the most part embraces changes rather than desperately and hopelessly trying to dam the inevitable flood. Though there have been, of course, some blunders — houses throwing lil’ fits over leaked ad campaigns (O NOEZ FREE IMPRESSIONS!!!) and the fact that it’s only this year that FWs are full of blogger love (PS, anyone else going to Chictopia10 or the IFB conference??)
But as I’ve said a billion times before, this general progression instead of frantic paralysis is probably is mostly due to the fact that while newsmedia and magazines are collapsing left and right, the actual industry of fashion isn’t as threatened by technology — until we can all walk around naked or I can download a pair of Kirkwoods, the business of making and selling clothes isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. (Whereas in music, the main source of revenue for the entire industry is trasmissible digitally, for free. Hence, you know, the past DECADE OF APOCALYPSE.)
