Hermès wins on the video front once again this season, with the recent launch of a creative and quirky menswear campaign starring Ballet de l’Opéra National de Paris dancer Jérémie Bélingard.
Directed by Romain Laurent, the 60-second spot – called Man on the Move – sees Bélingard walking around an “urban playground”, as he does so automatically transforming from one outfit to the next.
Like a fashionable shafeshifter, when he bumps into a lamppost, his jacket and granddad-collar shirt are replaced with a white printed shirt and green trousers; when he hits the wall with the chime of a pinball machine, the green jacket to match those trousers arrives. It’s not long however before that suit gets left behind like a shell of his form as he walks forward once again…
And so the ad continues, cleverly placing numerous products from the line aside one another, including scarves, bags, and yes, even underwear.
#LiveBeautifully seems an apt hashtag for the latest ad from Lacoste. Created to support the brand’s“Life is a Beautiful Sport” campaign, it’s an arresting 60-second film depicting “a man about to risk it all to win the game of his life”.
That game, it’s suggested, is love. The Big Leap, as the spot itself is called, sees actor Paul Hamy building up the courage to go in for a kiss with model Anna Brewster in one scene, while another (the metaphor) sees him leaping off the side of a building and falling towards the ground until their lips lock.
The film was created by BETC and directed by Seb Edwards. It features “You & Me”, a song by Disclosure featuring Eliza Doolittle remixed by Flume.
It launched in France during the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony, and will be broadcast globally from March 2014 onwards.
Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen is one of several fashion creatives to star in a new ad from Apple, a spot filmed using a series of iPhones over the course of just one day.
1.24.12, as it’s called (for the day it was shot), is a celebration of 30 years of the Macintosh. When the Mac was introduced, it promised to put technology in the hands of the people, Apple says, launching “a generation of innovators who continue to change the world”.
Van Herpen is seen in her Amsterdam studio working on one of her elaborate creations at about 43 seconds in. While many fashion designers work on a Mac these days, she is one of a few who also turns her ideas into reality using a 3D printer.
“Iris van Herpen initially saw the computer as a strictly two-dimensional environment. For someone who often begins the creative process by sketching on a mannequin, that wouldn’t work. But when she discovered 3D printing, everything changed,” reads the write-up on the Apple website, where a timeline has been created documenting creativity for the past 30 years.
Van Herpen is included under the heading for 2014 on the site, but two further dates are also relevant to the fashion industry.
1996 is dedicated to Tinker Hatfield, who is the designer behind many of Nike’s most popular shoes. He said the Mac enabled him to experiment more freely in terms of different materials, contours and patterns, and to see all his designs instantly. “Apple gave us this amazing tool and a new way to do things. It was a little crazy, yet satisfying and liberating at the same time,” he is quoted.
The year 2000 is then focused on photographer Nick Knight, who created SHOWstudio.com, and in so doing, “changed how people saw fashion”. He pioneered fashion film, and was of course one of the very first to live stream a fashion week show. “I wanted to make fashion accessible to a broader audience. And I wanted to share more than static images,” he says.
Consumers are also invited to share information about when they first owned a Mac and how exactly they have used it, via an interactive portion of the 30 years microsite.
A short documentary about the Mac’s history has also been released, featuring Van Herpen, Hatfield and Knight, among others…
It’s been a bumper start to the week in terms of spring/summer 2014 film releases. Here are five of the big ones:
1. Prada
Prada’s spot sees a bevy of models all acting as spectators at various different events – tennis, the cinema and a gig – so that shortly you realise they, in fact, are the spectacle. It was shot by Steven Meisel.
2. Alexander McQueen
Alexander McQueen’s short film is a haunting narrative starring Kate Moss as an otherworldly woman with sulphur yellow hair. Captured by Steven Klein, it follows the model as she is eerily being filmed by a tatooed stranger. A voodoo doll version of her can also be seen in the spot, and replicated in the print ads.
3. Belstaff
Belstaff’s relationship with David Beckham makes headway with a 90-second spot set in the English countryside. The star is seen zipping through fields on a motorcycle alongside friends “with a shared thirst for adventure”. It was shot by Hopi Allard, while the full campaign was captured by Peter Lindbergh.
4. Lanvin
Lanvin has captured sounds from its spring/summer shoot and overlaid them on its seasonal campaign film. Whisperings such as: “I think it is one of the most exceptional things I’ve ever tried,” and: “It’s my finest work,” can all be heard. Steven Meisel is also behind this one, with creative direction from House and Holme’s Ronnie Newhouse and Stephen Wolstenholme.
5. Miu Miu
Miu Miu’s is a personal favourite. Launched at the end of last week, it stars young actresses Elle Fanning, Bella Heathcote, Lupita Nyong’o and Elizabeth Olsen in what’s referred to as a “techno interpretation of the SS14 collection”. Inspired by video game speed and sounds, it was directed by Inez & Vinoodh, and edited by Otto Arsenault.
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