Tag: model

GUCCI KIND: THE SPRING SUMMER 2020 CAMPAIGN FILM

(AD139: VISUAL PROMOTION)

 

As soon as we were briefed on this project, I knew I wanted to do a Fashion Film. It is something that I have always wanted to do and have been passionate about experimenting with.

I started off with studying many of Gucci’s existing Campaign Film’s such as Gucci Bloom, and Gucci Guilty and so on. I love the style and the ambience they have and whilst studying them, I particularly found there were some key aspects that ‘make’ a Gucci campaign film that I loved, and felt were needed to be in keeping with the brand. 

First of all, a lot of the recent campaign films are done by Glen Luchford and I fell in love with his style and the way in which he brought Alessandro Michele’s vision to life. There was also a campaign film done by Petra Collins, who is an artist I have always admired and been influenced by. Together and apart, they make up the aesthetic and mood of what is means to be ‘Gucci’. Therefore, I felt as though it would not have been right, to completely take the feeling and meaning of my Fashion Film in a completely strange and new direction, however I do feel as though, in hind sight, what I created is definitely all mine. 

I love the romantic and calm feeling that Gucci’s campaign films evoke, and they particularly have enticed me into the brand, which is obviously a great thing. I did find however, that although each recent campaign film eludes romance, there hasn’t particularly been a real ‘love story’.

I am someone, that always likes to give a narrative to my work, and whether that is obvious, or hidden beneath the surface I think it is vital when creating something like a campaign film that customers want to buy into. 

Therefore I told the story of a couple who meet and have a summer romance. I liked the idea of having the beginning of the film really calm and cool, and then the whirlwind of love sweeping them up. I also liked the idea of taking influence from old movies where happiness and the dizziness of love was portrayed by a sped up sequence of them running and playing together, therefore I wanted to include this in my film. 

A struggle with the making of my film, was that unfortunately the film crew of two people, myself and Indiana Tarrant, were also the models. This made it a really hard and time consuming project to fulfil. Furthermore, because I only could have myself, who identifies as female, and Indiana Tarrant who identifies as male, I was/am worried that it seems cliché/incorrect to use a heterosexual couple. However, the reasoning I was able to find myself was that because the range is unisex, and the fact that the female (myself), at the end of the video, is then wearing the suit jacket and also the fact that the man (Indiana Tarrant) had long hair, made it viable for them to be a heterosexual couple. However, on reflection, it was not a case of looking back with regret, because there really wasn’t anything I could do considering the time and the people I had around me in the couple of days I managed to go back home for Easter and film this. I do not think however, that the struggle shows too much in the video, and considering it was my first time doing something like this, I am very proud of it. 

Something else that was hard about the making of this campaign film, was the fact that obviously the Spring Summer 2020 collection for ‘Gucci Kind’ doesn’t exist, and therefore it was very tricky trying to find clothes that fitted with not only Gucci’s aesthetic, but the aesthetic I wanted to give my subbrand and also fitted the macro trends I had envisioned for this project. 

Before styling and piecing together the outfits, I did make a rough concept board to help me find the tone I was looking for through colour and fabrics:

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/kynzakendalljon/back-to-nature/

I named it Back to Nature Initially as I knew that that was the essence of what I wanted to create. This was due to the fact that I wanted to not only fit my macro trends, as I mentioned previously, but also work with my manifesto, that states that each collection for Gucci Kind would be in support of and influenced by a charitable organisation. I chose to support Greenpeace.

When it came to editing my Fashion Film, this was where my style shone through more, and the film became a lot less of a Glen Luchford and more of a Kynza. Before editing this film, I had never used Premiere Pro, so I really had to start from scratch and begin to teach myself how to use lots of elements. Lynda.com and youtube were a big help and it really taught me to have initiative when trying to find my way around Premiere Pro. I found that it’s always hard to teach yourself something new, especially when there are other programs that come so naturally. It is difficult to remember that what is now easy, was once really difficult, like Photoshop. 

However, as I watched more tutorials and did more editing, I really got into the flow of it all.

Something that was really important for me to nail, was the colouring of the fashion film as I felt this would be detrimental to the way in which the film is perceived by others. I really wanted muted and soft pastel hues that especially followed the colour palette of my trend board ‘Earth Generation.’ This was an element of the editing process that really took the longest as playing with colour on a system you don’t know is very tricky.

I was really happy, however, with the final outcome of my Fashion Film as I felt that every element of it really fell into place to create the best I could for my first ever fashion film. 

 

References:

Gucci Fashion Films I studied:

Gucci Bloom

Gucci Guilty

Gucci Bamboo – The New Campaign

Gucci Stories: The Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice

Gucci Cruise 2016 – The Director’s Cut

Gucci Spring Summer Campaign Film 2016

 

CREATING A SUBCULTURE

(AD137: PHOTOGRAPHY AND STYLING – SUBCULTURES)

Subculture : ‘A cultural group within a larger culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture.’ (1)

Today, we were set the challenge, of bringing in as many clothes as possible, pairing up and creating 6 different looks, to represent a new subculture with concepts behind them and shoot them.

It may sound easy, however, it seems styling a limited selection of your own clothes in a crazy new way to create a subculture was quite hard.

Our idea was to link each look with the concept of being ‘chained’ to a subculture and then we wanted each look to signify a social issue we wanted to fight against.

So here are the looks and meanings behind them :

Creating a Subculture Contact Sheet

Creating a Subculture Final Selected Images Contact Sheet

  

(Figure 1)                               (Figure 2)                              (Figure 3)

^The monochrome state of    ^The concept was the chain  ^The concept was the chain

being chained to the idea of     that links society to having    that links us to animal

needing to be a part of a          to have a purpose.                abuse and the misuse of

subculture.                                                                             animal products.

  

(Figure 4)                              (Figure 5)                               (Figure 6)

^The concept that schools and the education system         ^The concept was about

aren’t teaching all the right life lessons, such as feminism.   overconsumption.

  

(Figure 7)                              (Figure 8)                               (Figure 9)

^The concept for this look was about the way technology is improving and growing

and that as a society and a world we are so tight chained to it due to the fact that

humanity seems to not be able to function without it.

 

 

stay groovy x x

 

References

(1) “Subculture | Definition Of Subculture In English By Oxford Dictionaries.” Oxford Dictionaries | English, 2017, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/subculture.

Figures

Figure 1-3 & 6 – Styling by Wainam Cheung and Kynza Kendall-Jones and Photography by Kynza Kendall-Jones

Figure 4, 5 & 7-9 – Styling by Wainam Cheung and Kynza Kendall-Jones and Photography by Wainam Cheung

 

Deconstructing The Textured Jumper and Gender Roles, Simultaneously

(AD136 – THE OBJECT)

 

I wanted to defy and question the ‘gender roles’ of today’s society by using current stereotypes, in this case, knitting being a feminine activity. By using the inspiration from the ‘Punk’ trend of deconstruction as anti-fashion, in a time when females still had a predominantly domestic role in the home in comparison to males. I felt the combination of these ideas with the use of male models looking feminine would make a statement saying, “Why are there stereotypes? What really is feminine? Why does it matter?”

Creating the garments:

I carried out many experimentations before I created my deconstructed and reconstructed textured jumpers.

First I got two ‘prêt-à-porter’ textured jumpers to have as my base.

For my ‘reconstructed’ textured jumper, I wanted to add to the garment. So, I knitted a large patch of knit and purl stitch and attached this with paper clips to the large blue jumper. I wanted my knitted patch to look deconstructed, old and falling apart and my use of paper clips followed the theme of the anti-fashion punk trend of the seventies.

Contrarily, I wanted to create a more ‘deconstructed’ garment. I ripped sleeves off another jumper and added them to the sleeves and neckline of the pink textured jumper. The use of different lengths of sleeves and paper clips also took inspiration from the punk era, and also current collections from luxury brands of today, such as Raf Simmons and Anne Sofie Madsen. To emphasise the element of deconstruction, I ripped holes in one of these sleeves and bleached the other.

The colours I used within the shoot; pink and blue, have stereotypical links to gender. Using irony, was the way in which I chose to take back the gendered connotations of the colours and give them new meanings. Then using orange as a complementary and secondary colour gave me the power to give a middle ground to each model to show that the colours they were wearing didn’t have to give them an gender identity.

Carrying out the Photoshoot:

I wanted to be sure to experiment with as many different angles and ways of creating a relationship between the two models. This was lots of fun as I was loving every shot.

I took 500 photographs, so it was a hard task narrowing this number down to 8Full Contact Sheet

Editing:

To edit, i just played with the simple features of Photoshop: brightness, contrast, vibrance, and levels, as I did not want my photographs to look heavily edited. I wanted to keep the rawness and vibrancy of the images as the use of colour was important to the conceptual importance of the textured jumper within this photoshoot. The use of pink and blue due to their ‘stereotypical’ connotations with gender and orange as a secondary colour, to evoke a complexity within the social issue of inequality in society. Selected Images – Contact Sheet

Composing a layout using InDesign:

I am really happy with the look of my editorial as a first attempt at using InDesign. I am really happy it looks bold and vibrant and I feel as though it would catch the attention of a reader. Although it seems a little busy, I felt it was important to feature the photographs that I feel achieve the ideas I am trying to communicate.

 

I loved this whole aspect of my project ‘The Object’ as it was a great taster of styling, creating, photography and the use of InDesign and I am very happy with the outcome.

 


thanks to the models – maximilian kilworth and liam muldoon

 

Stay groovy x x