Day 2 Europeana International Fashion Conference
After a spectacular gala dinner yesterday in the fairytale-like Villa Favard (see some of Diane Pernet´s photos here) hosted by Polimoda, guests and speakers returned to the Cenacolo di Sant’Apollonia for a final session on “Handling New Media in Fashion”. What maybe stood out most is that new media bring out the truly collaborative nature of fashion and offer platforms for new and different voices and expressions.
Marco Pecorari, Diane Pernet, Marie Schuller, Agnes Rocamora. Image used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Diane Pernet explained how she developed the concept of a fashion film festival about ten years ago, at a time when fashion film was in its very early stages and no initiative existed to bring fashion film together. With the A Shaded View on Fashion Film Festival, Diane has been a catalyst in bringing the moving image to the forefront of the fashion industry that was traditionally dominated by the “still” photograph. Film also plays a central role at SHOWstudio. Marie Schuller, head of Fashion Film, explained how SHOWstudio revolutionized fashion film by not only showing the end-product, but also the creative process that precedes the final image.
Creative processes in new media are of a specifically collaborative nature. Gabriele Monti from the IAUV University of Venice illustrated how the internet is a place where platforms have developed that show the work of fashion students and how fashion students do not just share material online to show their individual work, but exchange on it with others. Geer Oskam of the Europeana Foundation demonstrated how new media can also be used to engage and exchange with new audiences.
Gabriele Monti, Anja Aronowsky Cronberg, Geer Oskam. Image used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Finally, Anja Aronowsky Cronberg explained how Vestoj, the Journal of Sartorial Matters, grew out of a need for a different approach to fashion. An approach that is not about lifestyle and consumption and yet more accessible than academic fashion writing. Agnès Rocamora from London College of Fashion raised questions about how new media emerged and now redefine fashion’s more traditonial media. She emphasised an overall need to make further in-depth studies into fashion media.
See all photos of day 2 of the conference on Flickr.
Many of the visuals from our speakers sparked the instant need to document them. Image used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/