Remote Runway

At the onset of Men’s Fashion Week, we are getting a taste of the virtual runway, where the gap between audience and creator both shrinks and expands in distance. How have brands optimized mediums such as supplementary videos for new collections previewed remotely?

Rick Owens

With only Owens and model Tyrone Dylan Susman present in the space, Owens opts for transparency to achieve the closeness normally afforded by physical proximity. The soft growls of music are audible in the background as Owens and Susman talk casually through the fittings, and the camera reports the situation to the viewer in mostly black and white, at times using high saturation and pixelation or a revert to standard color, as if to reinforce the virtuality of the experience. The garments possess an angular glamor and contain self-referential elements, which like the format of the video, highlight the process of conceptualizing the garment along with the garment presented. 

Isabel Marant

This kinetic and energetic collection was shot at the Centre National de la Danse, a building notable for its Brutalist design and a center dedicated to the arts positioned on the northeast periphery of Paris. The film is interspersed with clips of the models boldly leaping over concrete ledges, or reaching with tender care towards the ceiling to touch. The video is overall a celebration of the freedom of movement, in a landscape in which that exuberance is markedly distinct yet complementary to the severe background. The collection is populated with laid-back silhouettes, bold colors, and 1980s aesthetics.

Homme Plissé Issey Miyake

As with Marant, motion and vitality in movement is emphasized. We begin with the backdrop of a city and a leap into another sphere, which becomes the main set for the video. The first of three models waters a plant, but becomes distracted by the animated quality of the clothes beckoning to them from their rack. All the while, a neat square positioned like a window displays the clouds passing by over a sky-blue backdrop. At times, the model’s leaps cascade into another world, before returning to the set. Both the tone of the video and the garments that structure it use the lexicon of Miyake, such as distinguishing pleats, vertical textures, and modular silhouettes, to create an atmosphere of optimism and futurity.