I. Introduction
A digital paradigm has brought expansion of new communication channels into online and mobile and an innovative change of expressions in the fashion industry. As a fashion medium integrating commercial with artistic values of fashion through digital images, new media fashion films in various areas became new forms of expression and communication of fashion images.
New media emerged the development of computer information, and communication is a term used to distinguish it from the traditional media, which is based on the analogue method while digital media is based on online and mobile image media (Lee & Kim, 2011). New media based on digital technology both as the multiple vehicle and operational tool show creative fashion images beyond human experience. In the era of ‘High Concept’ of the 21st century when art, sensitive creation and empathy form a standard of consumption values (Pink, 2008), a fashion film is a practical tool for arousing creative inspiration from producers and sensibility and fantasy from consumers through digital images, playing an important role in producing and consuming fashion images.
As McLuhan (1964/2015) pointed out, media have an effect on content. The technological development of fashion media affects both the external appearance and message of fashion. There are few studies on the media characteristics or aesthetic consideration from a cinematic perspective or form analysis. Hence, by focusing on the increasing use of fashion films, this study considers digital fashion film as a new fashion medium, analyses digital fashion images expressed in fashion films according to this purpose, and determines how to expand the expressive spectra of fashion and the meaning of the change.
This study sets research topics as follows. Firstly, based on the concepts and characteristics of new media, it defines fashion film as new fashion media. Secondly, it divides the types of new media fashion films and develops a framework for analyzing expressions of a new media fashion film. Thirdly, it explores the expression characteristics and meaning of new media fashion film as a new fashion medium through the analysis of digital fashion images expressed in fashion films by type. Literature research and case study were conducted together as a research methodology. Six international fashion film festivals (La Jolla, Miami, Chicago, ASVOFF, Milano, London) giving an annual award continually in major fashion cities including USA, France, Italia and UK were selected and also research was done for forty fashion films awarded for the best fashion film and experimental fashion film from January, 2014 to July, 2019 and presented from online video communities like YouTube, Vimeo and the official home page. A case study was done for the representative ones showing expressive characteristics of a digital fashion image analyzed by components of a new media fashion film.
Ⅱ. Background
1. New media fashion film as fashion media
Fashion media refer to as media to convey fashion information or aesthetic views of a producer to a perceiver including art, photo, advertisement, magazine, exhibition and fashion show. Regarding the provision of fashion information through media, fashion dolls were used in 14th century Britain for obtaining French fashion information may be the first fashion media. The development of European printing after the 15th century led to fashion plates for costumes being described as an illustration and mass distributed (Lee, 2004). Le Mercure Galant, first published in France in 1672, contained images and articles describing court costumes and fashion styles of the times. This could be regarded as media in the form of a fashion magazine. In those days, fashion plates were used for display in such magazines and were established as the effective fashion media for conveying fashion styles. Photos and films developed during the 19th century, becaming a form of fashion media used to express fashion in a realistic manner beyond hand drawings. In particular, the development of film media expanded the expression of fashion with the advent of fashion film based on moving images (Uhlirova, 2013).
However, when the online video-sharing community such as YouTube become active after the late 2000s, the rapid change to digital media has influenced fashion film production and distribution. In 2009, Gareth Pugh replaced a digital fashion film with a fashion show. Alternatively, Prada, a luxury fashion brand, produces digital fashion films with artistic cinematic expression by strengthening customer interaction through a new media platform (Beom & Yim, 2018). The technological development of fashion media increases the utilization of fashion films as a means of communicating new fashion brands on offline platforms (Kwon & Yim, 2018). Intrinsically, digital technology and new media have been developing and expressing fashion images from various perspectives as follows.
First, with respect to its technical aspects, new media is digital-based multimedia, a new type of media different from analogue media. New media have a module structure where elements assemble and form the identity, so they are able to combine more than two media rather than single and produce information endlessly. In other words, new media refer to as media integrating digital representation and communicative technology and having different modes of processing, expressing exchanging information different from those of prior media (Kim & Ha, 2017). Secondly, new media allow realistic implementation and complete reproduction of an object by non-material conversion of information and have technological characteristics including multidimensional manipulation and real-time transport of data. Thirdly, new media, originated from the development of information representation and communication technology, is the media where producers and consumers coexist. This means that producers can send messages directly to their audiences without information gatekeepers.
Digital images of new media have the following attributes. First, digital images are more realistically implemented through new media since storing and putting out information without loss may be achieved through numerical conversion. Above all, new media can manipulate or synthesize information through digital imaging technology (Darley, 2000). It means digital images make it possible to process and create information. Finally, digital images are an integrated system of mobile image, audio and text. As multimedia, new media can represent an integrated image rather than a singular medium of a visual image or sound as much as prior media. Such technological attributes of digital images can lead to different expressions of fashion contents than previous ones.
In summary, new media fashion films are fashion media which express and communicate fashion images through digital images since 2010. Digital fashion images in new media fashion films show virtual but realistic and dynamic fashion images through moving images. As for such moving images, Deleuze (1981/1997) illustrated that dynamic images in a film are media expressing them as showing the time. The fashion images in the media fashion films, create and express fashion as synthesis represented by the time. However, unlike the fashion images, digital fashion images of new media fashion films have non-material and unrealistic properties. In other words, new media fashion films as fashion media show fashion as change and process of state rather than a visually formative form (Kim & Ha, 2017). Through such a process, digital fashion images create an unconventional form by the technical imagination through the manipulation of digital media. That is, the digital fashion image through new media fashion film is the expression of fashion as a temporal art and as an event rather than representational result. The quality of these digital images is the clue that distinguishes old fashion films from new media fashion films.
2. Concept and characteristics of new media fashion film
Fashion film is a film that expresses the fashion theme in film language. They are creative video - often 10 minutes long - produced by fashion brands, designers, online magazines, and video artists (Kim & Ha, 2017). Fashion films may be used for fashion brand marketing as a creative tool for expressing fashion but differ from fashion ads in terms of their ultimate goals. It has a form of cinema and may be a new fashion medium that expresses fashion by cinematic devices but fashion in a film has a role different from that of a general movie. Diane Pernet, a founder of ASVOFF sees a fashion film as the movie having a story fashion comes to be a hero rather than props and defines it as a new artistic genre integrating fashion and cinema so differentiates it from general films (“Fashion Film: Interview with Diane Pernet”, 2012). A fashion film lies in fashion and every element of a film from story to colour consists of fashion expression while encouraging fashion so it differs from a general short film (Löwe, 2016). Eventually, new media fashion films are defined not by media characteristics but by the thing expressed, or content. It is a new fashion medium as a convergent but independent genre that expresses identity and season concept of a fashion brand and designer, fashion trend and fashion-related theme through digital fashion images in a new media environment. It is also an independent fashion medium produced and distributed by fashion-oriented new media.
In sum, since 2010, digital imaging technology has changed fashion expressions, delivery methods, and attributes beyond simply moving fashion images. Therefore, this study defines fashion film produced and distributed by digital media since 2010 as ‘the term of new media fashion films’ to distinguish them from the traditional form.
New media fashion films as fashion media have characteristics based on technological features of new media as follows. Firstly, new media fashion films are fashion media where expression and distribution are integrated. Production and releasing of a fashion film are done on computers and there is no need of media like gatekeepers for provision. Production and distribution of new media fashion films are conducted freely by producers and audience online. On the other hand, traditional fashion film needs a producer and distributor to release it, similar to the relationship of an advertising producer and a fashion magazine. The range of this case’s spread is limited. New media fashion films as one medium, can be distributed fast to many unspecified persons directly and simultaneously as independent fashion media. For fashion communication, new media fashion films have significance in that they are a tool for communication with the public, choice of related information is done not by separate or mainstream fashion media like fashion magazines or broadcasting media but by the public along with the expansion by audience. Consumers can own or watch fashion films whenever and wherever they have digital media without needing other intermediate media.
Secondly, new media fashion films are fashion media creating fashion contents as multimedia and having the property of extension. While prior fashion media were a tool for representation and delivery of the expression of fashion, new media fashion films are a tool for creation and expression of fashion itself. Through multimedia where text, sound and moving image are integrated, new media fashion films change fashion into a cinematic form, escaping from the visual- centered perspective, and enabling the decentralized expression of fashion. Technological attributes of new media including duplication and synthesis result in reproduction of various fashion images. Specifically, images expressed in the new media fashion film appear as unexperienced shapes in the real world, and the objects and devices are used to express fashion. This differs from the traditional fashion films that maintained a representation of reality. For example, Balenciaga (2018) released a fashion film to inform customers of the collection’s concept for the 2019 spring season. It displays a bent and distorted appearance of dressed bodies; it is not a representation of reality that expresses the design itself, but a created image. In the end, new media fashion films are an expressive tool for changing fashion expressions from the formative to the non-formative art and creating original fashion contents as a film.
Thirdly, new media fashion films are fashion media where several genres are integrated so have the ambiguity of genres. In the prior media like photos, magazines and illustrations, genres could be classified clearly by media. New media fashion films, owing to integrated attributes of new media’s own, their genres have difficulty in classification. Furthermore, it is also difficult to classify genres definitely by their medium or purpose. This is because new media integrate the means of production and distribution, whereas the method of distinguishing genres was by media. For example, Gentle Monster (2019) released <13> series. Frederik Heyman contributed 3D art and Dogukan Nesanir offered styling for the film. The fashion film contains an installation sculpture and 3D animation, expressing the 2019 season concept. Depending on the perspective, it can be regarded as installation art or a short film.
3. Types of new media fashion film
In the precedent studies, Needham classified digital fashion films into the ‘Boutique film’ for online stores, ‘Designer’s film’ for communicating a message, ‘Authored film’ produced by a famous film director, and ‘Artist‘s film’ produced by a video artist but said that each category is not independent (Bruzzi & Gibson, 2013). Rees-Roberts (2018) classified them into Promotion, Process, and Personality fashion films by producers. Chang and Suh (2017) categorized them based on form and content as Movie, Video Clip, Animation, and Music Video fashion films. Kwon and Yim (2016) classified them as motion picture and media technology fashion films based on material, means and techniques, purpose, and value. Mijovic (2013) called a short film produced by a fashion business for online branding and marketing ‘Promotional fashion film’. Fashion businesses may be divided into segmented subjects and purposes like brand, distributor and fashion platform so more detailed classification is warranted. Lee (2015) categorized fashion films into created story, episode and behind image but classification has something ambiguous in that videos on a backstage at a fashion show may be an episode or a created story by the way they are edited. They are divided into fashion show and digital media according to a fashion communication channel (Kim & Kim, 2013). However, fashion films produced and used for various purposes cannot fall into such categories easily.
The convergent characteristics of new media fashion films make it difficult to classify their genres clearly and connection of fashion to the commercial aspects may not denied completely. However, the subject and purpose of fashion film making may be identified a little definitely so they may be classified according to the way they are used and expectation given to them as follows. Fashion films are categorized into the ‘Promotional fashion film’ produced for promotion by certain brand, designer and distributor, ‘Editorial fashion film’ produced for aesthetical expression while informing people of a fashion trend with the collaboration of a fashion magazine, and ‘Independent fashion film’ produced by an independent creator with the priority on creative expressions of fashion, not influenced by capital or the mainstream fashion market. New media fashion films are fashion media integrating expression and distribution. The subject and purpose of fashion film production make a difference in messages delivered by a fashion film so their classification based on criteria above has significance when researching changes in fashion images.
4. Expressive elements of new media fashion film
Fashion images of new media fashion films are dynamic ones having a cinematic characteristic and reflecting a formative characteristic of costume. They may be divided into two elements including the conceptual as a theme or an intention conveyed by a producer in a film and the expressive for creating the entire atmosphere and style of a fashion image. As for the expressive elements of a fashion film, there are elements of audio-visual expression, content structure and connection (Table 1). Visual expression of a fashion film may be examined using fashion miseen- scene elements, derived based on mise-en-scene of cinematic visual presentation (Giannetti, 2008; Gibbs, 2003), expressive elements of a fashion film (Kim & Ha, 2015), the cognitive methodology for analyzing visual forms of dress (Delong, 1998). As discussed above, objects of digital images transcend the experi- ence of reality, and fashion images of new media fashion films contain the fashion theme or design itself beyond a realistic approach. To define the expressive elements of a fashion film, which is distinct from a general short film, it is necessary to try to connect with the visual devices that express fashion in film. For this reason, this study applies the concept proposed by Delong.
1) Fashion mise-en-scene
Fashion mise-en-scene elements of a fashion film may be divided into four elements as follows. Firstly, the object refers to who does what in a fashion film. Behaviour and performance of a main character under this element convey a theme and show an image by taking the initiative in a fashion film. A movement of the protagonist in a fashion film is similar to a pose of a model in a photo. Behaviour and performance of the protagonist can communicate a fashion message through intended composition and movement under the relation with a background. Delong (1998) suggested a cognitive approach based on the holistic observation for ‘Apparel-Body-Construct’ when analyzing a form of costume and mentioned that it may be divided according to a conflicting structure of space and background these three elements occupy. In other words, rather than creating a silhouette by itself, costume does it under relation with body and background. In a fashion film expressed as dynamic image, a silhouette shall be understood as a flow or dynamic shape with consideration on relation among object, action and background. Secondly, props․decor․ costume, though not directly involved in suggestion of a theme, describes a situation in a specific manner and creates a style as an auxiliary device. In fashion, decoration creates formativeness and significance according to the development and symbolism of motif and pattern (Davis, 1980). In a fashion film, it may be used for the entire space, for example, as interior of a building or costume/props of characters and play a role in extending fashion expressions into spacetime. Thirdly, color․tone․lighting creates a strong visual effect on a screen. The significance of colors in a fashion film is communicated entirely with other expressive elements of cinematic device unlike that of photography and may represent effectively a dominant colour of seasonal/design concept, emotional expression, atmosphere and style. Finally, camera work describes a situation dynamically through an angle, position, composition, distance, framing and screen filter of a camera. It has significance in that matiere may be created, which can be felt from a material through the surface effect of a screen including density, lens filter and texture in a frame caused by camera work. Through the interplay of the elements, new media fashion film can create sensual effects like the visual tactile, or untouchable directly but touchable by sight, and it differentiates it from prior fashion media.
2) Auditory and content structure
A fashion film may express a fashion image using auditory elements like monologue, dialogue, sound effect and music. In particular, lyrical effect and a rhythmical sense given by sound effect and music create an atmosphere of synesthesia with other visual elements. The effects may arouse perceptive association as if one recalled experience of taste through sound so it is possible to express sensuous fashion images. On the other hand, a fashion film is able to express fashion images according to the way content is organized and described. A content structure in a fashion film has something to do with the way scenes are connected. In a film, the scene is a temporal concept but montage communicates a theme by constructing the entire space on time and movement created. As pieces of cloth are connected to each other and create a form through cutting and sewing of a material (Khan, 2012), a new media fashion film may express surrealistic structural characteristics of a digital fashion image through connected elements.
Ⅲ. Analysis and Result
1. Method
The analysis method is as follows. First, 40 fashion films were classified according to the subject and purpose of fashion film making. Then, the fashion images in fashion films classified according to types were analyzed by the expressive elements of fashion film.
2. Types and expressions of fashion image in new media fashion film
As a result of categorizing forty fashion films according to type, twenty seven were classified as Promotional fashion films, three as Editorial, and ten as Independent (Table 2). It shows that new media fashion film is being used as an effective medium for the brand’s digital communication and promotion. Alternatively, the smallest type of fashion film first materialized because the transition to digital fashion magazines and the emergence of digital fashion platforms had occurred recently than the fashion communication of digital brands. Furthermore, it also caused the amount of digital fashion magazines platforms to be relatively fewer than that of fashion brands. The results of analyzing fashion film expression through the elements of new media fashion film are as follows.
1) Promotional fashion film
A promotional fashion film is produced by a fashion brand and designer or a distribution company with the grant from a fashion business for promotion. Fashion campaign films are a representative example. A promotional fashion film is produced to introduce a seasonal or design concept and identity of a fashion brand, commemorate an event and maximize a promotional effect under collaboration with well-known video artists or cooperation with celebrities. Promotional fashion films can be released through distribution channels such as fashion brand websites, video communities, and social media. In the case of innovative brands in digital media, the fashion film replaces the fashion show. Distribution costs, in particular, are low, while the impact is huge, meaning that small independent brands have low market entry barriers, and content can be delivered directly to customers through online mobile media.
With respect to promotional fashion film expression, Kenzo in S/S of 2016, presented a promotional fashion film <Snowbird>(2016) directed by Sean Baker. <Snowbird> was presented as a fashion image under a narrative structure having a conceptual element of sorrow of nomads emigrating to the south (Nnadi, 2015). As the elements of fashion mise-enscene, the heroine wanders the desolate desert and hands out cakes she made to people. The images are expressed as feeling of primary colours of an ethnic mood in the unique space the heroine encounters, people of various characters, image of the heroine crossing the windy desert and hay, and mat texture of fluttering grains of sand and dried grass (Fig. 1). The journey like momentary illusion is expressed as the fashion image of the nomadic sensibility through the transformative act where a woman who wandered freely while giving cakes out changes into an old woman. <Escandalo> is a promotional fashion film produced by a swimsuit brand Karla Colletto (Lefebure, Lefebure, & Karla Colletto, 2013). It humorously expresses an image of ‘It-girl’ suggested by the brand through behaviors of a character wearing a swimsuit and explanatory texts. The heroine in a swimsuit takes a rest at a resort with an exaggerated gesture and in the middle of the screen texts describing these situations were inserted. For instance, a close-up female face and a text ‘She reflected’ depict a situation where the heroine is reflecting on something. In the next scene, a text ‘deeply’ is at the front and at the same time. It shows an image of the heroine putting a reflector on her face with a camera angle framed out. In this fashion film with a text ‘Her reputation was on the line’, a swimsuit of the seasonal collection on a line is presented indirectly as props. Though the season concept and product of this brand are exposed from the fashion film, rather than direct explanation, it expresses a humorous atmosphere by the performance of the character presented as ‘It-girl’, a pun of the text and time difference. It creates virtual Muse and shows a comic fashion image through the multilingual. In S/S of 2015, a Romanian fashion designer brand ‘Ioana Ciolacu’ presented a <Lure>(2015) expressing a concept of ‘hunting’ (Atelier, 2016). It connects changes of events that happened at a virtual space regardless of order under the nonlinear narrative structure. In the work, fashion images are shown from performance of objects causing continual events at a virtual forest. <Fig. 2> represents that aggressive hunting by a main character in the black and white background and change of hunted animals into print motives of colored costume are expressed as dynamic images having a strong visual effect. In particular, trophies obtained from the hunting performance by the object are transformed into artwork of costume. The performance of the object manifests itself as spots occurred with liquid flowing over the body and rhythms, and it creates the visual sense of touch by camera work of slow motion and close-up with fashion accessories of the heroine emphasized with the colour contrast. In such a process, repetitive motions of the object and sound of percussion are arranged simultaneously so a sense of synesthetic rhythm is established. That is, in <Lure>(2015) a story of the cruel beauty and a motive of the season collection are connected to costume and motions are expressed as design elements. This work shows three-dimensional and sensuous fashion images with the suggested rhythmical and tactual characteristics instead of expressing formative characteristics of costume as the static.
As shown from above, fashion brands are producing promotional fashion films as a new way for presenting the season concept or the identity to the public. Promotional fashion film contains a story for fashion products and a fashion narrative created by a promotional fashion film provides fashion fantasy by expressing a fashion story mixing the imaginative and the real through manipulation and synthesis. Spectacle fashion images are used effectively for explaining their design characteristics through attracting views of the audience and evoking tactile texture, as if touching directly though not wearing actually. In new media fashion films, expressive devices convert commercial values of fashion by synaesthesia into non-material values and communicate the fashion message through images as tools for producing complex sensuous experiences.
2) Editorial fashion film
Fashion media including a fashion magazine moved to online mobile in a new media environment. Fashion magazines and platforms based on online mobile media produce an editorial fashion film under collaboration with artists in various fields like fashion designers, film makers and stylists for introducing a fashion trend and expressing things aesthetically. The purpose of the editorial fashion films is to introduce a contemporary fashion trend so products from many other different fashion brands and designers may be used simultaneously, having discretion in production under active collaboration with artists in different fields. In such cases, fashion images can be expressed using various methods. For example, Vogue Italy presented the editorial fashion film <La Ragione>(2012) directed by Pietro Cocco. Fashion images are expressed with dialogues between male and female and by backgrounds of the theatre Manzoni. The woman pressing the man about being late for the appointment and the man denying things repeat their sayings. Framing after 1 minute captures continually changing bags of the woman, at the last scene decoration on the face of the man shows <Non è vero che l’umore non ha corpo> (1993) by Italian surrealist photographer Occhiomagico, and bags captured by camera work are ones by the Italian designer brand ‘Benedetta Bruzziches’.
Vogue Italy introduces the designs by the brand as the noteworthy ones that succeeded in mixing the art with the irony (Marini, 2012). The important thing in this work is that several elements in certain situation show fashion images rather than detailed description of the products. The landmark of Milano, the theatre Manzoni selected for dating in this work, its artworks and floor patterns, decorations and props like books held by extras form an artistic atmosphere. Caprice by changes of bags, male image as homage to Occhiomagico and dialogues of the man and woman express fashion images with witty styles of Cocco’s own. Also as for music forming an auditory element, Habanera from the opera Carmen expresses a situation of both characters in a humorous manner (Fig. 3). Vogue Italy introduced Benedetta Bruzziches, ’12 FW collection as the noteworthy fashion and presented the editorial fashion film reinterpreted conceptual elements of love, art and irony with surrealistic nuance. <La Ragione> (2012) creates a fashion style from all of props within multi-cultural space, actions and costume of characters and auditory elements and expresses them as a fashion image of new media. Though having a story, in this work a story does not communicate a fashion message. <Europa II>(2017), for example, was produced through the collaboration of Gucci and Vogue Spain and directed by Imanol Ruiz de Lara, a filmmaker. The fashion film reflects the 2019 ‘New-tro’ trend, a compound of the words ‘new’ and ‘retro’, referring to a new retro with outwards and function (Lee et. al, 2019). The object is Europa II, which is based on an old arcade video game involving a mysterious vehicle for her to escape to another planet. <Fig. 4> shows that the film expresses fashion imagery by harmonizing lo-fi graphic images with a space mood or oriental or Western style. For the cruise collection of 2019 at the Alyscamps burial ground, Alessandro Michele, the creative director of Gucci, noted, “The inspiration is an ossuary, the crypts of the cardinals, of the monks in the 15th century, and the precious decoration.” (Gucci, 2019). Vogue Spain introduced this new cultural trend by reinterpreting the Gucci collection in the form of digital films. The expressive elements of fashion film have a correlation with each other, combining various genres. Editorial Fashion film expresses a new trend of fashion as a melting pot of cultures. Rather than presenting fashion items and styles directly, it expresses complex fashion culture contents integrating a variety of fields through new media. Namely, it has significance in that they give audience a clue for extending fashion areas and many spectacles as the fashion entertainment.
3) Independent fashion film
Independent fashion film refers to a fashion film prioritizing the intention of a creator on fashion escaping from the influence of fashion businesses. It aims to construct a personal portfolio along with the aesthetical expression of an artist and is released from independent channels including fashion film festivals accounts and online video communities. The advent of new media formed a condition for creating and opening a video to the public independently even without huge capital and distribution networks. Artists, distancing from the dominant fashion, create their own fashion images through independent fashion films. Independent fashion film comes to be a place for experiment. <Entropy>(2014) is a 235-second-long independent fashion film produced by the video artists Tarik Malak and Timothy. It is composed of long take that the entire film is a complete shot without editing by a digital effect. Physical time stopped at the entropy state but fashion images are shown by visual dynamics by camera work and visual play by cutaway (Fig. 5). In the space-time that chandelier is falling down at a brilliant banquet hall, only camera work is making a movement and describing a situation. It is not static forever and makes the moments uncapturable by human eye in the reality into an event through the dynamic framing. Fashion images in this work are created by a camera angle depicting the look of models splendid and shocked, including a silhouette and detail of costume, makeup, jewellery and pose of models. Camera work realizes original fashion images through visual expansion that may not be ensured by human sense. It gives us dynamic fashion images created by multilateral changes of an angle beyond human experiences unlike photos displaying static fashion images. Particularly, dynamic camera angle and scene moving freely in the stationary time are connected seamlessly by synthesis of digital images. Such a scene both captures a moment where space-time is expanded we cannot experience easily in the reality and shows a dynamic screen moving smoothly. Connected screens like a seamless silhouette where each pattern is connected without a seam line demonstrate camera work or montage may be a tool for presenting a fashion image. In particular, such experimental fashion images are expressed in a very realistic manner though they are manipulated, provide audience with a new and vivid virtual experience of fashion, and expand the expressive boundary of fashion.
Digital images permit free transformation of object. Human bodies may be also expressed in the new media space, escaping from physical principles of the reality. An independent fashion film, <The Coded Body> produced by the visual artist Luke Clayton Thompson, contains the authored quest for the beauty of a human body (Thompson, 2016). The naked body as an object element, is too distorted and flexible to recognize its shape. This distorted body moves flexibly against a clean gallery. The unrealistic shape is distorted by digital images and shows the performance going around the room as if time were stopped. A decoded body by destruction of the shape amplifies emotion as the most sensual state. Thompson made an attempt at implementing the bodily shape moving in an unfixed manner into beauty through the ‘coded body’. The performance of the object destroys the physical shape and remain the affection at a haptic space as Deleuze (1969/2015) mentions. The grotesque body shows a fashion image as the state that sense is maximized.
<Pippin and the Pursuits of Life> is the independent fashion film by the video artist Femke Huurdema who was inspired by 2015 S/S Hoarding (Dis)order collection by Maaike Fransen (Huurdeman, 2015). In the collection, Fransen expresses her personal experience suffering from collectomania into unique weird costume of a surrealistic atmosphere (Grieco, 2014). It connects goods into a narrative and has a conceptual element of a fairy-tale motive under the story-within-a-story method of narration. Costume and props at the collection are presented in a fairytale atmosphere and the performance of the heroine causes surrealistic events. However, such object elements create a link to the reality along with costume and props of the collection, showing a fashion image of the childlike fantasy. It gives a probability to the story of imagination and offers a virtual fashion experience. Accordingly, though using costume as props under the inspiration from themes of fashion collections, it reinterpreted collections rather than introducing or promoting them, and changed them into original fashion images or fashion narratives through a medium of digital images. <Asymptote>(2017) was produced by Adam Csoka Keller, a filmmaker. As its object, the film shows a repetitive arrangement of the same person; face covered by a duplicated mask or eyes covered by red bands, and the repetitive action of different moving people. It also represents the contrast of achromatic colors and the symbolic red colour of socialism, while the costume element is a uniform (Fig. 6). As objects, human actions and bodies are af- fected by the geometrical construction of the building, an architectural site during the socialist era (“Asymptote was one”, n.d.). Past scenes in monochrome are intermittently mixed with present scenes. The film represents the director’s thinking about the human body in socialist society, with its individuality removed. It does not promote certain brands or inform fashion trends. It can be seen as a fashion film containing the artist’s thoughts about society and the human body.
Independent fashion films focused on representing the artist’s perspective of the human body or a fashion collection show the artist’s message and pursuit of fashion aesthetics. In such a process, technological characteristics of new media allowing us to manipulate and synthesize freely are used actively as a useful tool for making creative fashion images beyond human experience. Also, fashion images are expressed as a changing process according to a flow of event or time and fashion films are recreated into a new fashion narrative. The films include a narrative on a theme, but this doesn’t mean they are focused on a story, because the content structure is simple. The interaction of fashion elements mise-en-scene is what enriches the content and expression of fashion. Independent fashion films are a free space for expressing their aesthetics not influenced by the mainstream fashion and a medium for recreating fashion images and encountering people in person, playing a role of incubating a new fashion culture.
Ⅳ. Conclusion
This research aimed to illuminate new media fashion films occurred with the technological advance of fashion media and identify their roles as a new convergent genre and independent fashion media through the analysis on fashion images by type and classification of fashion films by their production purpose. New media fashion films are multimedia where expression and distribution are integrated and independent fashion media as an expressive tool based on technological attributes where facts may be manipulated and distorted. New media fashion films show fashion images as a change of events according to temporal flows with a tool of digital images. Also they express multisensory images of fashion created by the audio-visual. The expressive elements of fashion film have an organic connection with each other and fashion is not limited to costume. It shows that motions of object, sound effects, connection structure of scenes, colours and space construction, and camera work create decentralized images of fashion.
New media fashion films are classified as promotional, editorial, and independent fashion films, based on their production subjects and purpose. The results of analysing fashion images as expressed in fashion films are as follows. Firstly, promotional fashion films produced by fashion brands to promote fashion goods and season concepts express fashion as an event, or a narrative created by object motions, text and music through new media fashion images instead of concentrating on costume. Synesthetic effects created by each sequence convey the sensibility of a story or express multisensory fashion images through mutual relationship among elements. It shows fashion images as a narrative with a concept. In a process of storytelling, fashion films offer multisensory fashion experiences created by the audio-visual through digital fashion image though we fail in experiencing actually. Alternatively, fashion images cannot be worn, but they can maximize the sensory aspects of clothes as if they are being worn, sometimes even more so in the sense that they provide a sensory fashion experience to the customer. Also, it can be a marketing tool more effective than the past advertisements since they have a wide range of potential customers without the boundary of media in an online space. New media fashion films have significance when they promote fashion as a story rather than product, communicate it to the public directly so have differentiation from prior advertisements though they were produced under the commercial purpose. New media fashion films can re- create new fashion images for reproducible attributes of new media such as digital memes in gif format, which is an efficient way to deliver daily novelty to consumers who desire it. New media fashion films come to be a tool for expression and direct communication to make perceivers immersed and provide them with the sensibility for and experience of fashion through provocative fashion images of an interesting story. Secondly, editorial fashion films introducing a new fashion trend display fashion images through cultural bricolage, which means a mixture of various fields through the expressive elements of fashion film. The one making an editorial fashion film is a gatekeeper setting the fashion. In a fashion system, traditional gatekeepers have played a role promoting fashion. However, editorial fashion films present fashion images as if they were singular artwork through the mix of various art genres. They have been offering fashion information as the convergent fashion contents integrating movie, architecture, painting, music, costume and props. Editorial fashion films have been playing a role of both medium and bridge for communicating with areas outside the fashion systems by distributing fashion messages under the mix of a variety of cultural arts, providing us with fashion information as entertainment. Thus they have significance as fashion media in that they extend fashion to the artistic from the commercial, and transform consumers into the audience as Khan (2012) explained. Thirdly, various kinds of modifications and manipulations of an image may be achieved by digital image effects using new media. In a new media environment, fashion films become independent media where unique fashion images are created and presented, escaping from the influence of the mainstream fashion. Not only practitioners of the fashion world but various artists and generals can participate in new media fashion films and contain fashion messages beyond the mainstream fashion world. Hence, independent fashion films may lower the barriers within the fashion world and their fashion images can reflect new expressions of fashion design and various perspectives on fashion. It means that inflow of producers in many fields and uniquely original expressions by new media fashion films are important to provide new ideas and perspectives on fashion and facilitate its diversification in the fashion system.
In summary, new media fashion film affects fashion culture by promoting the expressive spectra of fashion, blurring its limits, and diversifying by boosting activities of independent designers and artists in fashion. New media fashion films are now tool of creative fashion expressions beyond physical limitations and human experiences. Fashion images from fashion films have significance in that they can raise displaying values of fashion, increase a potential for expansion into other fashion media and promote diversification of the fashion culture. In the age of new media, fashion films are creating cultural and empirical values of fashion and enhancing creativity and aesthetic values of fashion by fashion contents production. On the other hand, as the running time of a fashion film does not exceed 10 minutes, expressive elements in them play the role of representing sensory fashion imagery as opposed to a story. They also tend to have an irrational construction instead of a logical one. Considering roles of fashion media in a fashion system, new media fashion films are also playing a role of a catalyst for production and consumption of fashion images inside the fashion system in the post-digital era and of a bridge to places outside the fashion world. It was limited because the analysis scope was narrow and it affected the result, as the number of editorial fashion films is relatively small for a type analysis of fashion films. However, if the analysis target in a follow-up study is limited to fashion films within a three year period and the number is expanded, meaningful results can be obtained. This research identified the importance of new media fashion films as new fashion media and expressive tools and offered an objective frame for analyzing fashion images. It is expected to contribute to provide basic data for research on fashion media and image rapidly changing with digital media technology.
