Archaeology of Fashion Film

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This research project is the first to systematically investigate the hidden history of fashion film in the silent era between 1900 and 1929, and its legacy for the rapidly changing field of fashion communications today, both in the UK and globally. It posits fashion film as a unique hybrid of two industries with distinct practices, resources, and motivations. Its interdisciplinary approach provides a new historical and theoretical framework for understanding this important and increasingly popular phenomenon. To that end, the project brings together scholars with combined expertise in film history, fashion history and media studies, and practitioners involved in various aspects of contemporary fashion film production. The study of fashion film has been neglected in both film and fashion histories, and in the fashion industry it is often assumed to be a novel product of the digital age. The project redresses this by conducting extensive archival and filmographic research into fashion film of the silent era, and by subjecting these findings to a comparison with the practices of emergent digital fashion film in the early 21st century - another period of rapid technological and cultural change. We use 'media archaeology' as an innovative, non-linear method of connecting these two periods. Although not historically proximate, each period acts as a critical prism for understanding the other. More broadly, we will also investigate the potential of media archaeology approaches to 'rewire' established fashion history methodologies and to inform contemporary fashion practice.Emphasising for the first time the transformative effects of film on fashion in both periods, the project forges a new understanding of film as a 'fashion medium' and as a 'fashion object'. It will make a major contribution to scholarly studies of the history of fashion, of film, and of fashion film, and will change how contemporary fashion filmmakers and other media practitioners understand the history of their discipline and the context for their own creative and commercial work.The project team is based at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. The project's methods span fashion history and theory, fashion in film studies and media archaeology. The specialist art school environment is a singularly appropriate milieu for this project because its research activities regularly combine historical and theoretical research with art and design practice. The team will work closely in partnership with AnOther.com (an influential online magazine owned by Dazed Media, a leading UK-based international media platform with a focus on culture, fashion and lifestyle), the British Film Institute (the UK's foremost body for the collection, preservation, exhibition and promotion of film and the moving image), the British Fashion Council (the national organisation for the promotion of British fashion design and media in a global market), Somerset House (a major arts and cultural centre based in London) and Moravska Galerie Brno (a major national arts museum in the Czech Republic) to ensure a broad range of outputs and impacts, and wide dissemination. The outputs include: workshops, a showcase on a contemporary media platform, a conference, an international touring exhibition of historical fashion film at Somerset House and Moravska Galerie, Brno, public-facing screenings and discussion events, and several publications: a monograph accompanying the exhibition, a book documenting the conversations between academics and media industry practitioners, and a special issue of the Journal of Visual Culture.