Last Saturday I was invited to Valencia Fashion Week to do a panel about Fashion Films, given that I was the first filmmaker in my city to start doing this kind of format. Last year I was also explaining it at Cinema Jove, the biggest film festival in Valencia, so I was happy to be the first to present Fashion Films in the biggest fashion and film events in Valencia.
Picture by Edgar Bahilo.
This time I had more time to prepare the panel better, so I started thinking on what is exactly a fashion film. I guess there are as many definitions as filmmakers exploding this genre but, as in everything, there are patterns and ways to try to look for an explanation that may approach to the term accurately.
So, what's a fashion film? After more than 4 years working on this format this would be my definition of the term:
"""A fashion film is an audiovisual format born as a marketing strategy and intended basically to be distributed via online in which, via cinematographic techniques, a story is told using fashion as a tool to make it work, not in an exploitative way like a commercial would do with its "buy me" message. It's an elegant, justified product placement."""
A member in the audience asked me what would be the difference between a film like Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula and a fashion film, because she understood the difference between a spot and a fashion film but the limits with cinema weren't that clear for her. My answer: Dracula is not intended for internet, Dracula is not a publicity for any brand and, among everything, if you took the fashion part off of Dracula's story, the narrative and events of the plot wouldn't change at all, there've been so many adaptations of Bram Stoker's classic with so many different aesthetics that it's proven fashion is nothing "important" to it.
Lennon and Klimt style: Dracula features awesome dresses and props, but it's far from being a fashion film.
The panel went on to focus on how could a fashion film benefit a fashion brand. Spain is a difficult country to innovate because the crisis is still a big thing, so brands are very careful with their investments but I tried to explain how films feature a very interesting quality that other arts don't have: it lasts. As an example, I put my own work "Eiénesis - In search of light", my first fashion film born in 2010. I still screen it in 2014 and still gets awards (last one at the International Fashion Film Awards), so if you invest and work in a good way it adds a lot to the brand.
Eiénesis was even screened at the prison of a city in Spain, Almería! We also made workshops for children and a charity gala. Possibilities are insanely wide with fashion films!
Picture by Edgar Bahilo.
I also explained Sinnside's case: mixing fashion and horror opened me the gates of many non-fashion film festivals and the numbers are great! Over 60 international selections in very prestigious festivals like Sitges, Cannes or being nominated 6 times to the Silver Méliès, the biggest award for fantastic short films of the world; 8 international awards and many reviews from everywhere (including Rolling Stone magazine).
And that's just the beginning! Now that I discovered native advertising with my last fashion film A Little Big Step there's so much to explore that I can't wait to shoot my next project XMILE, which will feature everything I learned until now... So stay tuned for more coming soon!
I'd like to thank Mario Agulló, director of Creation Valencia Magazine for the pictures of my panel and also Valencia Fashion Week for giving me this great opportunity.
