Rodarte goes viral video.

Vogue.com is now covering the "newest trend" with fashion being film (a la Alexander McQueen's SS10 show opener, and with the likes of Bruce Weber and Ryan McGinley).  Perhaps what they meant to say was that fashion still photography is slowly dying and a new way to bring visual stories to people is through the multi-dimensional world of film.  With movies like Avatar and other 3D movies on the horizon, it only begs the question: how much longer will two-dimensionality survive in fashion?

Alexander McQueen did it best with his SS10 show by combining live-feed internet access, cinematic video, and self-proclaimed Warholian princess Lady Gaga in order to reach new levels of attainable reality to his fans.

The last hope for the print world is inventiveness via devices such as the iPad, creating new ways to reach their consumer.  That being said, shouldn’t the natural next step be a proper foray into "film editorials"? But I may have spoken too soon.

Then comes this viral video from Rodarte and Todd Cole (Watch it here - http://www.nowness.com/day/2010/3/1/386/2010–a-space-odyssey) - almost like watching a baby walk for the first time and falling terribly.  Now, let it be clear that I completely support artistic freedom and creativity, in fact I studied art and architectural history.  In this case, however, it appears that this pairing was at a loss in its inception, leaving the viewer with artistic indulgence sans purpose.

In the video we see a space race to the finish line, or rather a model dressed in one of Rodarte's more aggressive looks, endlessly running with interspersed clips of launching rockets.  Rodarte's SS10 collection was specifically about primitivism - about returning to a state of simplicity in primitivity without the burdens of modern society and technology.  You can thus imagine my confusion.

(View of “Quicktake: Rodarte,” 2010, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York. Photo: Carmel Wilson)

I can certainly understand the Mulleavys' reference to the space race - illustrating the need to use new materials and break foundational rules - but I ask myself: Is that really enough to make a film about a 1960’s struggle to showcase technological superiority over all other countries while using Rodarte's primitive clothing?  After all, hasn't it always been the job of designers to push the envelope?  Do designers not inherently attempt to tap into who we are as a society and where we are going?  If you speak of Poiret, he was well ahead of the space race, as he was the foundational fashion bad boy of his time.

I await the day when film becomes the medium to which properly express fashion's point-of-view of our society.  Think Rodarte-donned Zoe Saldana embodying the anti-pollution and anti-technology sub-text of Avatar.  Until then, we are left with hedonistic and quite frankly irrelevant short films that are nothing more than experiments in surface beauty (often even failing at that).