Fred Sweet, Crosby Noricks, Photo by Kyle Ong/The Final Statement
Over the weekend I was lucky enough to attend the inaugural La Jolla Fashion Film Festival, where the fashion short film genre enjoyed rapt attention as creations by fashion heavy-weights like Karl Lagerfeld, Erin Fetherston, Christian Louboutin, and Erin Von Unwerth made their way across the screen. The first fashion film festival in America (the first was Diane Pernet’s A Shaded View on Fashion Film, held in Paris Sept. 2009 and set to recur in 2010) was a visual dessert, from the over-saturated Louboutin’s dripping in glitter, 1920′s Paris and Coco Chanel recreated in silent film, crinolines and a veritable treasure trove of trends from the last several decades in Janet Pytowski’s “Style is Eternal,” which closed the coastal show Saturday night.
We’ve seen a real trend toward fashion films in the last few years, in feature length documentaries like The September Issue, The Last Emperor and in hybrid film advertisements like Prada’s “Perfect Thunder, Perfect Mind.” When Fred Sweet, CEO of San Diego Model Management, was looking to establish a recurring fashion event in San Diego – the short fashion film became the anchor, La Jolla, with it’s crashing waves, boutique hotels, shops and fine cuisine became the backdrop.
Director Robertino Fonseca Introduces His Film, The World Ends Without You
As a former film major who originally thought she wanted to do wardrobe for film, and who has put together an experimental film and documentary or two (ok that was really it) in her college days, it was wonderful to remember how much I love film and fashion, and to enjoy these diverse films on a large screen, from the front row, wine in hand!
Thanks to Rachel, I was introduced to videographer Carl Cortes and, after sitting next to him during the screening, was thrilled and relieved to find out that he had produced one the most “appetizing” shorts of the evening, Stay, using dreamy garments from fashion designer Suzanne Rae, who was also in attendance. Both soon became two of my new favorite people In The World.
Closing Party, La Jolla Fashion Film Festival
In addition to two nights of film screenings, the festival also hosted opening receptions and after-parties, a live photo shoot at La Jolla Cove, as well as series of free seminars open to the public. I had a lot of fun moderating the “Fashion Meets New Media” panel alongside Janet Pytowski of VidCat, Danielle Gano of Elle Communications, Erna Adelson of Examiner.com and Rachel Richards, Director of Guest Relations at LJFF, and networking afterward with Jessica Mandeville of My Fashion Plate (a recent NYC transplant!) and Meaghan Clark, a San Diego-based fashion writer covering the event for the local papers.
With both experimental, narrative, and branded marketing films represented and La Jolla’s posh beach atmosphere, there is ample opportunity for this event to expand and command an even stronger presence locally and internationally in future iterations. Fred Sweet respects all forms of digital media and has been a big proponent of fashion blogging for years. It would be my recommendation for fashion bloggers and journalists to pencil in LJFFF for 2011, set for August 5th and 6th. It is going to be worth it! LJFFF is on Twitter and Facebook.