Officially so now, fashion has become a recurring topic here at the Operable Window. This is for a few reasons outside of the fact that it is simply a creative endeavor.
Fashion holds and interesting place in the creative world. Particularly in the world of Design, fashion falls in a space that seems somehow outside of the bounds of other design fields. Architecture, Industrial Design, and Graphic design (I know those are not all of the fields of design), all seem to occupy intermingling ideals. It is not odd to find designers that jump between these field at the drop of a hat or even within single projects. In some cases there is even argument about where a project should be categorized.
With Fashion though, most designers of any persuasion would not think to jump into it from one of the other fields. There is something very special about it. Perhaps because of how close it deals with the human body. Industrial Design deals with things that the body might us, Graphics what is seen, and Architecture the space the body occupies, but with Fashion the only concern is the human body itself (and sometimes little dogs).
Another interesting aspect of any field of design is its means of representation in the absence of its physical presence. With Architecture, photography holds almost a complete monopoly on the representation of built projects. Film has started to creep its way into this job recently as well. Graphic design does not have this issue as when you see it, you are seeing IT. Industrial Design also relies heavily on photography, but also finds it representation through the use of graphics. It is not uncommon to know an object by its silhouette graphically represented.
In the case of its representation Fashion finds a commonality to these other fields, as it is almost exclusively represented through photography. With this said, no photographer would ever venture to say that Architectural photography and Fashion photography share a great deal, at least as far as technique is concerned. Product photography might share more, but it is still a long way off.
Also like Architecture, Fashion now finds itself in a position of being represented more often with Video. With the prolification of online video and multimedia outlets this is no surprise. This brings us to the namesake of this post.
Creative Agency Norman Cavazzana, among other things, has produced a handful of amazingly beautiful Fashion shorts. Unlike many fashion videos that are simply filming of fashion shows or of photo shoots, these videos stand on their own as beautiful representations of the designs. Norman Cavazzana is not a single person but rather a Swedish/Italian duo. Outside of their videography their photography is also stunning and unique, and they are also releasing a line of jewelry.
Here are a few of their shorts. Take the time to check out their other pieces here on Vimeo. You are going to want to full screen these. The first might be NSFW.
