The fashion film for Alexander McQueen’s McQ line for AW13 is the fashion film equivalent of an art film. It has the feel of an independent film which exists solely as art, with no discernible narrative structure. Although this film doesn’t have a narrative, it still has a story which is expressed through both the fashion and filmic means throughout. This film features only a select few models throughout. There is no dialogue and no real narrative, but there are subtexts throughout the film which I believe elevate the film to an art film which raises the issues of inner identity through the lens of fashion.
The film begins with a scene of grasses and the viewer is traveling very fast over the grasslands landscape. It makes it appear that the viewer is running straight ahead. A woman’s face is superimposed over the landscape and the sense of running. We also see one woman with a black dress who is doing a back bend and her hair and dress is blowing in the breeze. Then we are shown multiple female models wearing his fashions that have animal prints on them. One of them looked like a tiger print yet not in the traditional tiger colors. The film then keeps intercutting models wearing animal print dresses, with models wearing classier, less vibrant fashions, and also with the multiple landscapes that we are shown throughout the film, specifically grass and concrete. The images of the tiger print dress worn by the female model, coupled with the still image of her walking slowly, are replicated across the screen. There is also a quick cut to a female with a sweater (if not made out of actual animal skin, then certainly some type of fur). The models are then superimposed over moving landscapes as if she were flying over the plains (which were shown in the background). There is then a quick cut of a man and a woman with their mirror image on the other side of the screen, both furiously running.
Throughout the entire film, there is a rather disturbing/strange soundtrack. The music is a semi-electronic score which makes the viewer a bit uneasy throughout the film. I feel that the animal print dresses are present to contrast the more traditional fashions. The film is in this way creating a dichotomy between the humans and animals, or more specifically between the evolved human and the inner primitive within all of us. It is for this reason that the models wearing the animal print fashions are all moving in a strange, more animal than human, sort of way. It is for this reason that many of the models are shown running, as well as the entire film having a constant feel of endless movement throughout. For certain shots of the more traditional everyday fashions, the music slows to a near halt, and that feeling of uneasiness which came with the soundtrack momentarily goes away and it even seems like the spectator is motionless. But soon enough, we are taken to another landscape and feverishly running through it, again uneasy due to the music. This fashion film is meant to display two distinct types of fashions – that which is to be worn by the human suppressing his/her inner being, and that which is to worn by those who choose to let it out.
