This London Fashion Week, designer Faustine Steinmetz did what she had sworn she would never do, and ditched her usual conceptual presentations for a runway show. “I always said I would never ever do a catwalk because I didn’t like it being about the glamour and the girls and beauty, but in the end, I was really freed by taking off everything around the clothes and just working on my materials,” Steinmetz said backstage of her decision. “I haven't felt so happy in a long time because I just focused on my clothes.”
Steinmetz’s approach to the collection – which featured distressed denim, faux Fendi bags, painterly acyclic style textures and shredded detailing – was essentialistic, and in a way, the film reflects that. “I wanted to take ten pieces of clothing everyone knows and has had in their wardrobe at some point and re-do, deconstruct and reconstruct (them)” Steinmetz said of her motivation, which inspired a line of easy to wear yet unique and intricate pieces.
Filmmaker Grégoire Dyer was on hand to document the occasion, shooting dairy style, behind the scenes footage on an iPhone – like in the studio for a fitting – and capturing the catwalk itself in a more glossy, high definition way. The film captures the collection’s small details, like the beige F print nails by Imarninails and the styling by Georgia Pendlebury, offering its audience more insight into how the clothes might actually feel – something you so often miss with an image.
There’s also focus on models, reflecting Steinmetz’s personality-driven casting process. “We really wanted to have real people. I’ve never really been into models, I think nowadays you just want to do some work that feels real and models can take that off very easily, just by being very exceptional and very tall and people you wouldn’t ever see in real life.” As she surmised: “We wanted to find a different sort of beauty. Real people.”
Watch the film below.
