Industry Informer – SHOWstudio

SHOWstudio is Nick Knight’s creative baby. If it was a film it would be Hitchcock’s Rear Window – it provides a block of insights – these existing online as VIP passes to a virtual fashion world that somewhere, truly exists. In a virtual space, Michelle Morton-Banks speaks to Editor-in-Chief Penny Martin about boundary-bashing ideas and a new level of interactivity…

Too Active to be Voyeurs
When I first try to understand what SHOWstudio is, I struggle. Is it a fashion blog? Fashion collaboration? A production company that documents fashion? At first glance it’s all of these things. The projects ambiguity is intriguing. Especially because, the beast that is fashion presentation seems to be metamorphosing into something completely different. Ambiguity breeds well in SHOWstudio. When I ask Penny Martin, editor-in-chief for SHOWstudio for a brief description, she says “Its too broad” to condense into a small amount of words. Left to form my own conclusions I ponder on my thoughts. It’s clear the project hopes to encourage a ‘two way communication’ between the fashion industry and those passionate about it. It signifies a trend emerging in fashion presentation– creativity is moving with the times in so many ways its hard to collate. One thing is clear, its readers are not like the voyeurs in a Hitchcock film, and there is nothing passive about their viewing.

Hard Times Make for a better Future
The five-year-old project was conceived in France between co-founders Nick Knight and Peter Saville and since then it has been in persuit of the new, “working on new forms of fashion editorial… using film, interactivity, sound and live imaging to reinvigorate what had become a very tired and repetitive medium” says Penny – in a time when magazines struggle to make ends meet because copy sales are down I can see why Penny would campaign for change. The Wall Street Journal reports 2005 saw an ‘industry wide decline in sales from 1% to 3%’ – something had to change – medias had to give in to the over-riding power of the virtual space because fashion editorial needed something new and exciting. Penny explains new concepts are often met with hostility, she says “To begin with, it was really apparent that fashion wasn’t ready to embrace what we were doing. It was design, architecture and new media fields that understood our aspirations. That is now changing, though, where designers are now starting to do films of their clothes and the major houses are becoming aware that they need to start thinking of how to use the Internet to communicate their ideas… We are pleased to have been part of that important shift in what is a very conservative, slow-changing industry.” The website is the central hub for this change but the chat-room participant or blogger’s space is just as creative as the SHOWstudio HQ – a form of creative democracy.

Strip for the Knight
‘Dress me up Dress me Down’ is a perfect example of SHOWstudio’s progressive fashion interaction. This particular project was steered by multi-media artist Daniel Brown, photographer Nick Knight, Liberty Ross – the beautiful muse. A live chatroom and video stream were set up to document the creation of a photo-shoot. As Liberty rotated on a pedestal, virtual stylists posted their opinion as to what Liberty should wear, and as the title suggests, she dresses up and down at the request of the virtual stylist. The chatroom subscriptions logged on the website almost read like sexual dialogue- but then what do you expect with the title being what it is – its easy to imagine the flurry of aspiring stylists all wanting to button up the McQueen dress on a model. Much to the chartrooms glee, Liberty also partakes in a small amount of discourse. The project is ‘fun’ – not a word directly associated with high-end fashion – but maybe this is the shake up fashion presentation needed? As a result, multi format fashion album Visionaire featured the ‘Dress Up Dress Down’ project as part of their lenticular issue – in terms of fashion publicity that’s like an Oscar.

It is obvious the format of fashion presentation is changing. Soon to be featured on PFSK, Inside Fly create thrilling fashion cinema and Hint Magazine tells the most prolific of fashion stories both offer a loving stroke on the mind’s eye. The foundations of this trend are unclear, Penny explains her view and says “There are many reasons, but principally, there is a new generation of designers, photographers and creatives that were brought up on computers and the Internet and they are aware of the incredible potential of new media in addition to the old.” Its seems many will be following suit, but as Penny explains the hard part is “making your product stand out from the rest.” SHOWstudio seem to be on their toes, and so it’s a challenge you cannot help but feel they will rise to.