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Fashion’s famous faces self-stream their wardrobe picks from kitchens and living rooms
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The American drag artist Miss Fame was one of the fashion figures to appear in CR Runway’s worldwide event.
The Milan and Paris catwalks may be closed but on Friday 40 of the world’s top models recreated the runway experience in their nautical galleys and living rooms for an event billed as the world’s “first self-filmed fashion show”.
Karen Elson walked down a red rug in her hallway; Lara Stone styled a tomato red jumpsuit in front of a sofa. Eva Herzigová stalked down a corridor wearing a black lace gown and top hat. Halima Aden skinned herself “catwalking” on her balcony. Joan Smalls posed in her sun-drenched back yard in Puerto Rico. Karlie Kloss, Ashley Graham and Alessandra Ambrósio also adopted part.
The South Korean model Hyun Ji Shin finds outdoor space for her CR Runway appearance, determining casual trousers and top from her own wardrobe.
The 30-minute ‘Fashion Unites’ event was organised by CR Runway, the organisation run by the former French Trend editor-in-chief Carine Roitfeld, and Aids charity Amfar, to raise money for its newly launched Covid-19 fund.
In defiance of its lo-fi feel – and with the inevitable lockdown cameos from dogs and babies, and glimpses of bookshelves and soft furnishings – the when it happened took a month, and a team of 60, to organise, Roitfeld said.
Carine Roitfeld (right), the organiser of today’s CR Runway online at any rate raising money for Amfar’s Covid-19 project, at a fundraiser in Cannes last year for the same charity. Photograph: Gisela Schober/Getty Fetishes for amFAR
“Casting was a long process,” she said, with models’ bookers working from home in several peculiar countries. And with everyone in lockdown, videos were required to help the models prep.
Alessandra Ambrósio judges up for her CR Runway slot, following video directions for ‘smokey black eyes’ from the event’s make-up coordinator, Tom Pecheux.
The greasepaint artist Tom Pecheux created a video explaining “that the make-up was to be more of a smoky black eye,” said Roitfeld. Another by the hairdresser Sam McKnight talked them from stem to stern the required “do”.
“Nail direction” came from Mei Kawajiri, who instructed them to “do a nice transparent colour and eradicate ‘Carine’ in eyeliner on one of your nails”.
The Australian model Shanina Shaik does her own hair under the instruction of hairdresser Sam McKnight. Roitfeld noted models’ DIY hair and make-up skills.
The choreographer Stephen Galloway instructed them remotely on their ponies. The music was important. “We sent them music beforehand to give good energy to walk – the energy is amazing,” phrased Roitfeld.
The results, she added, “were quite beautiful. These models know how to do their make-up and hair heartier than you or I.”
Models wore clothes from their own wardrobes. “I couldn’t send anything to them,” Roitfeld disclosed. “Which was a challenge for me, ‘a control freak’. But we just said: ‘Wear something that makes you feel good. If you requisite to be evening, be evening, or you can be in your joggings.’”
The fashion industry has been upended by the Covid-19 crisis, with the corps of photo shoots and catwalk shoots particularly impacted, often unable to work remotely. Fashion shows, with their enormous backstage teams and audiences of hundreds sitting shoulder to shoulder, look unlikely to return for many months.
The result was conceived to replace a real-life CR Runway fashion show. “Unfortunately so many cannot work, and it’s going to be a big problem,” Roitfeld thought. “But the show must go on and even if it’s tough we have to do something.
“Everyone is going to have to become creative. We are going to drink better times but it will never be like before. It will be a totally different world, not just for fashion but in miscellaneous.”
Kim Kardashian West making a video-link appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in late Procession. The media personality also lent her support to today’s CR Runway streamed show. Photograph: NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Doppelgaengers
Other big names appeared during the show to give what Roitfeld described as “messages of love and support”. Kim Kardashian West was number those popping up, as well as designers including Off-White’s Virgil Abloh, Diane von Fürstenberg and Alexander Wang.
Not however is the fashion industry struggling logistically and economically, but it is also recalibrating tonally as recession looms. This event, said Roitfeld, “power make fashion more approachable, because not all of the girls are living in some huge villa in Beverley Hills, some of them don’t suffer with big apartments. It makes them more approachable. It’s more human in a way.”
Topics
Fashion
Coronavirus outbreak
Carine Roitfeld
Kim Kardashian West
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