Throughout the fall 2018 semester, the Fashion Systems and Global Perspectives class engaged in a research project alongside InDigital, a photo and video production company which is responsible for a large portion of major catwalk photos during many fashion weeks, including Paris Fashion Week. On Tuesday December 11th 2018, this research project culminated in a public exhibition at Glassbox in Paris, which was then closed on Saturday December 15th, and featured many talks by professionals in the fashion industry. This project involved many courses taken by the first year Fashion Studies students, and was the first year’s first exhibition with Parsons Paris.
This research project began in September during Paris Fashion Week when several students were selected to shadow InDigital photographers and photo editors and collect data on their experiences in the creation of the digital fashion image. Once this research was conducted, the class was split into groups and assigned topics in order to develop an exhibition presentation featuring the primary resources uncovered during Paris Fashion Week, as well as secondary research pertaining to these topics. After the research was organized, groups developed unique ways to present this information in a gallery space and invited in the public to experience the exhibition as well as talks. The groups also all participated in the construction process of their physical exhibition spaces under the guidance of Parsons Paris professor and artist Justin Morin, and it was many of these students first experience in installing an exhibition. They dealt with technical difficulties and the process of construction with limited materials.
The exhibition was opened Tuesday December 11th, and opening night featured a conversation between professor Justin Morin as well as Antoine Asseraf, a Paris based director who creates content for the fashion, beauty and music industries. Antoine Asseraf provided an insider perspective in regards to the way digital images and content influence the imaginary of the fashion industry, and how these types of content are shifting in the age of social media. After the opening night, students continued to maintain the exhibition and invite in the public to consume their work. The exhibition was closed with two more talks on Saturday December 15th. The first of the two was mediated by program director Dr. Marco Pecorari, and featured two fashion Journalists, Alice Pfeiffer of Les Inrockupitables and Marie Ottavi of Libération. The journalists discussed the challenges of writing for French fashion media in an era of political correctness, as well as the problem of bribery in the fashion journalism industry today in regards to authentic criticism. See more of Alice Pfeiffer’s work on the Les Inrockuptibles website here, and more of Marie Ottavi’s work for Libération here. The second, and final talk of the exhibition was conducted by Philippa Nesbitt of the Statements on Fashion podcast who engaged with Byronesque, a vintage fashion company on Instagram which discussed the tactics of digital marketing in today’s online environment. You can see more of Byronesque on their website or Instagram.
Written by Victoria Nergaard, MA Fashion Studies
Photos by Julien Mouffron-Gardner, Victoria Nergaard, MA Fashion Studies & Nicolette Contursil, MA Fashion Studies
