The use of Computer Generated Imagery is not new to fashion industry. Starting from 2013, luxury brands like Givenchy and Louis Vuitton started to include virtual models in their campaign castings.
This year, for the presentation the Pre-Fall 2018 collection, Balmain launched a new advertising campaign featuring three models of different ethnicities signed by Cameron-James Williams (creator of Shudu, the first digital supermodel of color), opening a debate on the values and beauty standards promoted within the industry.
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Recently, also Balenciaga joined the debate, thanks to an Instagram campaign in the pursuit of reality distortion. The show held in September, to present the SS19 collection, threw us in a virtual reality without time, with a tunnel of screens wrapping the public with high-tec imagery (read here to know more). Taking forward the change of direction, futuristic and nostalgic, launched by Demna Gvasalia, Balenciaga proposes an all-virtual casting for its latest Instagram campaign. The videos appeared on social media show digital renders of 3D models, strictly in Balenciaga style, contorting in a way that challenges the laws of human anatomy.
The campaign was made by the artist of Turkish descent Yilmaz Sen, who worked on the project for a month side-by-side with stylist Lotta Volkova. The artist was contacted by the brand this summer, showing interest to some of his working and proposing a collaboration that was a meeting point between Sen’s work and the brand’s aesthetic. The young artist, that is now based in Copenaghen, has an accademic foundation in industrial product design at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul and has learned animation and motion design by himself.
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The reactions to the post, once again, have been contrasting: there’s who defined the post original and innovative, and who found it weird and uncomfortable. As the artist himself points out in an interview with Dazed and Confused:
“It’s unusual to create something that has no connection to reality. For the common audience this might be scary because you take something realistic and then it breaks apart to be weird, abstract, and unidentifiable”
Confrontation with virtual models created ad hoc is the last challenge launched by the fashion industry, which has led to many questions regarding the type of message and the unnatural beauty ideals proposed. In 2013, Louis Vuitton designed costumes for Japanese singer avatar Hatsune Miku, who boasts collaborations with Lady Gaga and Pharrell. In May 2016, Riccardo Tisci’s Givenchy designed a haute couture gown for the influencer and, on the same year, Lil Miquela’s first selfie was posted on Instagram, now in company of streetwear guru Lawko.
Many are the models who took part in a debate started on the casting choice of virtual models, finding it scary to compete with unreal girls and wondering what impact will this technology have on their careers.
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In the case of Balenciaga, anyway, the models represented correspond to the previous castings standards and the campaign seems to just keep going on the wave of reality exaggeration and distortion started by the brand.
Text by Enrica Miller