COMMUNICATION AND MEDIA
Vivienne Westwood 2011/2012 Winter Campaign
LinLin Kearney Shira Kela Stefanía Fanney
CONCEPT Winter 2011/12 campaign and runway show for her MAN collection. The theme of the campaign and runway is “Arabians nights”. Inspired by the artists from the romantic art movement such as Delacroix in 1834, who shocked French citizens with his paintings of exotic Algerian women sitting on the floor. The collection is inspired by the exoticism of Arabian style clothes. Westwood always’s themes her collections on very specific current events or other social themes. For this collection she was commenting on the conflicts caused by the stigma people have of the arab style clothing that people associate with terrorists. The collection and campaign is to bring the focus off the wars and conflicts and to bring out the amazing style and beauty of these garments. The collection features lots of earth tones, deep blues and magentas, rich gold embroidery, Persian rug inspired patterns, head pieces, long draping clothes, thick wool suits, light baggy shirts and galabia (long knee/full length tunics). Music Westwood never uses any TV spots, only print advertisements and therefore no music is required. The runway show will feature world music, specifically the Israeli band, Balkin Beat Box – Habibi. This style of music goes hand in hand with the coloring and messages sent in the advertisements. The runway show will continue with the collection theme of Arabian nights and feature the guests sitting on the floor on giant wool rugs, big pillows with embroidery and sequins, candles and low-lit red lamps. The runway will also be on the floor with models walking over the Persian rugs with red soft lights illuminating them.
CAMPAIGN Casting Westwood always chooses models with their own unique style, she tends to shy away from the standard waify, no characteristic, model type. She wants her model to have a strong personality, attitude, character that are capable of wearing and pulling off the look of her garments. She also uses models of every race. For our campaign we have chosen 6 male models of all ethnicity. We have chosen models with strong features, obvious characteristics and ones that have the “x” factor.
Location The campaign photos will be taken in London in a city/urban scene to contrast with the ethnic, Arabian style garments. At the same time this juxtaposition will exemplify how the clothes can be worn in an urban environment. Her clothes although extravagant and high fashion always have a certain edge, attitude and urban feel. Her previous campaigns are always contrasting the elaborate clothing with the location, for example haute couture dresses worn in a laundry mat. Colouring The colours featured in the collection are earthy tones, deep blues and magentas, rich gold embroidery and persian rug inspired patterns. Her brand image is bold, eclectic and never confides to society or trend constructs. Most winter collections tend to focus on darker more conspicuous colours; blacks, greys, navys and browns – whereas Westwood always endeavors to break the norm and create colours and garments that stand out and are bold. The bold colours will be contrasted with the grey urban scene of the city. This will exaggerate the already electric colours of the garments. Colour is very important to this brand, the stark colours define the their image, values and beliefs; bold, breaking the rules. Tone The initial tone of the campaign on first glance comes across confronting and bold, using the Arab style clothes in a western country setting to shock viewers. The style of clothing
is normally seen in Arab nations on people that are generally, due to recent media, associated with terrorists. But underneath this initial tone we have encoded an irony – take away all the media and politics and wars, these are just garments and we want people to see this and instead of thinking of the stigma associated with Arab clothing and the conflicts in these countries but just the clothes for what they are, beautiful and exotic.
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