Helen PapagiannisOctober 25, 2020mugler, fashion, digital fashion, luxury brand, designer, bellahadid, model, avatar, virtual beings, runway

Mugler

Helen PapagiannisOctober 25, 2020mugler, fashion, digital fashion, luxury brand, designer, bellahadid, model, avatar, virtual beings, runway

Bella Hadid’s avatar is the star of fashion house Mugler’s new film.

Finally, things are starting to get interesting with fashion films using emerging tech in place of physical catwalks amid the pandemic. Model Bella Hadid’s avatar appears in the Mugler Spring 2021 film, transforming into a Pegasus-centaur hybrid leaping off the Palais Garnier.

Hadid’s digitization was initally done for practical reasons. As Vogue reports, artistic director Casey Cadwallader and the other Mugler muses were in Paris, while Hadid was in New York. Hadid had her full body and face scanned at the LensCloud studio in Brooklyn with Cadwallader watching the shoot over Zoom. “We got her 3D form and then we had to really scratch our heads and say, ‘What are we going to do with it?’” said Cadwallader.

Model Bella Hadid being digitized. Photo: Mugler (via Vogue)

Thankfully, the creative execution didn’t remain (fully) practical, and that’s what I truly appreciate about Mugler’s experimentation with virtual beings in this film: not simply replicating reality, but pushing beyond it. Yes, Hadid opens and closes the film walking the catwalk, but where we start to get a taste for the freeing possibilities of these new virtual mediums is Hadid transforming into a fantastical flying Pegasus-centaur. We need more bold experimentation in this virtual realm; 3D virtual fashion models are expected and they’re getting boring.

As I wrote in my book Augmented Human, “When we move away from copying reality, Augmented Reality in general will be liberated from the burden of simulating the real, with the creative doors wide open to new modes of expression and invention.”

Paris Fashion Week and Haute Couture Week turned digital earlier this year with fashion houses presenting short films as an alternative to the physical catwalk. I was surprised by the lack of virtual exploration. Mugler gives me hope with this new film.