Diane Pernet carries an intimidatingly dark and mysterious elegance. She intentionally fades into the black uniform of her signature dress although she is quite beautiful if one was lucky to see her partially unveiled. Diane’s voice is a soft whisper, her words bring light and reign truth to the amalgam of the fashion community’s visionaries, misfits, and promising talent. We first met Diane Pernet briefly three years ago at the Los Angeles premiere of her first fashion film festival, You Wear It Well. We were starving for a festival in LA to push boundaries in the most aesthetically beautiful of ways and that it was indeed. Three years later, on September 25-27th 2009, she is projecting a new festival, A Shaded View On Fashion Film, in the most appropriate of cities, the city she has chosen to call home, the city of light, Paris, France. The incredible ensemble of contributors to this festival include: Erwin Olaf, Roísín Murphy, Fumiko Imano, Mr. Pearl, Benjamin Serroussi, Mattias Montero and Igor Zimmerman; as well as films by/with Steven Klein, Chloe Sevigny, Kim Gordon, Chris Cunningham, Ali Madhavi, Undercover - Jun Takahashi, Thom Browne, Jenny Lewis and Yelle. This year’s jury for the films in competition includes: designer Rick Owens, photographer Nan Goldin, actress Maria de Medeiros, curator Eric Troncy, journalist Laurent Goumarre, ad man Eric Tong Cuong and producer Hélène Ségol.
Diane, you are a mercurial creative wunderkind, successfully wearing various occupational ensembles. How did you live so many creative lives in one?
D: I don’t know, somehow it feels quite natural. I started out by studying film, then reportage photography, then went back to school for a short while to study fashion and set up my business without really having had any kind of apprenticeship. Professionally, I grew up in public. Journalism was not something that I ever planned, it just happened. After working as an editor for Elle.com and Vogueparis.com, blogging seemed quite natural. The position at ZOO Magazine as co-editor in chief really came out of the blogging even though I had been writing for them ever since the days of Dutch. Sandor Lubbe was the creative power behind Dutch and now ZOO. The film festival is something that evolved out of the fact that for the past 9 or more years I’ve been making low-fi videos. About 7 + years ago, I had thought about putting together a fashion film festival but at that time there really was really not enough interest or material out there. I launched A Shaded View On Fashion Film as an extension of my blog 2 years ago and prior to that I co-curated You Wear it Well, a fashion film festival that was really a 90 minute curated program consisting of about 30 short films. ASVOFF is a three day fashion film festival that incorporates documentaries, short and fiction films as well as music videos. As for the consulting and talent scout, the festival d’Hyeres talent scouting evolved from the fact that for the past 7 years I’ve been working with my team doing the making of videos of the festival and it just grew naturally. White Club in Milan came out of that.
Your personal style is dark, iconic, and strikingly beautiful. May you tell us more about this? Was there a point in your life that prompted you to project this individual style?
D: When I was a fashion designer for my own brand for 13 years. I took the decision to wear black in the same way that Givenchy or Maison Martin Margiela took to white lab coats. By dressing in a uniform you do not compete with what you create. I stopped designing long ago but kept to the uniform. It evolves with time but basically has become my signature.
What inspired you to first fuse the worlds of fashion and film when creating the You Wear It Well festivals and now ASVOFF (A Shaded View On Fashion Film) Festivals?
D: Fashion and Film are my two loves. When I was a child I dreamed of being a fashion designer but never felt confident in my drawing abilities. I studied film at University and fashion followed after that when I understood that although it is a great advantage if you can draw well, it is not required. I created mostly by draping on a live model then giving that to my patternmaker to clean up and make into the finished garment. She was also quite good at interpreting my spontaneous style of drawing. Film and fashion complete the circle that started out a long time ago. About 4 years ago when I told my LA contributor at that time that I had made a road movie for Eley Kishimoto he asked me if I wanted to screen it in LA. At the same time EGR, my Mexican contributor, sent me a film that he’d made. I liked it, posted it onto my blog, and we decided to create a fashion film festival. My original impulse for this was too soon but by 2006 the time was right.
Have there been any films or filmmakers that have inspired you throughout your life?
D: Absolutely, John Cassavetes, because I think that he changed the landscape of independent film, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Luis Bunel, Visconti, Pasolini, David Lynch, Almodovar, Atom Egoyan, Neil La Bute...many.
Upon first casually meeting you a few years ago, you were reminiscent of Maya Deren, a favorite filmmaker of ours who’s works were visionary and experimental for her time. The interests and the creative forces you promote and expose on your blog A Shaded View On Fashion are also ahead of their time or seen as “fringe“ in contrast to mainstream mass produced fashion lines. What has compelled you to continue to uncover these works and people?
D: It is just my natural instinct and what I am attracted to. BTW when I was in San Francisco four years ago at the DeYoung Museum I picked up a DVD of Maya Deren’s and I love it. I had been trying to find it here and could not but now it is easier to find.
We’ve noticed more design houses and designers extending beyond print and creating video campaigns. What do you believe is the sudden desire for this medium to translate their work?
D: I think that runway shows are feeling very last century and that film is the new medium for fashion. Frozen images can be beautiful but fashion in movement makes a lot of sense. Fashion films have created a whole new dimension for creative exploration.
We’d love for you to bring your festival to our hometown of L.A. and remove the candy-coated explosive induced aesthetic of the majority of mainstream American cinema. Do you plan on bringing ASVOFF to the United States?
D: We would love to bring it there but in order for that to happen we need a sponsor.
Do you believe “Paris is still burning?” when it comes to fashion and film or are there other countries we should open our eyes to?
D: While personally I feel that Paris will always be the center of fashion even though there are enormous amounts of creativity coming from London and elsewhere, Paris is the platform that gets designers from around the planet the most international attention. In that respect, Paris is still burning. I travel a lot and the whole idea behind www.ashadedviewonfashion.com and www.asvoff.com is that you do not need to come from one of the major capitals like LA, NYC, Paris, Milan, Tokyo, London, etc. but if you have something to say in our times through digital technology you can be heard. For example, I’ve found great filmmakers in places like Riga, Latvia and Stockholm.
Any advice you would like to give to future fashion film makers that would like to submit to ASVOFF?
D: It’s very open, I love the diversity in fashion and film. ASVOFF3 deadline is May 2010 and as LA is the capital of film, it would be great for them to have a strong representation in ASVOFF. It’s an open call and everyone is invited the only criteria is that the film, for the competition, be under 5 minutes and that within those 5 minutes fashion plays a major role.
lovely. great work, ladies!
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