Sarah Cascone
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Fashion house Bottega Veneta, known for its championing of Japanese modernist architecture (see Can Tomas Maier and Bottega Veneta Save Japan’s Modernist Architectural Gems?), has crafted a unique marriage of art, fashion, and performance in celebration of its new spring-summer 2015 collection.
In Emotion of Sound, a video directed by Yusuke Tanaka, a series of dancers perform while wearing pieces from Bottega Veneta’s new collection, their shadows looming behind them on a white wall. The clothing, inspired by dance and designed to provide freedom of motion, seems to become one with the dancers as they elegantly, fluidly move through the empty space.
Though fashion and dance are both generally thought of as primarily visual mediums, Bottega Veneta’s project places a unique emphasis on sound, thanks to a short soundtrack drawn from recordings made at the fashion house’s atelier in Vicenza, Italy. The video eschews the visual aspect of the creative process, allowing the viewer to instead embrace their sense of hearing. The unconventional music of these subtle noises, layered over the quiet sounds made by the fabric as the dancers move, are meant to emphasize the artisanal techniques used to craft the brand’s clothing and accessories.
“Sound can be a very intriguing sense, and just as the other senses, highly personal,” said Bottega Veneta creative director Tomas Maier in a statement. “It can convey a lot about its source and can trigger imagination unique to the individual. I was interested in exploring this through the creation of something utterly unique, and could not be more impressed with the result of this collaboration.”
The video has also inspired an interactive art installation that will appear at Bottega Veneta’s Tokyo store March 7–16. Visitors will be invited to stand in front a projection screen, where the brand ad will suddenly be replaced by their shadow. Soon, though, the silhouette will take on a life of its own, mimicking the video’s dance moves.
Watch Bottega Veneta‘s Emotion of Sound:
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