fig.: Maison Martin Margiela SS2011; stage view at the 'set up' presentation with video installation and real looks from 26 June 2010 in Paris.

Video: Maison Martin Margiela men's wear SS2011; stage presentation on 26 June 2010 at Le Laboratoire (a creative space where architects, multimedia artists and scientists from philosophy, mathematics, etc. meet) in Paris.

fig.: Burberry Prorsum Men's wear SS2011. Picture from the final scene at the catwalk on 19 June 2010, the first day of the 'Milan Moda Uomo'.

Video: Burberry Prorsum men's wear spring/summer 2011 presented on 19 June in Milan. On occasion of the new men's wear SS2011 show in Milan, creative director Christopher Bailey presented the first 'Burberry Acoustic' track 'Alleyway' by the four men band 'Life in Film'. Burberry Acoustic is the title of a new collaboration between the fashion label and young British musicians, which are presented on live.burberry.com. Despite the new collaboration of Burberry with young British musicians, the show opened originally with another song than you can hear on this video. The opener track was 'House of the Rising Sun'. The US folk song became internationally renown by the interpretation of the UK band 'The Animals' in 1964. The NY Mag publishes a live video from the show.

Video: Vivienne Westwood men's wear spring/summer 2011 from the catwalk on 20 June 2010 during the Milan Uomo Moda. The video is posted by Paris Modes, a video production by the global news agency AFP (Agence France Presse - founded in 1835), which is headquartered in Paris and works with specialist journalists around the world.

MEN STYLE
spring/summer 2011

• Maison Martin Margiela
• Burberry Prorsum
• Vivienne Westwood

Stage design

From the latest internationally perceived ready-to-wear shows, Fashionoffice has picked three that have one in common: media on the catwalk and interactivity.

Maison Martin Margiela

Maison Martin Margiela's interactive design of the stage brings the outside of Paris to the inside in front of the viewers. The man on the screen and the one on the stage are interacting. Instead of music, the authentic scenery of a fashion shooting is brought by instructions from a photographer and street sound to the performance-film-catwalk.

The most refreshing scene is the one when the parallel standing men (photo on this page) are instructed to take the hand out of the pocket - only one of the two follows the order of the photographer.

Probably this scene reflects the collection best: the patterns are developed from a mathematical concept and styled with the easiness of disorder.

Burberry

The next example for extraordinary catwalk presentations is Burberry Prorsum. Even Burberry has staged up the catwalk with video screens; but in the case of Burberry, the interactivity happens not between model and screen, but between users and the catwalk presentation itself.

The British label is a pioneer of interactivity. Already on 22 September 2009, Burberry has streamed from the catwalk in London and invited users to comment live on Twitter and Facebook. Burberry was the first fashion label that has set up a blogging suite to enable the guests to blog directly from the after show party.

At that time, Burberry's internet website live.burberry.com was launched.

In the meanwhile, fashion users are familiar with the personal video invitations by creative director Christopher Bailey before the shows and get announcements of live streams by email or social media tools.

By the way: the next Burberry women's wear 2011 presentation will happen on 21 September 2010 in London. Fashionoffice just received (6 July, the day this article is written) an invitation.

Vivienne Westwood

The next example for an extraordinary stage is the one of Vivienne Westwood for the men's wear SS2011, which was shown on 20 June during the Milan Uomo Moda.

Even Vivienne Westwood uses screens; but instead of flat screens or video walls, she is placing the traditional last century TV receivers on stage. Is this British humour?

Vivienne Westwood is interactive too: the designer cooperates now for the second time with the Swiss reusable bottle label Sigg on an eco-conscious project with the aim to reduce plastic garbage. Therefore, the two labels released a special edition Vivienne Westwood by Sigg bottle at the men's wear show in Milan. The bottles were handed out to invited guests and VIPs at the show. For the bottle, Vivienne Westwood has chosen the tagline "Get a Life, Art Lovers Unite!". The third limited edition of a special designed Vivienne Westwood Sigg bottle will be released at the women's wear 2011 presentation in September 2010.


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