Dressing the Screen: the rise of fashion film

Dressing the Screen is an exhibition in China of close to 100 films bringing together work by some of the world's most famous and innovative fashion designers and film-makers from the last 50 years. Featured designers and filmmakers included SHOWstudio’s Nick Knight and Ruth Hogben, Alexander McQueen, Tim Walker, Rifat Ozbek, Vivienne Westwood, Ossie Clark, Hussein Chalayan, Gareth Pugh, Henry Holland and Burberry. The exhibition highlighted pivotal moments in fashion, film and technology - from pre-internet experiments such as the early films of Ossie Clark, Rifat Ozbek, Bodymap and Bella Freud, to pioneering technological advancements such as POST magazine, Burberry’s holographic catwalk show and Cassette Playa’s Augmented Reality. The exhibition, supported by Chinese lifestyle magazine Modern Weekly International and Swarovski Elements, was China’s first exhibition of fashion film which has traditionally been screened at Fashion Week, Fashion Film Festivals and online. Ferguson selected the UK contribution, which explored the history of British fashion film from the first early experiments in the 1930s through to the present day. Films were selected from British archives including the BFI, Pathe and Vogue archives, and included previously unseen shorts.