Introduced by festival curator Marketa Uhlirova.

The Enigma of Fashion features works by early film pioneers, artist and commercial as well as avant-garde filmmakers including Segundo de Chomón, Sonia Delaunay, Hans Richter, Lewis Klahr, Christine Noll Brinckmann, Jacques Baratier and Martin Creed. With an absence of – or disregard for – conventional storytelling, these films animate clothes, shop mannequins and magazine illustrations, allowing them to assume lives of their own and assert a powerful sense of their reality as material things. Here, clothing and artificial bodies are shown in the very physical processes of their creation or destruction, as well as rituals such as spinning, flying, folding and unfolding. They are removed, at least to a degree, from fashion’s social and cultural contexts that normally give them their purpose and meaning. With their functions suspended, they appear instead as dreamlike, playful and elusive, becoming potent carriers of fascination, desire, emotion and sensual pleasure.

Transformation (Métempsycose)

France, 1907. Dir. Segundo de Chomón & Ferdinand Zecca for Pathé Frères.

Keller-Dorian: Film Gaufré (Sonia Delaunay)

France. 1927. Dir. Unknown for Sonia Delaunay.
With Sonia Delaunay.

Ghosts before Breakfast

Germany, 1927. Dir. Hans Richter.
With Werner Graeff, Darius Milhaud, Willi Pferdekamp, Hans Richter.

The Future Eves 

France, 1964. Dir. Jacques Baratier.
English subtitles.

Understanding

UK. 2016. Dir. Martin Creed.
With Martin Creed.

Warner Corset Advertisement

USA, 1910s. Dir. Unknown for The Warner Brothers Company.

Tough Stockings

UK, 1960. Dir. Unknown for British Pathé.
With Maureen Pearson.

There Is a Garden in My Head

Netherlands, 1987. Dir. Karin Wiertz & Jacques Verbeek.

Electric Jungle

UK, 2013. Dir. Mat Maitland for Kenzo.

Altair

USA, 1994. Dir. Lewis Klahr.

Dress Rehearsal & Karola 2

USA, 1981. Dir. Christine Noll Brinckmann.
With Karola Gramann.

Total Running Time: c. 68 min