FASHIONWALK 2010
Fashionwalk 2010 presents a new generation of fashion creators who work in the borderlands between fashion and art. This years focus is on the performative aspects of clothing and the body. Ten artists present performance and site-specific installations around Stockholm city. The aim of the Fashion Walk Stockholm is to highlight fashion art as an artistic genre with critical potential and to introduce the young creative producers in Sweden to a broader public.

Read more about the participants in Fashion Walk 2010

Fashionwalk Stockholm was launched by Fashionplay in August 2009. Fashionplay is a nonprofit organization that works within the field of fashion art. The goal for its activities is to develop and strengthen fashion art as an art form and cultural expression. We work with independent art projects and exhibitions in collaboration with other operators, to spread knowledge and facilitate meeting points between fashion and related areas.

We use the word fashion art to identify the intersection of fashion and art. We believe that fashion art emphasizes the interdisciplinary and artistic practices, with special focus on the significance of fashion for people and society. By using the term fashion art, we also hope to instigate discussions about the subject.

Fashionplay invited Sarah Kim and Katrin Behdjou Arshi to curate Fashionwalk Stockholm 2010.

Giallo

A killer lurks in the shadows of the city.
A man witnesses a beautiful lady being killed.
Many vicious murders rip through the city.
All well dressed victims.

The trailer produced for Fashionwalk Stockholm was inspired by giallo and incorporated contributions by each participating artist. Giallo is a dynamic film genre from Italy close to the thriller and horror genres. This combination of uniquely stylized cinematography, experimental soundtracks, and the “who done it?” narrative structure, emerged in the 1960′s from the crime/mystery pulp novels published by the Mondadori publishing house. The word “giallo” means yellow in Italian, which was the color of the covers for these popular paperback books.

The Swedish director Arne Mattsson and his film Mannequin in Red (1958) was also an inspiration to classic directors like Mario Bava. Bava made stunning films such as Blood and Black Lace (1964) where the colors, art direction and movement of the camera merge into every twist and turn of the diabolical plot.

The director Dario Argento is also a major figure with his intensely psychological characters and compelling musical collaborations notably with the band Goblin in Deep Red (1975). Other major directors in the giallo genre are: Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi, and Sergio Martino.

Besides the obvious intrigue of these murder mysteries on screen, the extreme portrayal of sadist and eroticized violence is irresistibly decorative and aesthetically alluring. Fashion and art become the ultimate and deadly seduction. The objects, like murder weapons, gloves, and clothing drive the underlying themes and play a major role often overpowering the characters.

The genre may come across as merely misogynist, highly sexualized, and overtly sexist, portraying extreme physical violence towards women. Yet, the genre offers certain important variations from most other horror films, often playing on the gender roles especially using fashion as an indicator of these statements. The protagonist, often a precarious cultural worker, artist, musician or writer is caught in a whirlwind of fatal events and tormented by the traces of the mysterious killer who is only revealed at the very last bloody scene.

Giallo is able to combine and capture the contemporary artful experimentation in cinema, music, and fashion using a psycho-dramatic story with a very simple starting point – of a man who witnesses a murder.

Text: Sarah Kim

A text by Dr. Louise Wallenberg about giallo is available here as a PDF:
The Giallo: Blood, Horror, and Reversed Roles

Louise Wallenberg is the Director at the Centre for Fashion Studies at Stockholm University and holds a PhD in Cinema Studies