FLY: The fashion DVD
FASHION HAS MANY FACES, IT CAN BE ART YET IT CAN ALSO BE A COMMODITY. FASHION INSPIRES AND LENDS ITSELF TO BE REINTERPRETED, DECONSTRUCTED, REJUVENATED AND SO ON.
IT'S NO WONDER THAT ONE OF THE MOST VISUALLY STIMULATING FORMS OF ART LENDS ITSELF SO WELL TO BE FILMED OR PHOTOGRAPHED. AS A VISUALLY STIMULATING ONLINE MAGAZINE WE ALWAYS APPLAUD NEW INITIATIVES THAT REINFORCE THIS VISION.
ICONIQUE TALKS TO NIMA ABBASI FROM FLY MAGAZINE, A FASHION MAGAZINE ON DVD THAT TRANSLATES THE MANY EMOTIONS OF FASHION TO FILM. ONE OF THEIR MOVIES, MADE BY GHUKFVIN FEATURING HUSSEIN CHALAYAN, CAN BE SEEN AT THE TOP OF THIS FEATURE.
It’s great to have a fashion magazine finally making it to DVD, when and how was your idea born?
We love how a magazine is like a time capsule capturing what is happening around us at a particular moment in time. It is also an opportunity to explore and work with all the art form/creative disciplines that we all love - fashion, music, art, film, literature, animation etc.
The idea came to us because of a number of things: On one hand we were seeing that over the last few years most magazines were repeating themselves and starting to look the same. On the other hand we were seeing the commercialisation of magazines - caring more and more about celebrities and advertising dollars which seem to drive who and what they write about. Words and images are strong - but we wanted to bring our stories to life and communicate them using film as the medium.
At the same time we saw that people's habits are changing - a lot of people (in our target market) have big screen TV at home, are always with their laptop (that has DVD player) and travel around the world to hotels that have big screen TVs and dvd players (and these people do not want to watch CNN all the time.) own iPod videos etc. and moving forward there will be more and more content and more and more devices available to watch film (Motorola is coming out with a phone in 07 that will allow you to watch 30 mins of film content on a phone with a bigger screen)
FLY's films are digital content - so we wanted to make something that was also tangible and had value as an object (a bit like the difference between having 1000 MP3s in your iPod and having a 1000 records on your shelf at home) so we decided to put everything on a DVD with a beautiful hand assembled package (about 20cm x 12cm) which is different to the normal ugly DVD cases. Our packaging is made of recycled cardboard - so we also do our thing for the environment.
So FLY is an answer or response to all of that
How did you start FLY?
The core team (Catherine, Ghukfvin, Laurent and I) all have different backgrounds - combining experience in film, photography, music and business. Stephen is a photographer - although his first love is photography he is now editor of a product that is all about moving-images. He always lived in his own fantasy life - and now he can realise them by making films.... Catherine studied film at NYU - and started working in films in LA and NY ...she soon realised that the only way to get to where she wanted and communicate her creativity was to create her own paradigm ....I am ex-lawyer who worked as a business consultant for years - I got fed up with the corporate world and started to do music for fashion shows 3 years ago together with Laurent who is a DJ and an avid art collector (and almost addicted to contemporary art).
It was very hard at the beginning - all we had was an idea and there was nothing else like it - so people had a hard time understanding what we were trying to do. We met a lot of people at the beginning - photo agencies, model agencies, designers and their PR, inverstors etc. and most people were telling us FLY was an impossible project - and wanted us to contact them again after we released our first issue ! but we were too naive to listen to them and just carried on doing what we were all dreaming of doing...we started to find peple who believed in the idea and were prepared to take a risk (designers, DPs, photographers, stylists etc.) - we launched our fist issue start of 2006 - and it sold out in 10 weeks. We made a lot of mistakes (which we learned from) and had to be very creative about how and where to shoot the films. Our collaborators played a huge role in getting the first issue out and by the end of it we had collborated with almost 200 people by the time we had a dvd with 30 short films on it....and ofcourse there's New York...a project like this in the way we did it and the speed it all came together and the success it now enjoys can only come in a city like New York.
FLY collaborates with many different names in the industry, how do you approach them? at the beginning it was about picking up the phone and calling everyone we wanted to work with - and using our contacts to get in the door... it is now much easier than when we first started especially because pf the calibre of people who contributed to the previous issues - now we get approached every day by designers, photographers, PR companies who want to work with us - even do create films for them as part of their campaign or a video lookbook.
Do you have any nice anecdotes about approaching some of the industry’s leading figures?
Our experience is that people at the top, those people who shape the industry, understand FLY and see its potential - the problem is always getting through the "gate keepers" you normally have to deal with. That's how we managed to work with people like Karl Lagerfeld. We had an interesting experience meeting one of the top design/fashion houses in Paris after we launched our first issue (we really wanted to work with this designer) - we met with head of PR for mens and womens who started by questioning us about our past (like a job interview) - what we did, where we came from, what similar projects we had done before etc...so we stopped them and suggested that if they had not seen any of the films we created then we should watch them together - the best way to judge us is by seeing our work - and if they did not like what we did they did not have to work with us....the meeting went on for an hour and our current issue features a film featuring that designer's current collection
Are you creatively involved in the way they produce their features? Do you provide specific tools to realize these film productions?
Each dvd includes 30 short fashion and art inspired short films, interviews and documentaries (over 2.5 hours of content) - We are involved with every step of the process for almost all the films (and we came up with the concept and shot 10 of the 30 films on the current issue) - we are VERY hands on in everything from coming up with the concept or working with photogtaphers/filmmakers to refine their concept, casting models, finding DPs, chosing location or designing the set, hair and makeup, coordinating the shoot, light & sound, wirting dialogue or chosing music, licensing music, editing....even design of the menus in the dvd and the packaging...FLY is our product, it's about our vision - the feel and look and the aesthetic is unique and the quality is consistently high - and we can only achieve that if we are involved with everything
What is your dream for FLY?
We have many ideas and many projects in front of us....including FLY Creative Studios (working with brands to create short films as part of their marketing, branding and advertising strategy - we are seeing more and more of this hapenning with the recent trends spearheded by iTunes, YouTube and Google) and digital distribution of our content. For us the main thing is to build our brand and our identity...and to do that we want to continue improving what we do and collaborate with the best established and emerging talent from all creative disciplines. For our next issue we are honored to be collaborating with Magnum to create a special edition of FLY as part of their 60th anniversary celebrations....it is an amazing opportunity for such a young company likes ours to be working with one of the giants of the industry....
Thank you for answering our questions, we ask every interviewee this question: Who is your icon?
Anyone who dares to make a change
