Cinematically dramatic silhouettes: Gareth Pugh A/W 09

There are great advantages in showcasing your collection with a video rather than with a proper catwalk. The main one is that you save a lot of money and if you make the video available also on the Internet, people from all over the world can actually join in what is usually considered as a annoyingly private and exclusive event.

The disadvantage, though, is that you can’t properly see the designs if you are sitting in front of the screen of your computer and you can’t admire the dynamic effects of particular volumes when a model strides down the catwalk.

Yet Gareth Pugh proved it is actually possible to show volumes and movements if your video presentation is cleverly done. Sending it online on the SHOWstudio site and screening it at the same time in Paris, Pugh’s video, directed by Ruth Hogben, starred Natasa Vojnovic moving and throwing shapes clad in Pugh’s new creations. While, yes, it was obviously not possible to actually touch the garments, the video format actually worked much better with Pugh’s designs.

As the video opened, Vojnovic, wearing an ample and long cape, looked like a crow flapping its scary wings. Then the model reappeared again wearing a slashed-top and wide trousers, but with her torso detached from the lower half of her body. In the background, industrial noises of something being torqued with a metal tool could be heard.

Vojnovic then doubled ad tripled, marched across the screen in platform boots as if she was striding down a catwalk, appeared donning a square hat, then threw cinematically dramatic samurai shapes moving with the sensuality of a flamenco dancer while wearing ample pleated pants. Black smoke invaded the screen and, as it disappeared, it conjured up the image of the model, filmed towards the end of the video almost floating in Pugh’s inflatable expanding and contracting jackets and coats.

But if that was the film, the actual collection showed Pugh has matured a lot and, inverting his more traditional triangle-shaped silhouettes, he has reduced the shoulder line and opted for amplifying the lower part of his designs.

The collection featured perfectly wearable trouser suits with ample high-waisted pants, long skirts and sensible short dresses, jackets and skin-tight trousers decorated with his iconic metal spikes and coats in metallic shades of grey decorated with his signature diamond patterns.

There were strong connections with art, dance and cinema in Pugh's presentation and you naturally wondered if ballet-trained Pugh will one day design also theatrical costumes for the stage. We will have to wait and see, but, for the time being, his choice of going for striking yet less theatrical designs and for an alternative option to showcase his stuff earned him approval and showed that under his Goth skin he's got enough business acumen.