Osman Opts for Arty Film Instead of Fashion Collection
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BIG DREAMS: For this season, London-based designer Osman Yousefzada decided to ditch the catwalks to present an arty short movie instead of his eponymous label’s new collection.
Partnering with the Whitechapel Gallery, Yousefzada hosted the screening of his “Her Dreams Are Bigger” film at the location on Sunday.
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The project intended to highlight the importance of sustainability and shed light on the realities of fast fashion and global concepts of beauty.
Supported by Livia Firth’s brand consultancy Eco-Age, the short film was developed from a trip to Bangladesh where Yousefzada “showed a suitcase full of clothing carrying the label Made in Bangladesh.” Bought at charity shops in England, the discarded clothes were handed to women who worked in the industry.
In a series of close-up shots, each woman was asked to imagine the previous owners of the discarded garments, often defining them as “tall” and “beautiful.”
“They wear different types of dresses, which make them look more beautiful,” said one of the ladies in the film, while another mused that “they’re not black like me, they’re much fairer and very pretty.”
Others additionally reflected on the correlation between their own poverty and the size of their dreams, which they believe to be way smaller compared to the ones the former owners of the clothes have.
Through the women’s words on film, Yousefzada highlighted personal considerations on the contemporary fashion world, the industry’s inherent inequalities and overall social discrepancy between makers and customers.
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