24 Sèvres' new film is directed by acclaimed filmmaker Nicholas Winding Refn. Image credit: 24 Sèvres
24 Sèvres, the online shopping extension of French department store Le Bon Marché, is celebrating the fall season with a surreal musical short film called “Where Fashion Comes to Life.”
Directed by auteur Nicolas Winding Refn, the short film follows the mannequins of Le Bon Marché in Paris as they slowly start to come to life in the middle of the night. The video is the first major campaign for the online store, which was launched only a few months ago.
Coming to life
Despite only being a few months old, 24 Sèvres is attempting to cement a bold visual style for itself with the release of a short film in anticipation of the fall season.
The online outlet is a multi-brand store and a digital extension of LVMH’s Le Bon Marché. For its first major fall collection, the new retailer is starting with a bang thanks to a short film directed by Mr. Refn, the acclaimed director of films such as “Drive” and “Branson” who has won the Cannes Film Festival’s Best Director award.
The short film, titled Where Fashion Comes to Life, is set within Le Bon Marché as well as on the surrounding streets of Paris.
At the beginning of the short, the mannequins within the store are seen slowly beginning to move before fully coming to life and being played by real actresses.
A mannequin in the streets of Paris. Image credit: 24 Sèvres
These mannequins begin to dance through the store to pulsating music before shattering a window and escaping into the night. The mannequins spread out throughout the streets of Paris and are seen performing intricately choreographed dances throughout the city in alleyways, plazas, under bridges and in the middle of streets.
The mannequins’ movements evolve over the course of the video, starting out jerky and stiff before slowly evolving to be more fluid and expressive.
Eventually, the sun rises and the mannequins return to their original forms scattered throughout the city as Parisians wander past them in the morning light.
Fashion film
Earlier this year, before 24 Sèvres was unveiled, Le Bon Marché released a multi-faceted campaign that hinted at some of the decadent, high-production value advertising that was to come.
Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche created an urban jungle in its flagship, accompanied by an animated video, weaving a campaign story through a series of consumer interactions.
“Attention Aux Gorilles” was the department store’s campaign in celebration of the summer that started out with an animated video from illustrator Ana Tortos. Gorillas and illustrations from the video were featured throughout the store in various window displays amongst products (see story).
Where Fashion Comes to Life
The retailer more recently has been working on another campaign that bridges the gap between online and offline marketing with an intricate story of Italian families across channels.
The department store will be sharing a new collection that celebrates Italy’s goods with four distinct groupings. Each category of products will be based on a member of the affluent Italian family, intertwining a story line into bricks-and-mortar shopping (see story).
With the recruitment of Mr. Refn, it is clear that LVMH and Le Bon Marché are sparing no expense in bringing in highly talented people to helm the visual components of 24 Sèvres.
As the online shop is still new, it needs all the star power LVMH can give it.