Video courtesy of Chanel
With the fashion world converting itself to digital media more and more often these days, there has been an unsurprising increase in the number of designers and labels creating 'fashion shorts' - the short length fashion film aimed at helping consumers relate to the brand on a personal level, often without brash marketing or promotion involved. A lot of these new found fashion films have relatively little to do with the clothing they aim to promote - think of the Christian Louboutin video of the designer himself tap dancing, or the completely mute Prada 'First Spring' video, a surreal nine-minute short aimed at constructing a 'dreamlike realm' in which the male actors wore Prada menswear.
With these shorts costing a fraction of the cost of a television ad (roughly $15-50,000 for a short in comparison with $1 million for a tv commercial), surely the fashion film is well worth it's budget? Take into account that within minutes, the fashion short can be dispatched globally via the magical world of the internet - dispersed through bloggers and the brand's own website, they can spread like wildfire and reach a far bigger audience than a television commercial could ever wish for. However, with most of these mini features being so vague, the actual effect of promotion could be questioned.
