Please contact me at goldchild.world@gmail.com
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GOLDCHILD is my first collection of fashion show set design research and commentaries, which consists of three parts.
The first part focuses on the study of set design, which includes analysis of 30 fashion show sets designed by various set designers, such as a collaboration with my favorite set designer, Alexandre de Betak’s team. Alenxadre’s team used to work with major brands and fashion houses such as H&M, Louis Viutton, Christian Dior, etcetera. I also interviewed Derek Mclane, who designed the stage for the Academy Award 7 years in a row. There is also a tour at Stefan Beckman’s studio, who exclusively designs stage and sets for Marc Jacobs at New York Fashion Week. The exposition also includes an analysis of the set design in the movie Isle of Dogs, as well as the methodology and ideals of the director Wes Anderson.
The second part exhibits fashion show and magazine set designs that I have participated in personally, such as the the fashion show stage and presentation space for Private Policy New York during the New York Fashion Week and Paris Fashion Week; as well as my collaboration with Betak team for ZEGNA FW 2018 Show, in which we used artificial snow, cold light lighting, as well as mirrors, to create a snow scene alike the polar region as the client desired.
The third part is a discussion of the linkage and nuance between architectural study and set design. This is one of the first literatures integrating architectural and fashion design, exploring and exploiting the intersection of the two seemingly unrelated fields, studying the intrinsic logic and potential collaboration of them. The charisma and spirit of set design shines when the design of an architecture sets aside the static pattern and norms, abolishes the limitation of urban planning and architectural regulations, disregards the aesthetical constraints from the community or general public, purely focuses on the communication between human and architectures. The architectural form and proposition shows when fashion show set design omits the dreamlike fantasies of stage design and choreography, neglecting the dazzling halo of celebrities, solely focusing on ergonomics and the interaction between atmosphere, space, and the dynamic lines. This concluding part provides insights on a novel potential of architectural design research, as well as contributing a solid foundation of fashion show set design with ideals and technologies from architecture.
—Jian XU