The dress is the screen: Dancing fashion, dancing media

Abstract

This essay reflects upon the intimate interrelation between fashion, media, and dance. In particular, it looks at designer Rabih Kayrouz’s 2017 summer collection fashion show (and its filmic version), which features a performance by ballet dancer Marie-Agnès Gillot. Drawing freely from Loïe Fuller’s famous Serpentine dances, the aim is not only to substantiate – historically and ontologically – the fascination for bodily movement from which both the film and fashion industries have emerged, but also to epitomise the inherent choreographic features of both dress and screen.