When it comes to New York Fashion Week, you pretty much know what to expect. It's usually a week-long celebration of the fashion industry with lots of runway shows, parties and celebrity sightings. However, design house Opening Ceremony decided to switch things up for its runway show Sept. 7, and it basically won Fashion Week in the process.
Opening Ceremony's runway show was replaced with a one-act play written by Jonah Hill and Spike Jonze and directed by Jonze. The play spoofed the label and the fashion industry with the help of some famous faces.
The play was a fictionalized account of the creation of Opening Ceremony's Spring/Summer 2015 collection, with John Cameron Mitchell and Catherine Keener in the roles of the label's designers Humberto Leon and Carol Lim, respectively. Dree Hemingway played Bella, a famous model in Opening Ceremony's runway show, and Elle Fanning played Julie, a young model hoping to set the fashion world on fire. Rashida Jones, Bobby Cannavale, Alia Shawkat and Karlie Kloss also made appearances during the 30-minute play titled "100 Percent Lost Cotton."
The actors performed the play behind the stage at the Metropolitan Opera House at the home of New York Fashion Week, Lincoln Center. The play lampooned the fashion industry, but in a way that's so funny it hurts, revealing the dark truths of the fashion world, such as the very unglamorous life of a model.
This isn't the first time Opening Ceremony has taken an unconventional approach to showing off its collection. The design house debuted at New York Fashion Week in September 2013 with a fleet of sports cars followed by the models donning the collection. Opening Ceremony also used a wall dripping with real chocolate as the backdrop to its New York Fashion Week show in February.
While Hill and Jonze's play definitely stole the show, Opening Ceremony's runway also featured the new wearable tech bracelet MICA that's part of its collaboration with Intel. It looks like a very fashionable cuff bracelet on the outside, but there's a touchscreen on the inside that sends the wearer notifications, such as SMS messages and calendar reminders. The bracelet will be available by the holidays and will be sold at Opening Ceremony stores and Barneys New York.
Well it's certainly going to be difficult for any other designer to top this Fashion Week event. Fashion is all about getting noticed, and Opening Ceremony definitely accomplished that. Hopefully for Opening Ceremony, there's as much chatter about the clothes as there is about the star-studded spectacle.
