Fashion film is a modern forge of myth. In the flicker of moving images, fabric and fantasy entwine to create meaning far beyond mere clothing or commerce. A model draped in shimmering silk wanders through a deserted palace – is this a scene from an ancient legend, or a contemporary fashion film? In truth, it is both. From an anthropological perspective, humans have always spun myths to interpret their world; today, the fashion film carries this ancient impulse into the realm of style and image. It functions as a twenty-first-century mythopoeia – weaving stories, symbols, and social ideals into visual form. Just as tribes once danced in ritual garments to invoke gods and heroes, we now watch screens where couture-clad figures enact dreamlike narratives. The effect is similarly mythic: these films create a shared fantasy that helps us make sense of who we are (or wish to be) in our cultural moment. As cultural critic Roland Barthes observed, “myth is a system of communication…a message” – and in fashion films, the message is woven with cloth and celluloid.
Anthropology of myth and adornment. Long before the invention of cinema, clothing itself served a mythic function in human societies. Anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski, studying the myths of Pacific islanders, noted that myth was not just a tale but a “reality lived”, a guiding truth that “continues…to influence the world and human destinies” . In traditional cultures, what one wore often carried sacred significance: a mask, a headdress, a ceremonial robe – each garment part of a narrative about ancestors, spirits, or social order. Myth “fulfills an indispensable function: it expresses, enhances, and codifies belief; it safeguards and enforces morality; it vouches for the efficacy of ritual” . One might say the ancient priest donning a richly ornamented vestment and the modern couture model in a fashion film are participants in the same human practice: using adornment to signal meaning beyond the material, to perform a story for the community. In both cases, an object of dress is elevated to a symbol – raiment becomes revelation. The anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss wrote that “myths operate in men’s minds without their being aware” , subtly shaping worldviews. Fashion films leverage this power of myth in new form: without us fully noticing, they invite us into a constructed dream that shapes our desires and identity.
Consider how a simple dress on screen can evoke primal narratives. A flowing white gown in a film might subconsciously recall the myth of the goddess, purity and power combined; a sharp suit might conjure the trickster or the warrior in modern guise. Joseph Campbell famously said, “Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.” In fashion films, the private dreams of designers – their personal visions and fantasies – are made public, projected for all to see. These films tap into archetypes lodged deep in the collective psyche: the hero, the maiden, the seductress, the rebel, the trickster. A fashion film for a luxury brand might present a heroine’s journey (however abstract) told through styling and mise-en-scène, turning commercial promotion into what is essentially a miniature mythic saga. And audiences, far from simply watching a “product advertisement,” find themselves absorbed in a story or atmosphere that feels meaningful, alluring, even ritualistic. The anthropology of dress tells us that clothing has always been about more than utility – it is communication, identity, magic. In fashion films, this communicative magic is heightened by cinematic storytelling. The result is a cultural artifact that functions much like a myth: a story told not in words around a fire, but in images and music on a screen, yet still “believed…to have happened” in some imaginative realm and still capable of influencing how we see “the world and human destinies”.
Cinema: the new myth-maker. Twentieth-century film theorists often likened cinema to dream and myth. Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini mused that “talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams” . Indeed, cinema from its earliest days was dubbed a “dream factory,” a place where collective fantasies are manufactured for mass consumption. In classical Hollywood and European art cinema alike, larger-than-life images on screen took on the role of folklore and myth for modern societies. The star system created quasi-deities—figures like Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, or Sophia Loren—whose on-screen personas and iconic costumes became modern myths to the public. A star’s signature look in a film often crystallized into an archetype: Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) in her black Givenchy dress, pearls, and cigarette holder embodied the myth of the chic ingénue, instantly etching into the cultural imagination an image of elegant urban femininity that women for decades aspired to. The power of that image is disproportionate to the literal plot of the film; it has taken on a life of its own in fashion history and global memory. As Jean Cocteau – himself a filmmaker steeped in myth – remarked, “History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.” In the case of Hepburn’s Holly Golightly, a cinematic illusion (her stylish persona) became a reality of sorts: a lasting cultural reference, a template for glamour. Film alchemizes costume, actor, and story into enduring mythos.
European classical cinema has been especially influential in treating costume and image as mythic symbols, thereby paving the way for contemporary fashion film language. In the German Expressionist classic Metropolis (1927), for example, the robot Maria’s gleaming, art-deco metal body was far more than a sci-fi prop – it was an icon, resonant of the myth of the artificial being, the golem or the android, a modern Pygmalion’s statue come to life. That striking image, a female form in sculpted metallic armor, has reverberated through fashion and art (one sees its echoes in avant-garde couture and in pop stars’ metallic outfits to this day), demonstrating how a film can create a visual myth that designers eagerly adopt and re-tell. Likewise, in France, Jacques Demy’s Peau d’Âne (1970) dressed Catherine Deneuve in a gown the color of the weather and other fantastical costumes, explicitly merging fairy tale myth with fashion spectacle. And in Italy, Fellini pushed this fusion to a brilliant extreme in Roma (1972), which features an “ecclesiastical fashion show” scene – an outrageous phantasmagoria of clerical garments presented like a runway spectacle. In this sequence, nuns skate by in exuberant habits and priests don illuminated robes and towering miter hats studded with neon lights . The ordinary solemnity of religious vestments is exaggerated into camp pageantry, complete with a frenetic soundtrack and surreal lighting. It is a satire, yes, but also a revelation: Fellini lays bare the ritualistic, otherworldly aura of fashion shows by equating them with a church ceremony. Fashion here is literally elevated to a religious obsession – the models are like high priests of style, the runway a nave, and the audience sits in pew-like rows as if awaiting transcendence. In one unforgettable image, a cardinal in a shimmering rainbow cassock glides past like a stained-glass apparition, “the Pope” himself arriving as the finale, blessing the crowd with a mechanical wave. Fellini’s satirical flourish underscores a truth: fashion presentations have a liturgical, ceremonial aspect, creating their own canon of saints (designers), relics (vintage gowns), and devoted followers (the fashion devotees). By rendering this analogy in such literal visuals, Fellini cemented the idea that fashion is a kind of communal myth or faith, a notion highly influential for later directors and fashion filmmakers who seek to give clothing a higher, story-like significance.
The influence of European classical cinema on fashion film extends beyond specific scenes. The visual vocabulary of mythic storytelling developed by directors like Fellini, Jean Cocteau, or Pier Paolo Pasolini (whose Medea (1969) dressed opera diva Maria Callas in ethnographic-meets-surreal costumes to re-tell the Greek myth) can be seen in many contemporary fashion films’ stylistic choices. Pasolini, deeply inspired by anthropology, often depicted ancient myths with a raw, ritualistic realism (as in the opening of Medea, showing a primitive sacrifice ritual). This sensibility – treating fashion and staging as if they were part of an ethnographic or mythic tableau – surfaces now in editorials and brand films that invoke primal imagery (e.g. models styled as if in tribal paint or ancient goddess attire, wandering through elemental landscapes). Cocteau’s own statement, “I’ve always preferred mythology to history” , seems to echo in the ethos of fashion filmmakers who prioritize timeless fantasy over mundane reality. A modern fashion film seldom shows a woman simply walking down a street in sensible attire; more likely she is cast as an otherworldly character in an exotic or imaginary setting – a nymph in an enchanted forest, a rebel angel in a neon city, a queen in a marble palace. This preference speaks to what Cocteau identified: myth (even if “illusion”) carries an emotional reality that factual depiction lacks. By draping fashion in myth, these films strive to make an illusion become reality – to make the viewer feel the fantasy as something true and attainable.
Sociology of style and myth: a global language. If anthropology highlights why humans crave myth and philosophy frames how images acquire meaning, sociology shows us what these myths do in society – how they spread, who they include or exclude, and what values they reinforce. Fashion, as sociologist Georg Simmel noted in 1904, is fundamentally a social phenomenon: “a form of social relationship that allows those who wish to conform to the demands of a group to do so. It also allows some to be individualistic by deviating from the norm.” In other words, fashion balances the urge to fit in and the urge to stand out, simultaneously. A fashion film often dramatizes exactly this tension by presenting clothes as the key to transformation: an ordinary individual (the viewer implicitly) can become someone extraordinary (the glamorous figure on screen) by donning the right style. This is a myth of individual empowerment through conformity – paradoxical yet powerful. For example, a Dior film might show a shy heroine becoming confident and celebrated after she puts on the Dior gown (conforming to the ideal of elegance that Dior represents), suggesting that by accepting the brand’s sartorial “magic,” one’s individual dreams can be realized. Sociologically, this is akin to a ritual of social mobility or acceptance: the fashion film proposes a way to join the privileged, admired group (the beautiful, the stylish) and thus satisfy the Simmelian drive to belong, even while promising personal distinction. The state of being envied, as John Berger put it, “is what constitutes glamour. And publicity is the process of manufacturing glamour.” Fashion films, essentially a form of moving publicity, manufacture glamour by showing people who have been seemingly “transformed and are, as a result, enviable” . They present a social tableau where the characters embody what the audience might lack – beauty, luxury, romance, adventure – thereby creating aspiration (and mild anxiety) in the viewer. Berger elaborated that publicity (advertising) doesn’t speak about the present; it “always speaks of the future” – projecting an imagined better life that the consumer can attain by buying into the image . In fashion films, this projected future is couched in mythic terms: the narrative often suggests a “what if” parallel world where the ordinary is left behind. What if you were a princess for a night? What if a perfume could make a stranger fall in love with you at first sight? These semi-magical premises are commonplace in fashion advertising films and echo age-old folktales (Cinderella’s overnight transformation at the ball, or love potions and enchanted trinkets). The difference is that now the fairy godmother is a luxury brand, and the enchanted object is a designer product – yet the structure of the tale is surprisingly traditional. Through slick, high-budget cinematography, these modern commercials suggest that the myths of old (of metamorphosis, of romantic destiny) are not only alive, but available for purchase. It’s a savvy merging of sociological insight (appealing to our dreams of social elevation) and mythic form.
This myth-making through fashion film is a global phenomenon, even if its roots lie partly in European cinema. In Hollywood’s golden age, American films spun the myth of the American Dream through fashion: think of a simple country girl in a 1930s film who puts on a stylish dress and is mistaken for a high-society lady, eventually marrying the rich man – a plot repeated in countless variations, selling the idea of class mobility through appearance. European classical cinema often offered a counterpoint or complement: the myth of refined cosmopolitanism (e.g. the sophisticated Parisian or Roman style, as seen in films like La Dolce Vita (1960) where Anita Ekberg wading in the Trevi Fountain in her strapless black gown became the mythic image of la dolce vita itself – the sweet life of glamour and abandon). Today’s fashion films inherit all these myths and remix them for a digital age audience that is truly worldwide. A luxury brand from Paris might hire an Asian filmmaker to shoot a campaign in Africa with an international cast – the resulting short film draws on cross-cultural symbols to craft a global myth of style. For instance, we’ve seen Indian Bollywood stars in Dior films or African motifs in Italian brand campaigns, each time carefully presented not as literal cultural stories but as aesthetic myths that anyone from New York to Beijing can instantly “read” – a kind of visual Esperanto of glamour. It is here that the medium shows its sociological power: fashion films create a shared visual mythology in a world village. A viewer in Brazil or Turkey or Australia, regardless of local tradition, can watch a Gucci short film online and partake in the same dream of, say, 1970s-inspired bohemian freedom or futuristic, sci-fi chic, as viewers elsewhere. These myths cut across language barriers. They are told in the language of music, color, light, and body movement. As Barthes noted, mythic speech isn’t confined to words; “it can consist of modes of writing or of representations… photography, cinema, reporting, sport, shows, publicity, all these can serve as a support to mythical speech.” Fashion films leverage multiple “supports” at once – photography (each frame meticulously composed), cinema (movement and montage), music (heightening emotion), and of course publicity (the underlying commercial intent) – to broadcast myths to the masses.
Yet, these myths are not created equal, and they can carry the weight of ideology. The sociological lens also demands we ask: What values do fashion film myths reinforce? Often, they propagate ideals of beauty, youth, and luxury that can be exclusionary or fantastical. They may uphold consumerism as a kind of salvation – a notion strongly critiqued by scholars like Guy Debord and Jean Baudrillard. Debord wrote of modern life, “In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.” Fashion films are exactly such spectacles, packaging life into image. In Debord’s terms, they contribute to the “society of the spectacle,” where relations between people are mediated by images and appearances. A fashion film doesn’t show genuine human interaction; it shows stylized interactions designed to mesmerize. It replaces reality with a cinematic hyper-reality in which everyone is flawlessly styled and every moment is choreographed. This could be seen as a kind of cultural enchantment: we know these depictions are not real life, yet they affect our real aspirations and choices. The myth thrives precisely because it is an illusion we wish to partake in. Baudrillard might call it a simulacrum, a copy without an original, because the worlds in fashion films have only tenuous links to the actual world of the viewer – they are distilled, edited, idealized. And yet, through the potency of myth, they become real in their effects: millions strive to diet into the shape of the models, to save up for that one luxury item, to pose for photos imitating the look, thus weaving the myth into the fabric of lived experience.
Deep philosophy in sequins and shadows. It would be easy to dismiss fashion films as frivolous commercials, but under their glittering surface often lie philosophical questions about identity, reality, and transformation. The philosophy of the self is frequently explored, albeit implicitly, in these visual narratives. A fashion film might portray a character shifting through multiple outfits and personas – symbolizing the fluidity of identity. This reflects the postmodern philosophical view (echoed by thinkers like Foucault or Derrida) that identity is not fixed essence but performed and constructed – not unlike trying on clothes. When a short film by a brand shows a woman looking in the mirror and seeing another version of herself in a different outfit, it’s staging a mini philosophical drama: Who am I? Which of these reflections is “me”? The clothes become metaphors for the masks or roles we all navigate. As Oscar Wilde quipped, “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” Fashion is that mask which, paradoxically, might reveal truth – one’s desired truth or inner aspiration. This interplay of surface and substance is fertile ground for philosophical contemplation, and fashion cinema plays with it constantly: the real vs. the ideal, the authentic self vs. the adorned self, the moment vs. eternity (fashion is so fleeting, yet the images strive to be timeless). Walter Benjamin perceived an ominous poetry in fashion’s relationship to time and mortality, noting how “to the living, fashion defends the rights of the corpse. The fetishism that succumbs to the sex appeal of the inorganic is its vital nerve.” In other words, fashion harnesses death (the “inorganic,” the lifeless garment or mannequin) and gives it an erotic, alluring semblance of life – a fetishistic act of denial against aging and death. Fashion films often luxuriate in this eerie intersection of life and death: beautiful, motionless models who suddenly spring to life under lights, or doll-like figures animated by desire. By “defending the rights of the corpse,” fashion imagery grants a kind of immortality to moments and styles, freezing them in iconic visuals. The philosophical undercurrent here is the human denial of impermanence, our collective dream of eternal beauty. In classical myth, the gods and heroes were ageless archetypes we looked to for inspiration; in fashion film, the perfectly styled protagonists are our transient, electronic gods – forever young, forever stylish, looped in a video we can replay endlessly. There is a melancholia to this as much as there is celebration. Benjamin’s observation that “every fashion stands in opposition to the organic” suggests an eternal conflict between our natural selves (who inevitably age and decay) and the shiny, new “mythic” selves that fashion promises (forever glamorous, untouched by time). A poetic fashion film might make this tension explicit: showing, say, an elderly person revisiting the fashions of their youth in memory, blending past and present in a poignant reverie – a mythic reconciliation of time’s passage.
Mythic storytelling in practice: examples from history. Throughout the history of fashion on film, certain moments stand out as exemplars of myth-making. In the 1910s, well before “fashion film” was a genre, Parisian couturier Paul Poiret recognized the medium’s potential. He staged elaborate oriental-themed parties (the Thousand and Second Night ball in 1911) and even had his lavish designs filmed. Poiret planned a 1913 tour to America carrying not trunks of dresses but reels of film showcasing his latest creations – a visionary move to avoid customs and to present fashion via the new technology . Though those particular films are now lost, contemporary reports make clear that Poiret intended to surround his fashions with “the magical aura of excitement and expectations” through cinematic spectacle. We can imagine the amazement of early 20th-century audiences seeing moving images of models in exotic Poiret gowns flicker before them – fashion coming to life as if by magic lantern. This was a radical shift: fashion had leapt from static illustration and mannequin to living narrative. The nascent myth being formed was that fashion is an experience, not just an object. Around the same time, newsreels in theaters began regularly featuring fashion segments. In 1911, Pathé produced a series of short films entirely dedicated to fashion – effectively some of the first fashion films for public consumption. These newsreels didn’t tell complex stories; much like the “cinema of attractions” of that era, they relied on “spectacle and the magic of novelty” over narrative . Society women or actresses would simply parade the latest Parisian designs for the camera, often in opulent settings. Yet even in this simplicity lay myth-making: the myth of modernity and progress. Here was visual proof that we lived in an era of rapid change – last season’s dresses are already obsolete, new ones are here, and you can see them moving on screen rather than imagine them from drawings. The films imparted the sense that fashion is always forward-looking, always part of the “immense accumulation of spectacles” of modern life . Caroline Evans, a fashion historian, noted that early fashion newsreels retained a touch of the carnival spirit of early cinema – they were showy, playful, and amazed viewers with only the spectacle and the magic of novelty . This sensibility is alive in many modern fashion films that prioritize visual wow-factor: for instance, a short film by designer Gareth Pugh in 2010, presented in lieu of a runway show, bombarded viewers with strobing lights and avant-garde silhouettes on twisting models, foregoing a story but leaving an impression of otherworldly newness (much as Poiret did a century earlier, just with higher tech).
In the golden age of Hollywood, the collaboration of costume designers and filmmakers produced some of the most indelible fashion-myth images. Consider Marlene Dietrich, the German actress whose Hollywood roles often played with androgyny and glamour. In Morocco (1930), Dietrich famously wears a man’s tuxedo and top hat, singing in a cabaret and even kissing a woman – a scandalous, electrifying scene for its time. That single outfit and act minted the myth of the tuxedoed female seductress, a figure of chic transgression. It wasn’t just a costume; it became a symbol of women’s sexual agency and style independence. Fashion designers ever since have referenced Dietrich when designing women’s tuxedos and suits – Yves Saint Laurent’s “Le Smoking” jacket (1966) is a direct descendant of that mythic image. We see here how a film scene fashions a myth (the glamorous gender-bending woman) that then feeds back into real fashion. Coco Chanel herself, a pioneering designer known for mixing masculine and feminine codes, had been designing costumes for films in the 1930s; one can imagine she appreciated how a strong film image could resonate with the public’s imagination and drive their desire for certain fashions. Indeed, Chanel’s own life was turned into a kind of filmic myth later – portrayed on screen repeatedly, her signature suits and pearls becoming visual shorthand for a myth of elegant female liberation.
European cinema contributed subtler, artier myths. In the French New Wave, for example, there was the myth of effortless Parisian chic. Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960) shows Jean Seberg in her New York Herald Tribune T-shirt and pixie haircut strolling the Champs-Élysées, creating an enduring image of youthful, carefree style. Countless fashion editorials have recreated that look; it symbolizes a mythic ideal of bohemian simplicity and intellectual charm. It’s noteworthy that this myth sprang not from a deliberate fashion shoot but from an auteur’s film – evidence that any film, even those not overtly about fashion, can spawn fashion myth if the imagery strikes a chord. Conversely, some European films were quite conscious of their fashion influence: Last Year at Marienbad (1961) costumed Delphine Seyrig in stunning Chanel gowns amidst a surreal, enigmatic story. The film’s aloof, statuesque vision of femininity dressed in black and white haute couture turned into a myth of eternal elegance and mystery. Decades later, designers and photographers still cite Marienbad as inspiration for its fusion of classic fashion and avant-garde narrative. It’s essentially a cinematic myth of the ideal of couture – timeless, remote, almost priestess-like, removed from everyday concerns (much like the film’s puzzle of time and memory). By emphasizing European classical cinema in our understanding of fashion film’s development, we see that these movies did more than just entertain: they established templates of visual myth that the fashion industry would draw on repeatedly.
Fashion film comes of age. By the late 20th and early 21st century, “fashion film” matured into a distinct genre, consciously blending all the above influences. Advances in technology and the rise of the internet meant these films could reach vast audiences quickly, and brands eagerly embraced their myth-making potential. Notably, British photographer Nick Knight launched SHOWstudio in 2000 as a platform for fashion film and digital experimentation, effectively declaring that the future of fashion imagery lay in motion and interaction. He and other innovators understood that fashion’s “urge to call attention to itself”, noted by scholars , would drive it to whatever new media were available – and in the 21st century, that is online video and social media. Thus, the myth-making accelerated and democratized. A film like “First Kiss” (2014), ostensibly a short of strangers kissing for the first time, went viral to over 100 million views; only later did many realize it was a fashion label (Wren) behind the film, using the emotional myth of spontaneous romance to indirectly sell clothes . This episode shows how deeply a fashion film can penetrate public consciousness when it strikes a mythic chord (in this case, the universal human story of first love’s spark) – it can spread without people even knowing it’s “fashion.” Other luxury houses have produced opulent mini-movies: Chanel, under Karl Lagerfeld, created films like “The Tale of a Fairy” (2011) starring supermodels in a plot of jealousy and decadence, or hired auteur directors like Baz Luhrmann to craft perfume commercials that are essentially short romantic fantasies (Luhrmann’s Chanel No.5 commercial with Nicole Kidman in 2004 was a grand, Moulin Rouge-esque fairy tale of a star-crossed love). These productions take the myth-making to a self-aware level: they intentionally cast the viewer as a witness to magic. They say, in effect, look, a mere perfume can command the talents of Hollywood directors and stars to tell its story – it must be almost mythical. Dior’s campaigns with actress Charlize Theron have her mingling with the ghosts of Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly in Versailles’s Hall of Mirrors; in one such ad for J’Adore perfume, Theron ascends as if to Olympus, surrounded by golden light, shedding couture layers – a clear image of rebirth and apotheosis, implying that wearing this perfume elevates one to a divine status. It’s advertising, yes, but it’s also modern myth-making in pure form: combining the allure of film legend (Monroe’s ghost) with historical grandeur (Versailles) and fashion fantasy (gowns and gold) to create a new fable of beauty triumphant.
Through these examples, we see that fashion film is not a trivial offshoot of cinema – it is a concentrated distillation of what cinema has always done: use light, color, movement, and story to craft myths that give people a sense of meaning or escape. Philosopher Paul Ricoeur suggested that myth, even in modern thought, “may always exceed its origin… as a stimulus to speculation, it is a genuine dimension of modern thought” . Fashion films, however commercial, indeed often exceed their immediate origin (the selling of clothes) and stimulate viewers’ imaginations, emotions, even philosophical musings. They open a “dimension of modern thought” where one can speculate about identity, desire, and society through the seemingly innocuous lens of style. In a way, the fashion film’s superficiality (as some might call it) is its sly strength – by enchanting the eye, it slips ideas into the mind. It is performative and “purely performative,” akin to what J.L. Austin called a performative utterance (doing by saying); here, films do by showing. They don’t just talk about myth – they perform myth. The fashion stylist or director becomes, as one scholar put it, a “contemporary mythmaker” whose visual creations, through gesture and symbolic play, operate on a mythic level of meaning . In these films we often find an excess of style that transcends rational explanation – it’s there to invoke “jouissance…realms of the unreal” , to transport us out of the ordinary. When done artfully, a five-minute fashion film can feel like a glimpse through the veil into a parallel world where life is more dazzling and coherent (in the sense that everything, from the wallpaper to the shoes, follows a theme – a unity akin to how myth renders the world coherent through narrative).
Myth and reality intertwine. The myths propagated by fashion film do loop back into reality in observable ways. Sociologically, they influence how people dress and behave – not just by pushing trends, but by shaping aspirations. A teenager in a small town might watch a Saint Laurent ad directed like a gritty music video and adopt that attitude and style, effectively living out a personal version of the myth (the rebel rockstar archetype, for instance). Meanwhile, on a broader scale, brands cultivate mythic personas: the House of Gucci, the Cult of Chanel, each with origin stories retold in documentaries and biopics, reinforcing the idea that these aren’t mere companies but legends. It’s telling that recent popular films like House of Gucci or Phantom Thread or even Disney’s Cruella delve into fashion with the tone of mythic rise-and-fall or fairy tale – public appetite is strong for fashion narratives with archetypal beats (ambition, creativity, betrayal, transformation). The fashion film, as a short-format cousin, distills these elements without the need for a full biographical plot. It can present, in an atmospheric montage, the essence of such myths. For example, a Valentino campaign film might not tell you the biography of Mr. Valentino, but it will communicate romance, opulence, Italianate beauty – the mythic values of the brand – by showing a wordless vignette of a heroine in a red gown wandering through Rome’s ancient ruins at sunset, as operatic music swells. In that moment, history (the ruins) and fantasy (the solitary woman in perfect couture, seemingly from another time) meld into a new myth: the Valentino woman as eternal muse, bridging past and present. Viewers subconsciously drink in this narrative and may later recall it as a feeling or image when they see a red dress. Such is the subtle work of myth in the modern mind.
The poetic tone of style. The prompt asks for an academic yet poetic tone, and indeed the subject invites it – for fashion film operates exactly at that junction of rational analysis and poetic imagery. If we step back and observe, fashion film is like a poem: it’s often nonlinear, heavy with metaphor, reliant on sensory appeal and open to interpretation. One could compare a well-crafted fashion short to a piece of symbolist cinema or a music video by a visionary director: it’s less about a straightforward message and more about conjuring a mood, a mythos. In this way, fashion film may be one of the more artistic outlets of advertising, where the usual rules of hard-sell are suspended in favor of building a mystique. Philosophers of art, from Plato to Nietzsche, have grappled with the role of illusion in human life. Plato’s cave allegory, where prisoners see only shadows and believe them real, resonates uncannily with our topic – are we the cave prisoners, enamored with flickering images of couture on our screens, mistaking them for routes to happiness? Or are we enlightened viewers who know it’s a shadow-play but enjoy its beauty as one enjoys art, with a willing suspension of disbelief? Perhaps a bit of both. Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy, spoke of the Apollonian (order, beauty) and the Dionysian (chaos, ecstasy) in art and myth. Fashion films often straddle these dualities: on the surface they present Apollonian beauty – exquisite faces, harmonious design – but they often aim to provoke a Dionysian response – a gut-level excitement, longing, or thrill. A viewer might not dance in ecstasy in the theater as ancient Greeks did during Dionysian rites, but internally, the rhythm of a cutting-edge fashion film (with its rapid edits and pulsating soundtrack) can induce something akin to a trance, a moment of losing oneself in the spectacle. This is decidedly mythic: the temporary transportation of the self into another world, which was the very function of attending a ritual or telling a myth around the fire.
In reflecting on all this, one sees that fashion film is a convergence point: anthropology (ritual, symbol, transformation), philosophy (identity, reality vs. appearance, time, beauty, the role of artifice), and sociology (group dynamics, aspiration, consumer culture) all meet on this stage of moving images. A five-minute film for a fashion brand might casually reference Greek mythology (a model styled as Artemis, independent and strong), employ a philosophical voice-over (quoting Rumi or Nietzsche on beauty or love), and depict a social fantasy (a utopian party where all are young, rich, and fabulous). This layering is not accidental – it’s precisely what gives the film depth that engages diverse audiences. The academic can analyze its semiotics while the casual viewer can simply be entranced by the shiny surface; both are experiencing the myth, just at different levels of consciousness. As Barthes said, “myth is not defined by the object of its message, but by the way in which it utters this message” . Fashion film may ostensibly be about dresses or suits (the objects), but in truth its message is something less tangible – a feeling, a value, a myth. And it communicates that via form: through imagery, music, montage. Everything can be a myth in this context, Barthes reminds us, “for the universe is infinitely fertile in suggestions” . A handbag in a fashion film is not just a handbag; it might be filmed like a holy grail, shot in glowing light and coveted by the protagonist, thus becoming a mythic token of status or desire. A perfume is not just a scent but a potion with the power to unlock memories or attract lovers, as the films so often imply with their narrative of one spritz causing a cascade of events. The fertility of suggestion is remarkable – and fashion marketers are well aware of it. Yet, to reduce this purely to manipulation would be to ignore the genuine creativity and storytelling prowess that goes into the best fashion films. Many directors treat these shorts as opportunities to make true art on a small canvas, free from some constraints of feature filmmaking. In doing so, they often draw from the wellspring of global myth and culture: referencing everything from Greek myths, to fairy tales, to classic literature, to past cinema itself. It is not unusual to see homages: a fashion film might recreate a scene from Beauty and the Beast (as Cocteau did it), or invoke the image of Garbo as Mata Hari, or cite the paintings of Klimt or the photographs of Man Ray. Each reference layers additional meaning and connects the commercial film to the continuum of cultural myth-making.
Myth as marketing, marketing as myth. We must acknowledge the dual nature: fashion films are marketing vehicles. They serve clients and commercial goals. But they function as myth-making tools because effective marketing often is myth-making. As Berger pointed out, “publicity is its culture’s dream” . In a capitalist society, ads reflect the collective dreams (of success, beauty, belonging) and reinforce them. That is why a luxury brand’s film can feel like a fairy tale: it is selling a dream more than a product. In many ways, these myths uphold the status quo (beauty ideals, luxury hierarchy), and one could critique them for that. Yet, within that framework, there is room for subversion and new myths too. Some fashion films have started to challenge norms – for example, showing gender fluidity or diverse casting, and thereby creating new myths of inclusivity and self-definition. A striking recent example is Gucci’s short films under Alessandro Michele’s creative direction, which often feature eclectic, non-conformist characters: a world where freakiness is celebrated, referencing the mythos of the circus or the bohemian commune. These films gently push viewers to envision a myth of freedom from convention, aligning with broader social changes. In this way, the myth-making tool can adapt and reflect evolving values (just as ancient myths were reinterpreted by each generation).
The enduring power of fashion film mythos. Ultimately, the reason fashion film can carry such weight is because it engages multiple aspects of our humanity. Visually, it attracts the eye with beauty (or startling artistry); emotionally, it tugs at desires and fears; intellectually, it plays with symbols that we can unpack if we choose; socially, it creates a shared reference that communities can talk about (be it water-cooler talk about a dazzling Super Bowl fashion commercial, or cinephiles dissecting a designer’s artsy film collaboration). In doing so, it does what myth has always done: provide a common story for people to rally around, whether that story is the promise of glamour, the idea of romantic love, or the thrill of rebellion. It is fascinating that something as “ephemeral” as fashion – often dismissed as superficial – uses the ephemeral medium of film (a short online video soon replaced by the next) to strive for the eternal. Fashion constantly changes, yet through film it seeks a kind of immortality in iconic moments. There is a parallel here to what Mircea Eliade called the eternal return – the idea that rituals (and myths) allow people to periodically return to the time of origins, renewing the world. Each fashion season is a cyclical return of the new, and each fashion film presents the eternal now of style – always ephemeral, always current, yet aiming to feel timeless in the instant. Caroline Evans, writing on fashion’s relationship to time, speaks of fashion’s “imaginary, with its capacity for fantasy and myth-making, as a form of alternate history that asks ‘what if?’” . Indeed, what are these films if not tiny alternate histories or parallel universes where what if we all lived lives as stylish and dramatic as shown? They posit worlds adjacent to ours. And by doing so, they ever so slightly reshape our own world – pulling the collective conversation a notch towards the fantastical.
In closing, we return to Cocteau’s insight that “mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.” Fashion films present beautiful illusions: gilded visions of life enhanced by design and narrative. Through repetition, admiration, and emulation, bits of those illusions do become reality – in our wardrobes, our behaviors, our aspirations. We start carrying ourselves more confidently because we internalized the myth that wearing a certain jacket makes us bold (a myth a film perhaps planted). We treat a luxury handbag carefully not just because it’s expensive, but because mythologically it feels like carrying a piece of a story – perhaps the Cinderella coach transfigured, so one must guard the magic. These subtle shifts in mindset show myth at work. Fashion films, as tools of myth-making, have thus secured a potent place in global culture. They stand at an intriguing crossroads: commerce and art, truth and illusion, individuality and collectivity, the mortal and the divine. On that illuminated runway onscreen, as the camera pans in slow motion and the music swells, we see more than fabric and model – we glimpse a fragment of the collective dream-world. And in that moment, we are not just consumers or viewers, but believers of a sort, participants in a ritual of contemporary myth. This is the poetry of the fashion film: it invites us to “come up to the surface and breathe the air of legends,” to borrow a phrase – to suspend our mundane breath for the perfumed air of fantasy, if only for a minute. And when it ends, the best of these films leave us with images burned into memory, modern hieroglyphs of style and meaning, which we decode and recode in our own lives. Like all enduring myths, they give us something to strive for, to talk about, to interpret; they add a bit of silver-screen magic to the fabric of daily life. In a world often measured and rational, fashion films reassert the human need for enchantment and story. They whisper, in the language of silk and shadow, that life can be not only lived but imagined into something richer – and that perhaps is their greatest, most artful myth of all.