Kuwaii’s Mirrored Universe

By Angela McCormack / February 15th, 2012 in Fashion / Melbourne / 368 views

Who is the Kuwaii woman? The Kuwaii woman is tough; the Kuwaii woman is feminine; she wages her own battles. Set against a gritty desert background, Australian fashion label Kuwaii flaunts their wares through an evocative and powerful short film, Near The Light, which is far from the sort of fashion film that has models sprawling around lazily in stunningly beautiful robes.

Near The Light is different because director Tim White has paid as much—or even more—attention to the actress and her character’s internal, otherworldly struggles as he has to the clothes themselves. There’s a tendency for models in fashion films to be so forgettable you don’t even look at their faces or study their emotions; in a lot of fashion films, models are made as the hangers for clothes. (Which, we should add, is not necessarily a bad thing. Some collections are so breathtaking they deserve every single skerrick of our attention.) Thusly, White has cleverly created a successful film that is engaging on an artistic and narrative level as well as excellently portraying Kuwaii’s AW12 collection—it’s all structured lines, delicate fabrics and oozing class here— in a way that isn’t so down-your-throat, buy-our-stuff obvious.

The surreal narrative that has come into play in Near the Light is intriguing and superbly executed: there’s a game of copy cat—a contest, of sorts—between the two sides of the Kuwaii woman. As the film progresses, these two sides blur and intersect towards a gliding, full finale where worlds collide. White describes the uncertain, curious undertones of the film: “[it] captures a feeling of a haziness; something’s not quite right. There’s a notion of just off-ness which perfectly embodies Kuwaii’s locally made clothing and footwear, and portrays the Kuwaii woman as having a tough and irreverent femininity.”

It’s an ambitious film and a gorgeous AW collection, genuinely giving some of the bigger guns in the game a run for their money. Take a look at some polaroids from the shoot below.