Simone Bellotti has debuted his creative tenure at Jil Sander not with a frock, but rather rock, unveiling an electronic music video and accompanying vinyl LP that riffs on the brand’s north German roots.
Shot in Hamburg, where Frau Sander founded her fashion house in 1968, the video dashes past the huge docks, railways, monumental red brick warehouses, and famed Gothic Revival church St. Nicholas — the tallest building in the world in the 1870s — scattered around Germany’s largest port.
Entitled “Bochum Welt,” or wanderlust, the 2.40-minute short stars four youths dressed in the minimalist style that Sander conceived. A crew neck navy blue cashmere sweater for guys; a crisp boyish white cotton shirt, dove gray wool jacket, and just-above-the-knee skirt for the girl, as they cross one of the city’s innumerable bridges in an open-top BMW. One pal cycles along the harbor before wandering down to join them in a midnight blue cashmere tank top, as migrating birds fly past giant wind turbines.
For Bellotti, Jil Sander is clearly a house that owns duality. Its aesthetic is based on the power of heightened simplification and the energy released by the face-off of strictness and lightness, rigor and abandon. This opposition is captured by the city of Hamburg, with its northern elegance and harbor thriving in all kinds of activities, where it all started.
“Contrasts — stillness meeting with chaos, day blending into night, nature colliding with urban sprawl, raw, unfiltered moments featuring real individuals from Hamburg’s hidden corners alternating with cinematic scenes and mundane moments — release a lyrical flow set to Bochum Welt’s melodic electronica,” said Bellotti in a release.
This March, Bellotti was appointed creative director of Jil Sander, which is based in Milan and part of the OTB Fashion Group of Renzo Rosso that also includes Viktor & Rolf, Marni, and Maison Margiela.
The Italian designer debuted the video at an event in art institute OHG in Hamburg this week, indicating his desire to return to Jil Sander’s aesthetic roots in northern Germany. By debuting his first Jil Sander ideas through an electronica video, Bellotti is also clearly signaling his intention to support music in the long run as integral to the definition of the brand’s landscape.
The video’s title is a combination of the German word for “world” (Welt) and the name of a high-powered astral telescope. Bochum Welt is the stage name of Italian electronic musician Gianluigi Di Costanzo, whose mix of aural electronic experimentation and sentimental dance “has an affinity with the Jil Sander duality,” Bellotti argues.
The list of tracks on the vinyl EP is a narrative of oppositions in itself: Crystal Ice / Wanderlust / Shades / Night’s Frost / San Peder a Sent / More Light (Escape Mix) / Cresting Waves.
Directed by Sean Vegezzi, with styling by Charlotte Collet, the video stars models Pauline Schubach, Laurent Huyskens, Colin Otto, and Ojo.
The vinyls are now available at select Jil Sander boutiques, JilSander.com, and across Kudos Distribution worldwide later in August.
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