Kate and Terry Make Movie, Collaboration Rumors

KATE MOSS AND TERRY RICHARDSON, COURTESY MANGO

What do you do if you’re one of the world’s fastest fast-fashion brands (Mango) and you want to turn your show in Paris into a major event? You look to the leads of Chanel and Dior and open with a film, of course!

But not just any film. Mango showed off its smarts, and the deepness of its promotional pockets, last night at Georges, the restaurant on the roof of Paris’s Centre Pompidou, by fronting the runway with “The Great Escape,” a short featuring Kate Moss in Mango’s latest collection. It stars and is directed by Terry Richardson. This is Richardson’s cinematic debut—both behind and in front of the camera—and the results are pretty good, if a bit auto-focused. (As in, “It’s me, me, me. Move over Kate, this really is all about me!”) The two rush around the streets of Paris and behind the scenes at the Pompidou wearing Terry Richardson masks. Moss tosses her hair around a lot and appears to whisper hilarious things in Terry’s ear (the audience can’t hear what she’s saying) as the two are pursued by menacing mobs also wearing Terry masks. Then they get in the back of a van, one of those fashion shoot vehicles filled with clothes. And as they are driven frantically around Paris by someone (maybe Terry himself?) wearing a Terry mask, Moss dresses and undresses, and manages in less than a minute to highlight the coolest pieces in Mango’s collection.

Note: there’s a great marabou feather mini in there.

All the while, Terry, camera in hand, shoots a few pictures as the swerving vehicle knocks them this way and that.  The British press hinted that the film might herald a new design collaboration (à la Topshop) for Mango and Moss, but this seems to be just wishful thinking.