Back in June, the 2024 SCAD Fashion Show opened with a short film featuring more than 70 student-made garments, accessories and jewelry. The Paris Mumpower-directed and scripted project is titled Déjà Rêvé (“Already Dreamed” in French) and stars actress Rainsford Qualley as a fashion student named Lexi telling her friend Franklin (played by student actor Ayden Behn) about a recurring dream where she tries to make it to the show on time.
“We enter a parallel universe where Lexi runs through a maze of SCAD turned upside-down through classrooms, saloons, bakeries, theaters and more,” Mumpower explains of the film, which references French New Wave cinema and is broken into three different acts: “the dream,” “the surprise” and, finally, “the show.”
Lexi runs around campus, at first in a cutesy polka dot dress before slipping into a punky plaid gown with bondage gear. The environments are familiar for SCAD students, but what’s happening inside them is surreal: cocktails with blue liquid at the bar, bags and shoes being sold at the bakery, random peacock sculptures on sidewalks and X-shaped dresses blocking entrances. Finally, Lexi makes it to an old theater filled with models staring her down in outrageous looks.
“I thought to myself, in a student’s dream a door to a bakery could open up to a saloon, and a door to a saloon could open up to a theater of hundreds of students, and it could all live in the same world,” Mumpower tells PAPER. “That way, each garment could shine as the main characters per scene instead of getting lost in the background. I leaned into building a world of chaos, each room strategically casted and placed.”
This project was special for Mumpower, who studied photography and graphic design in Savannah, Georgia. Two weeks prior to filming, she flew to the southern city and began diving in: tons of hair and makeup tests, endless fittings, reviewing artists’ statements from all the fashion students and more. “It was such an honor getting to know all of their work and stories,” she says. Mumpower handpicked each outfit for each scene with the stylist Mitchell Hall and his team Jenny Upperman and True Skalde.
“We had three 10-foot-tall boards where we played chess with each look per act for days,” Mumpower says. “It might’ve been my favorite part linking which accessory collections fit best with which looks. We went as far as to characterize the collections. If Lexi was wearing dark colors, then a room full of pastels would gasp when she came in, whereas a room full of similarly styled characters would welcome her kindly because she blended in their scene.”
Déjà Rêvé has since gone on to receive recognition at international film festivals and just won Best Hair Story at the London Fashion Film Festival.
Photos courtesy of Paris Mumpower/SCAD
From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
