Can You Tell The Difference Between Models And Avatars In This Virtual Fashion Show?

With global travel grinding to halt and physical events currently on ice, fashion designers have been plumbing the depths of their ingenuity, leaving the catwalk behind for the so-called ‘digital happening’. Taking part in the virtual calendar at Berlin Fashion Week, Marc Cain’s offering for AW21, How Wonderful, is a fashion film that blends fiction and reality.

The collection itself, which features the brand’s signature jewel-bright colour palette and brilliant knitwear, is inspired by Mother Nature, and so the backdrop for the film are landscapes ranging from mountain ranges to frozen tundra to digitally-enhanced forest clearings to oceans dotted with sky-scraping wind turbines.

What’s interesting is that it’s modelled by both actual models and avatars, who are so convincing at first glance that you almost have to blink twice, which follows on from the growing trend for fashion-tech advances like Burberry's Augmented Reality (AR) shopping tool and gaming apps such as DREST.

Looking ahead to autumn, when hopefully the world will feel a little more normal, it looks like we’ll be wearing puffers (Marc Cain’s are fuchsia with a flaring silhouette), statement knitwear (waist-up dressing will permanently make the jazzy sweater a staple of our wardrobes) and plenty of optimistic pink.

And while the catwalk show might (just might) make a comeback, we hope the fashion film lives on.