VESTIAIRE COLLECTIVE: Long Live Fashion

We were tasked with creating a group of life size puppet ‘models’ for a new campaign for pre-loved fashion marketplace, Vestiaire Collective.

We worked with the team at Droga5 through all aspects of this project, from the initial development and experimentation of the puppets right through to production.

The puppets needed to be created from pre-loved clothing, to highlight Vestiaire's brand mission of transforming the fashion industry for a more sustainable future. Five life sized puppets were created, each with their own unique character identity, representing the diversity of Vestiaire’s brand and the variety of reasons why people choose to shop on their platform. The five characters and the section of the fashion platform they represent are: Miss Classique [luxury fashion], Rich [smart sellers], Lady Green [sustainability], Drops [limited releases] and Hunter [vintage].

Rather than using the typical fleece and synthetic furs most often used on hand puppets, we swapped these for fashion fabrics like denim jeans and dogtooth knit, which became the ‘skin’ for the puppets. We embraced the construction of the original garment, such as the thick seam on the denim, which we chose to run down the centre of the character ‘Drops’, whilst also utilising the waistband and belt loops for her neck. Drops’ lips were made from high shine PU which came from a skirt. For Miss Classique, we used a houndstooth knit with two-tone leather lips. Her eyes were custom made – we debossed leather here in our workshops with the Vestiaire logo for her eyelids.

Part of the campaign featured photography stills for print and outdoor, which were wonderfully captured by British-Ghanaian photographer Campbell Addy.

The TV commercial/ film formed the next part of the campaign, which featured all the puppet models strutting down the catwalk to show off Vestiaire’s collection. The interesting thing here is that the puppets themselves are made from recycled clothing, whilst simultaneously modelling the pre-loved fashion items Vestiaire’s platform offers - literally brining fashion to life. The film was directed by Andreas Nilsson through Biscuit Filmworks and narrated by famous French fashion commentator and journalist, Loïc Prigent. The film run on TV in France and Italy, whilst featuring globally across Vestiaire Collective’s social channels and in digital media in the US, UK, Spain and Hong Kong.