High Fashion was born in the paranoid, media-saturated fallout of September 11. I was struck by the sheer ugliness of news networks capitalising on the global catastrophe; by repackaging footage of burning towers into slick promotional loops with slogans like “see it here first”, the media commodified atrocity into entertainment. At the same time, state-mandated fear-mongering turned public spaces into zones of suspicion—a frantic climate where I was personally targeted by police simply for the colour of my skin. The film was born amidst a public swept up in engineered panic and cheering for an invasion.

 

Flipping channels through the noise of a media landscape obsessed with manufacturing fear, the entire narrative of High Fashion played out in my mind’s eye. I saw a packed auditorium, pumping music, and a flawless runway show become the site of a brutal mass execution.

 

The film uses the sterile, hyper-controlled world of haute couture to create a visceral exploration of how easily human apathy digests atrocity—treating violence not as tragedy, but as the ultimate consumer commodity.

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Presented here through an archive of behind-the-scenes photography, High Fashion is scheduled for re-release in 2027 following a full picture remaster.