Since 2012, Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta — the brains behind bicoastal experimental brand Eckhaus Latta — have collaborated with Los Angeles-based German director Alexa Karolinski on fashion films that reflect the brand’s innovative vision. Uniform saw senior citizens practicing tai chi in Chinatown’s Columbus Park clad in Eckhaus knits while last season’s film, Pigeon, screened at MoCA Los Angeles. Today, we’re happy to premiere fall/winter 15’s short film, Roach.
“Roach is our eight video with Alexa and I think we just wanted to do something a bit more earnest with this project and representing this collection,” Zoe tells i-D. The film, which was shot in various formats from professional cameras to smashed screen iPhones, moves like a video memoir. Karolinski captures deeply personal moments — like David Moses of Moses Gauntlett Cheng and artist John Mercer Moore sitting together in striped dresses on a bed — to more candid snapshots — like the ocean horizon shot through a pierced nose hole.
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The design duo’s fall/winter 15 show featured an original score by Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes, who also provided Roach‘s music. In addition to Moses and Mercer Moore, Roach also stars artist Skye Chamberlain, photographer Robert Kulisek, and Bobby Andres. Although the poem recited over the footage is performed by artist Nora Slade, it was written by Mike and Zoe, who share its full text with us:
One night I laid in bed and listened to you cry on the other side of the wall as you watched an entire season of Mad Men until the sun came up.
Your cursor on the white brick wall.
It was like living on an island
The cars stuck in traffic in the near distance of the onramp
Loosing sight of a private life
You painted your bedroom with like a green screen with the hope of being elsewhere
Some weeks we wouldn’t leave the house
Watching the neighbors chihuahua out the window mount a fallen branch of pine in crow pose wondering:
“What does it feel like to wake up as him?
Watch this space for full coverage of Eckhaus Latta’s upcoming spring/summer 16 season.
Credits
Text Emily Manning