Traverse
It’s hard not to think life has warped when daily conversation references brand milestones, creative adventures and collaborations by the Covid lockdown in which they were achieved.
One such collaboration was a short film made in Sydney during Melbourne lockdown 3.0 by film-maker Brayden Harry that was unveiled in the Kerrin suite at the trade showrooms of Afterpay Australian Fashion Week in Sydney while the Kerrin team was ensnared in stay-at-home orders as part of Melbourne lockdown 4.0. See the full film at the end of this post.
The Traverse set.
It’s 2021’s Covid lockdown tango, in which the choreography only gets trickier as Australia’s two largest cities now find themselves in cotemporal Coronavirus lockdowns; Sydney has clocked eight weeks of restrictions so far in this latest round and Melbourne is up to its sixth hard lockdown. And it hurts. Much of the rest of the world can’t fathom what is happening to daily life here or why. Our ocean-encircled “lucky country” now holds us captive as we navigate the menace of the Covid years like few other places on Earth.
Being confronted with such alien rectitudes perhaps makes Brayden Harry’s film TRAVERSE even more apt. It was shot on Australia’s East coast in a setting denoting a futuristic space where time, distance, gravity and reality are distorted. Featuring Nelson Powell wearing Kerrin, styled by Wes McDonough with original sound design by composer Nik Karlin, nothing is quite as it seems.
Nelson Powell in another world.
Reflecting with film-maker Brayden Harry.
Having lived and worked most recently in New York as a film-maker, Brayden Harry had not long been back on home soil in Sydney when he stumbled upon the location and mentally filed it for a future shoot opportunity. Shortly thereafter, he discovered the Kerrin label and proposed the idea of a collaborative film project. Brayden combines his expertise in film-making with a background in dance, choreography and movement direction. “When working on film projects, being aware of movement is important, and using that to develop a style and aesthetic can really help to create a defined piece that’s not just limited to the subject but also considers the camera, the set and the clothing as they all move through the space,” he said.
TRAVERSE was shot using Super 16mm film because, “I thought it would be a great fit for the visual tone we wanted and would pair nicely with the textural feel of the location and the clothing”.
“Working with film is always fun - there's a tangibility to the film-making process that adds a lot of character to the resulting piece,” Brayden said.
“Then I brought on Nik Karlin to the project, who is an incredible composer and sound designer, and his music created the perfect atmosphere that complemented the visual story and really elevated the film,” he said.
Brayden Harry and designer Kerrin Schuppan have never met in person but their mutual appreciation for each other's creative vocation has transcended state borders for TRAVERSE with more collaborations in the pipeline.
