Charlet with Lisa Hyper, Jamaican Dancehall Singer/Performer
Vice Media continues to push the envelope with the web series Fashion Week Internationale. The series is a colorful and exotic passport to fashion and style like never seen before. Host Charlet Duboc takes viewers to nontraditional fashion weeks all over the globe, including Jamaica, Rio, and Nigeria. Duboc reveals unique trends like skin bleaching in and “chicken pill” popping in Jamaica, plastic surgery in Korea, the transgender model world in Rio, and the day pajama trend in Cambodia. Duboc talked about the series and her adventures with Limitè Magazine. Fashion Week Internationale can be seen on VICE.COM. The next episode, featuring Seoul Fashion Week, will air on October 22,2012.
What is Fashion Week Internationale?
Two years ago, I was in the VICE office looking for stories and I stumbled across Islamabad Fashion Week. The first ever, was happening that month. I Google searched further and I realized a lot of other places all around the world were having their first Fashion Weeks. I told my editor about it and he was like “what are you like on camera?” and I said “I don’t know”. That was that. We set off to report on as many of them as was humanly possible. The aim was to look at fashion from a different angle, to show people something they might not know about.
How long did a project like this take?
We make up to six documentaries a season. It takes up my entire work and personal life, but I wouldn’t want it any other way! Once we discover an event is happening we work on the pre-production for a couple months. Every single story is always different – so it takes a boatload of research and brutal hours locked in a dark room at the back of the VICE UK office. Just kidding.
You started off the season in Rio; what was that experience like? Why not start in a more traditional fashion capital like Milan or New York?
To an extent, everyone knows what to expect from the fashion capitals like New York, Paris, and Milan. The point of this series is that we wanted to access the less established fashion weeks. Rio is arguably the best city in the world! We chose Rio over Sao Paolo, for instance, because we felt more of a blend of the ‘real’ Brazil there, and the secondary stories and human issues revealed through our research were more compelling. You can see from the film it was a lot of fun. I’d love to go back for vacation.
What kind of behind the scene stories will you tell this season?
In Jamaica, we get under the skin of some beauty trends that are often shocking to Westerners such as skin bleaching and taking ‘chicken pills’. In South Korea. we get to the bottom of the plastic surgery epidemic – procedures unique to Asians. We also go to Tel Aviv and Russia, but you are not going to get the Russian fashion stories you are expecting!
What makes Vice Fashion Week Internationale unique to other Fashion Week coverage?
The places we go, like Nigeria, Jamaica, Cambodia, Pakistan, and Korea. Places you wouldn’t normally associate with ‘fashion week’. It’s not about clothes, but people and society.
How were you able to gain access to the fashion shows in countries like Nigeria and Rio?
I pick up the phone and call them and then call them again and email incessantly until they give in. Countries that are newer in the global fashion week game, such as Nigeria, were so welcoming to us because they don’t get such enthusiastic international press coverage normally. They were happy for us to be backstage.
What hurdles do you encounter as a fashion week reporter?
Not being allowed backstage! The really loud, often commercial music so I can’t interview people without the being drowned out and the grueling nature of shooting ‘on the hoof’. Having to interview people via an interpreter. Nuances get lost in translation. We often shoot for 15 hours a day and I get very tired. It’s difficult to look good on camera when you’re running on not very much sleep, jetlagged, and you can’t afford to buy new clothes for each episode. Also the shitty hotel you are staying in has no hairdryer, and you have dodgy guts because you just ate something off the street you weren’t sure was chicken or fish or something else.
But it’s awesome, too.
What was the most shocking thing you saw backstage?
A stylist in Pakistan telling a model she was fat. The most shocking things I see are not backstage – generally everyone behaves and is professional.
Where were some of the most outrageous fashion and the most interesting?
In Cambodia, I was fascinated to see that many people wear pajamas outside. In Seoul, there are shopping malls that are open 24 hours a day, underground! There’s a whole world of consumption going on under your feet.
How many episodes do you have left?
Four to five more following Rio and Caribbean fashion weeks. You’ll have to come back to see!
