“It's not overly-shiny ‘render porn’ — it's got soul”: Margot Bowman on her new film for River Island

Date
23 February 2017

Artist Margot Bowman returns to our screens, this time dipping her toes into film directing.

Made as part of the launch of her new clothing collection with the high street retailer River Island, Margot’s short Come Inside It’s Amazing features the artist’s eight-piece River Island Design Forum collection worn by Margot’s “really, really old mate” Clara Paget, actress and dancer Sophia Brown and Rebecca Namgauds, who Margot “fan-girl-ed out over” after seeing her in Holly Blakey’s video for Kylne’s Don’t Stop.

The film opens with a mundane street shot spliced with a glistening slick of 3D-animated liquid, before a hand emerges from a salad and pulls a light switch, flipping us further into Margot’s surreal world with digitally constructed fabrics, patterns and abstract shapes. Dancing models are illuminated by the glow of streetlights and strip-lit phone-boxes. “Clara and I grew up in London in the same gang and used to go to a lot of raves together so what she does in the film, that dancing, that was almost like full circle,” Margot tells It’s Nice That. "I learnt so much in those raves and clubs – I think the freedom and physicality of those spaces is something that will always inspire and inform my work.

“The core concept is about celebrating the internal, magic and beauty of women,” Margot says. “They are clothes which encourage the women that wear them to bring their inner beauty to the outside world and to unite an often divided self. The film is about the process of seeing more, seeing through the surface of the world, the amazing places lie beneath it and the pleasure, joy and liberation we feel when those two realities meet.”

Come Inside It’s Amazing was screened at the Serpentine during London Fashion Week as part of The British Fashion Council fashion film showcase which also featured shorts by Mother of Pearl and Clio Peppiatt. The video was produced by Prettybird (“they did such an insane job of bringing the film to life and pulling out what was inside my head into the physical world”), with styling by Nell Kalonji (who “totally got the sexy, informal, practical but epic mood of the clothes themselves and was able to present the kind of sexuality I’m really interested for women in 2017, something thats powerful like a man but its source is this crazy unique feminine beauty”), art direction by Oliver Hogan (“he’s a mad magician, so playful”) and “pseudo-acid-house” sound design by Falty DL, who Margot has worked with previously.

“The 3D work was a collaboration with Eva Papamargariti who’s an amazing digital artist I actually first met through 15Folds,” Margot adds. “Her work is insane and together we created this psychedelic, surreal internal world that took my illustrations into a totally new 3D space. Working with a woman on this side of the creative was great because she really got what the core idea was, so we could make something that felt really fresh: it’s not overly-shiny ‘render porn’ — its got soul.”

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Margot Bowman: Come Inside It’s Amazing

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Margot Bowman: Come Inside It’s Amazing

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Margot Bowman: Come Inside It’s Amazing

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Margot Bowman: Come Inside It’s Amazing

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Margot Bowman: Come Inside It’s Amazing

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Margot Bowman: Come Inside It’s Amazing

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About the Author

Bryony Stone

Bryony joined It's Nice That as Deputy Editor in August 2016, following roles at Mother, Secret Cinema, LAW, Rollacoaster and Wonderland. She later became Acting Editor at It's Nice That, before leaving in late 2018.

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