Puppets, portals and a big ol’ snake: enter Chrissie Abbott’s weird world for French x Element’s collab

The London-based designer, creative director and illustrator Chrissie Abbott has worked with her husband a lot over the years, but this may just be their greatest collaboration yet. Already privy to the inside knowledge that French – her husband’s fashion label – and Element were co-designing a collaborative collection, Chrissie was brought on board to design its campaign, culminating in an eccentric, oh-so-odd and wildly engrossing mixed-media film series.

As with Chrissie’s overarching practice, the campaign was the result of iteration, experimentation and play, allowing herself to get messy in the act of making. “We got thinking about making these clips that really bring people into the journey,” Chrissie says. “It’s about how the destination isn’t the goal and that the journey in itself is really the main part to be enjoyed – an eternal quest that can roll on infinitely because time doesn’t really exist.”

This sentiment, combined with absurdity (and a touch of nihilism), is a tone that runs rampant throughout the campaign, translating a narrative lookbook of four films dedicated to each element: earth, water, fire and wind. “This was to showcase how the collection was really engineered to interchangeably cope and thrive in any condition,” Chrissie says. “The elements and realms are connected by portals that transport the main character through the journey.”

“It’s no secret that I am a nostalgia junkie,” Chrissie says, speaking to the analogue inspirations behind the campaign, such as old television programmes, magazines and books. “So for this we really looked at early-day single-player narrative computer games,” specifically turning to multiple-choice, choose your own adventure-style games and books. “We both read these when we were kids and were heavily influenced by the storytelling, you really had to use your imagination to picture all the different worlds and scenarios, and they had epic names like ‘Cave of Time’.” 

All four films bring a smile to your face as your eyes question what the hell you’re actually looking at. Such a satisfying reaction is the result of Chrissie creative freedom. “It’s probably the most creative freedom I’ve ever had, which was incredible but also a bit bamboozling at points,” she says. “At the core of it, these videos are like moving collages, different parts that work together to create otherworldly scenes, often psychedelic.” Pitching the concept was hard because the end result was challenging to understand. “Portals and eagles and snake costumes can be a lot to digest,” she adds, “but luckily the Element team were very open minded and trusting of the vision.”

It was a good thing everyone was on board, as the shoot itself was... gruelling. “We shot two days on location in the Bardenas Reales for the fire video,” she explains, “unfortunately, there was a heat wave right at the same time so it was 38 degrees outside. The desert was no joke.” Following less extreme filming in forests, lakes and mountains for the other elements, Chrissie worked alongside DP Jérémy Hugues to finish the production on in-studio greenscreens. “Everything felt quite intuitive whilst shooting which was a real blessing,” Chrissie says: the editing process was a space where she could really experiment and layer video, imagery and texture together. “It’s purposefully imperfect so it looks like it’s made by hand, by real human beings,” Chrissie ends.