The First Fashion Film
A trippy 1960s video with model Peggy Moffitt
This rare video starring the legendary model Peggy Moffitt strutting around in fashions created by celebrated designer Rudi Gernreich is considered one of the first modern fashion films. Moffitt’s husband, photographer William Claxton, shot the film. Wrote Claxton of the shoot, “In 1967 Peggy and I had just returned from ‘swinging London’ and Paris to work in New York. We were commissioned by a small commercial production company to come up with something which would serve as my ‘reel’ in order to get hired to direct TV commercials. While sitting on our bed at the Algonquin Hotel, we collaborated in writing a shooting script that would show fashion, makeup, and hair on three beautiful models wearing the fashion designs of avant-garde Rudi Gernreich’s collection for that fall. We shot the film on a weekend, had original music composed for the sound track and ‘Basic Black’ was born.”
