RAGE premiere at The Box

New York Fashion Week has only been over for a few days and I already find myself watching a movie about a fashion show. The movie, RAGE, is a fashion show “murder mystery,” with the movie consisting solely of talking head interviews occurring just off the runway. Not quite like any fashion show I have ever been to, but hey, this is cinema.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the director, Sally Potter, had never worked on a fashion show. Potter said she was intrigued with the high visibility of the shows that still keep so much under wraps. In that vein, the characters include the pizza delivery boy, an intern and the bodyguard for a financier.

(L) Lily Cole with RAGE director, (R) Sally Potter

My favorite character, however, was Judi Dench, who played a disillusioned fashion critic. Besides lighting up a gigantic joint during an interview, she had the best line in the movie, stating, “Fashion is not an art form — if it’s anything at all it’s pornography to which millions are addicted to, hopelessly addicted. It’s worse than heroin, let me tell you.”

The cocktails before the screening revealed a well-dressed group still flushed from Fashion Week’s influence. Everyone was dressed to the T’s and the employees had some of my favorite looks.

Bartenders at The Box

RAGE was The Box’s debut movie premiere, an entirely fitting selection since Jude Law — who was in attendance and who hosted a Peace Day party after the screening — dressed in drag for his role. If you have never been to The Box, let me assure you cross-dressing men are a very common theme in their shows.

Besides being The Box’s first premiere, RAGE also is the first movie to premiere on mobile phones. Babelgum’s iPhone app will be posting a chapter of the movie a day, with the first chapter already up. And using your iPhone for non-phone activities is all the rage, you know.

Check out more photos from Patrick McMullan’s night in Film, Music, Fashion – By Patrick McMullan.

PHOTO CREDIT: Billy Farrell/patrickmcmullan.com