Baillie Walsh

BL_230120_DIOR-MEN-SHOW-FW23_050_EDITO-02_291

Baillie
Walsh

As the set designer for the Dior men’s show by Kim Jones, Baillie Walsh favours eliciting total, almost organic experiences through his films and staging. Here, we glance back at the singular career of a British director with a uniquely keen eye. By Boris Bergmann.

January 20^th, 2023. The guests at the Dior Winter 2023-2024 presentation by Kim Jones were plunged into darkness.
Two voices broke the silence: those of the actress Gwendoline Christie and the actor Robert Pattinson. Together, on screens flanking the catwalk, they read T. S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land, published in 1922. That wasteland describes the aspirations of Anglo-American modernism, a source of fascination and inspiration for Kim Jones. Read aloud, the text became a sensual flow accompanying the collection. Kim Jones lets his literary and visual obsessions coexist alongside his latest creations. Thanks to scenography that merged the spoken word with the invocations of clothing, the viewer was transported ever closer to the beauty and the art of detail embodied by both fashion and writing.

Pure, minimalist staging is the signature of Baillie Walsh, who filmed Robert Pattinson and Gwendoline Christie himself. The English filmmaker likes to offer an immersive, quasi-absolute experience. Starting in the 1990s, his talent led him to direct clips for several stars, in his native England as well as the United States. Among them were Kylie Minogue, New Order and INXS.

Baillie Walsh understands how to transcribe music’s emotion through a restrained, intimate cinematic style. One of his most celebrated videos is Unfinished Sympathy by Massive Attack. As in a docudrama, the directors captured the group’s members in a working-class neighbourhood of Los Angeles. Mixing professional actors and “authentic” extras, Baillie Walsh elevated the grace of a musical stroll through the heart of an unfiltered landscape.

A taste for realism marks his entire filmography. In clips, as well as in numerous documentaries, he shapes an art of unveiling far removed from artifice. Behind the scenes, Baillie Walsh followed Bruce Springsteen, Oasis and Daniel Craig as James Bond. Every time, he immersed himself well beyond artifice and makeup. With a modest and sincere eye, he revealed facets of stars’ lives that are usually kept secret. Baillie Walsh has the flair for bringing out what he alone can see.

His quest to expose the invisible has also let him offer up unique moments and sensations made possible by technology and holograms. As such, he made Kate Moss materialize as a tribute to Alexander McQueen, and directed the critically acclaimed ABBA Voyage concert. Echoing the T. S. Eliot verses at the most recent Dior men’s show by Kim Jones, Baillie Walsh invites audiences into an authentic, lived moment. As close to voice and bodies as it gets. And true to that which unsettles and captivates us.

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