Carmen Kass: Spring Eternal

Having appeared as the face of Chloe, Versace and Kenzo, Estonian supermodel Carmen Kass floats ethereally through a dark void in director Asa Mader’s atmospheric new film, Ray of Life. Known for his multi-dimensional fashion and cinematic narratives, including collaborations with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Lou Doillon and Lea Seydoux, Mader made the short as an exploration of one woman’s search for the source of light. “There’s a theory that the entire universe is nothing but a holographic projection from a black hole, and in which we find eternity,” says the Paris-based filmmaker. A fascination with Professor Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time and theories of black holes led Mader, a self-professed science geek in a family of painters, to collaborate with luxury fashion label Jay Ahr’s Artistic Director Jonathan Riss and FashionLab, an experimental design center for 3D technologies, on Kass’s moody search for illumination. “The film is essentially about immortalizing all the things we cannot reach—of looking and wanting to find a forever,” explains Mader. Ray of Life is currently showing as panoramic 35-meter holographic projections in the Piazza Strozzi in Florence during the sartorial summits Firenze4Ever and Pitti Immagine Uomo.