Bon Duke: The Erjonas

Stalking the underpasses of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in pieces from Prabal Gurung’s Fall/Winter 2012 collection, Norwegian model Erjona Ala commands a motley crew of skateboarding kids in director Bon Duke’s new fashion short. The collaboration between Duke and Gurung was part of an exclusive project in which emerging designers from the CFDA’s {fashion incubator} program and young photographers from the School of Visual Arts were brought together to work on a brief conceived by NOWNESS, to deliver a fashion-focused re-imagining of the opening credits of a film. Using the sequence from cult skate flick Lords of Dogtown as his inspiration, Brooklyn-born director Duke flipped the boys-only pack mentality of skateboarding culture by placing the eponymous female gang-leader at their core. “I wanted to take the lifestyle in Dogtown but add a twist to it.” Duke explains. “I wanted to show her control over them and appropriating their image. As it cuts to them hanging out and arm-wrestling it was another way she was in control.” The SVA’s pioneering one-year MPS Fashion Photography course was launched in 2010 by co-chairs Stephen Frailey and Art + Commerce founder Jimmy Moffat, who established fashion film as an integral part of the curriculum and who call on the likes of industry leaders Nick Knight and Tim Walker to act as guest lecturers.