LOOK OUT KEVIN BACON: How Daphne Guinness wound up appearing in “The Legend of Lady White Snake,” the short film that will introduce GK Reid’s Genghis Khan collection, shows just how entwined the fashion world is. (Sunday night’s screening of the Indrani-directed flick at the Angel Orensanz Foundation will include a photo exhibition of Markus Klinko and Indrani’s photos.)
Guinness got to know Reid and the photographers, better known as Markus and Indrani, through another lensman, David LaChapelle. Markus and Indrani later shot the heiress and LaChapelle in coffins for the “Keep a Child Alive” campaign, which won two Gold Lions at Cannes for TBWAChiatDay.
Reid and Guinness, meanwhile, became fast friends and cooked up another shoot with Markus and Indrani, during which Indrani started filming “The Legend of Lady White Snake,” a tribute to Alexander McQueen. What started as one shoot wound up being 12, and life-size prints will be sold Sunday to benefit Charity:Water and Indrani’s women’s empowerment school in India.
Reid added another dimension to the tale, by styling “Coraline” creator Neil Gaiman for the Oscars. The designer sent the director an early copy of “The Legend of Lady White Snake,” and, instead of feedback, Gaiman offered the use of his poem “The Hidden Chamber,” which is now a core to the story line. But he is not the only one with a writing credit. At Guinness’ request, Bernard-Henri Lévy wrote her dialogue for the film — on the spot in Paris with Indrani and Guinness by his side. (Indrani also worked in verse from Edgar Allen Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rabindranath Tagore and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.)
The short will be entered in various film festivals, and plans are under way to stage the exhibition in Hong Kong, Saint Petersburg, Russia, and Berlin.