SUSPENDING WEIGHTS
LOCATION
COMPLETION
SCOPE
DESIGN TEAM
MODEL PHOTOGRAPHY
PRODUCTION
Paris, France
March 2024
Set Design
Josh Ren, Baoer Wang
Shoji Fujii
Devi Sok
SITE
In contrast to runway shows that are held in long corridors, this site contains a prominent vertical atrium that adds another dimension to the runway. The atrium is part of a renovation project by the architecture office OMA. It was conceived as a flexible art tower embedded in a 19th-century European building. The new addition of metal structures adds a contemporary touch, which contrasts with the traditional masonry pillars. Inspired by this palimpsest of structures, Studio Profile envisioned how RUOHAN’s intervention could be an additional layer, establishing a temporal relationship between the past, present, and future structures of space.
CIRCULATION
The gallery occupies the entire width of the block with a front and back entrance that allows people to access the gallery from either street. A linear path was designed for models to walk from one end of the gallery to the other. The horizontal passage intersects with the vertical atrium, creating a point of intersection in the center of the gallery, which is also where most of the audience was positioned. Bringing attention to this central area forms coherence for the runway that is set in an unusual gallery environment.
POINTS
The subtle play on gravity has been a recurring element in the making of RUOHAN’s sets. In the “FORMS” runway, we draped a frame across the corridor, forming subtle divisions between inside and outside. In the “LINES” runway, we hung arrays of fabric to frame different moments of the body. For this “POINTS” set, a grid of concrete blocks was suspended mid-air in the atrium. Thin metal wires were pulled from the ceiling, attached to the blocks below. Albeit small, the blocks activate the atrium with the tension they create with the ceiling. When the models brush pass, the blocks gently move in response, and the wire visually splits the clothes. The “weightless” mass adds an intimate scale to the set, connecting and ordering the models within the architecture.