ate Sylvester’s recently released SS12/13 fashion film begins like many others: with a pretty girl standing in a grassy meadow, bathed in soft sunlight. It soon becomes clear that the designer’s Jane Eyre-inspired film shares a point of difference with the brand’s latest collection, All My Heart. Carefully considered influences, quirky and unexpected elements and a meticulously high attention to detail are defining factors of both projects.

Author Charlotte Bronte’s original protagonist was a physically unglamorous girl who wielded her wit and intelligence to woo her staunch and brooding master, Mr Rochester. The same cannot be said of Sylvester’s contemporary governess, whose Bambi-like legs and softly tousled hair provide the perfect canvass to showcase the collection that consists of dainty cobalt and red lace smock dresses, tightly laced heels and super sweet removable laser cut collars.

The modern day Eyre seems to spend her days lazing around in a field playing ‘he loves me, he loves me not’ to the upbeat soundtrack of Sunny Day by Surf Friends, giving the film a decidedly more optimistic flavour than Bronte’s work. The piece is further modernised by some tricky camera manipulation that speeds up and slows down the visuals (perhaps a wink to the gothic Victorian era and its preoccupation with the supernatural). Even Mr Rochester himself would crack a smile.

Watch the video here:

katesylvester.com