Diane Pernet: 10 Years Of ASVOFF

People call her ´La Bruja De La Moda´ whereas others hail her as the worlds most respected digital fashion blogger (in fact, it was claimed that she alone was responsible for pioneering the advent of fashion blogging via her blog ‘A Shaded View On Fashion’ (ASVOFF)). As well as being a celebrated fashion writer, Diane Pernet is also credited with launching the fashion film genre as well as providing a new interactive portal through which artists, photographers and designers can collaborate on creative projects of a similar theme.

Shaded View On Fashion Film (ASVOFF) was founded by Diane to ´Present an international travelling showcase to hold competitions for short films within the fashion, style and beauty genres´. She has also curated film projects such as CineOpera in 2010 held at the Corso Como in Milan and NOOVO in Santiago de Compostela in Spain to name a few.

Before launching ASVOFF back in 2005, Pernet was a digital fashion reporter for Elle France and Vogue Paris. In her early 20´s she left her native Washington DC and went straight to New York where she designed for thirteen years under her namesake brand, before hopping across the pond to Paris in the early nineties, (It was here she landed her first role as a costume designer for the film Golem l'Esprit d'Exile back in 1992.)

Her public profile really took off in 2006 when Pernet was commissioned by Mark Eley of Eley Kishimoto to make a film for the brand's menswear launch. Alongside the creative direction and filming of the documentary, Pernet ´blogged´ about the entire journey from London to Monte Carlo and the project served as the catalyst for launching a unique and dedicated series of fashion film festivals. 

Her first production within the showcasing festival was entitled ‘You Wear it Well’ and was debuted in Los Angeles at CineSpace in 2006 to positive acclaim. Such recognition helped her to lay solid foundations for the further development of ASVOFF in 2008, when the festival’s first official edition launched in September in the Jeu de Paume national museum in the centre of bourgeoisie Paris. 

The queen of ´thinking outside the box´ Diane famously snubs red carpet and overtly commercial gatherings. I once quoted her as ´Not belonging beside Anna Wintour on the red carpet of the Met Gala, but instead being more suited to an abandoned car park in the outskirts of Antwerp watching a group of young graduate fashion designers perform interpretative dance.´

Pernet has also produced several acclaimed documentaries such as Swiss Textile Designer Profiles, 8 Years of the Making of the Festival d’Hyères (with occasional appearances from her iconic friend, the celebrity stylist Catherine Baba), Portrait of a Consumer and Fashioned Out. She has served as a talent scout for the Festival d’Hyères in the South of France on several occasions.

Recently, Pernet has begun extending the ASVOFF showcases, with the last Belgian instalment being presided over by none other than Dries Van Noten (in addition to launching a full range of perfumes in her namesake). With such a rich, varied and radical start to her (ASVOFF´s) first ten years, we can only imagine what the black pearl of fashion has in store for the following ten.