The12Project is the daring result of joining twelve video experiments that use fashion as a means of exploring various social, philosophical or personal themes. Over the period of twelve months, the project’s director, Hadi Moussally, has created twelve different one-minute fashion videos, each focusing on a distinct matter. Eventually, the joint product unfolds in an ascendingly intense manner, leading up to an orgastic closure.

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Employing different designs each time, The12Project endorses an original outlook on fashion, shifting the focus away from fashion as an end in itself to fashion as a means of deep exploration. Each video piece of this project deals with an idea that is reenacted through intricate production design, innovative garments, metaphorical use of cinematography and editing and hunting audio.

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From born to orgastic, The12Project puts emphasis on relationships, birth, growing old, narcissism and freedom, while also paying tribute to a pioneering filmmaker, Kuleshov. In a wider sense, the experimental short challenges widely-held ideas and misconceptions about life and questions humanity’s place in this world. Various visual and editing techniques, including graphic design, are employed to give a hint about the passing of time, the dominance of senses or the darkness that surrounds people’s lifespan.

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Though all these twelve shorts are interconnected by a common vision, the end product feels oddly heterogenous at times. Considered individually, the shorts are powerful and aesthetically pleasing. However, when rejoined, the links that could potentially connect the videos are fragile at best. The12Project rather gives the impression of a collection of experimental fashion films that otherwise stand out separately. Needless to say, nevertheless, the director’s unconventional outlook on fashion emerges as a common denominator.

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Despite the efforts that still need to be put forth into turning The12Project into a stand-alone short film, the video comes out as a daring experiment of innovative use of fashion. Set against the background of an unconventional narrative, original designer-made garments become meditative and thought-provoking.