LONDON — The Minions — and their influence on fashion — are the surprising stars of the first short film produced by Condé Nast Video’s dedicated video division. The film, which will premiere Monday on Vogue.co.uk, was directed by Danny Sangra and is presented by Vogue International editor Suzy Menkes. It features interviews with Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, Rupert Sanderson, Giles Deacon, Stephen Webster, Alber Elbaz, Stephen Jones and British Vogue editor in chief Alexandra Shulman — all discussing the influence the Minions have had on their work.
The video, created for Universal Pictures, is the first created under Danielle Bennison-Brown, group director of video content of Condé Nast Britain, who assumed the role in January, joining from i-D Video. “We’re not Hollywood yet, but it’s where we want to get to,” she told WWD, adding that she has a long list of directors that she would like to collaborate with to create video content for Condé Nast, including Sofia Coppola, Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze, David Fincher, who directed “Gone Girl” and “The Social Network”, and Cary Fukunaga, director of “True Detective.”
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“I am excited about working with directors who are the best in their field,” she said. “If you go to [high-profile] directors with an exciting editorial project, [a film] is not going to be as expensive to make as it would be for a commercial.” She added that Condé Nast Video has “multiple ways of bringing in revenue, including native advertising, series sponsorship and content co-creation with clients.”
Two new videos a week will be released on the Vogue channel, including a series of “Inside the Wardrobe” films presented by Vogue contributing fashion editor Bay Garnett. Sponsored by Vestiaire Collective, the series takes a look inside the wardrobes of people like Olivia Palermo, Suki Waterhouse and Lily Allen, and was inspired by Vogue’s most-watched video, which went inside the wardrobes of Garnett and Vogue fashion features director Sarah Harris.
Alexa Chung will front a series giving insight to the nitty-gritty of the fashion industry in partnership with Google and supported by the British Fashion Council, which will cover areas including technology and sustainability. There will be a weekly Vogue News program, while a Vogue Beauty School series is planned to launch later in the year.
Wil Harris, head of digital of Condé Nast Britain, said that video content creation is a “key strategic opportunity for [Condé Nast],” while Bennison-Brown said that the publisher is “number-one for engaging with affluent Millennials.”
The GQ Video channel will launch later in the fall, followed by channels for Glamour and Wired. Bennison-Brown said social media would be “huge” in pushing traffic to the channels and added that she works with Google to analyze what people are searching for in videos and will create content accordingly.