Bureau Betak | The art of creating revolutionary fashion shows

Big show, fashion shows with narrative and very, very expensive sets that do more than show a collection are what characterize the catwalks produced by Bureau Betak (@bureaubetak).

The surrealistic, artistic and increasingly monumental catwalks can’t be explained without Bureau Betak. This company, which produces parades and sets for events, is responsible for making the spectators feel like they were in an enchanted fable with the hanging garden of Dior in its spring-summer 2017 parade. They are also the authors of the Dalinian surrealist world created for the Haute Couture collection spring-summer 2018 of the same French brand and the presentation of the fall-winter 2018 Calvin Klein collection where the floor was covered with popcorn, to name a few examples.

The office set up by French creative director and producer Alexandre de Betak (@alexdebetak) 20 years ago can boast more than 1,000 parades and events behind it, so what’s the catch? Betak himself explained in an interview with Business of Fashion magazine that “I proposed the antithesis of what people were used to seeing. I went in and tried to do shows very fast, very compact, very energetic and very minimal in the sense of how many messages you put into one”.

With offices in New York, Paris and Shanghai, the company continues to amaze attendees at the year’s most anticipated fashion shows as fashion weeks arrive. Each show is different from the last, no two are alike. Bureau Betak (@bureaubetak) experiments the limits of space with each footbridge it assembles, giving rise to unique and unprecedented fashion shows such as Alexander Wang‘s offices for the brand’s fall-winter collection or Rodarte‘s installation of vertical neon lights for the spring-summer 2016 presentation.

The high production prices of the Betak’s fashion shows, which is currently one of the most sought-after producers in its sector, range from $250,000 for smaller brands to as much as $5 million.

What’s the point of all this money? Alexandre de Betak specified in an interview with the Financial Times that “the large part of the cost of a fashion catwalk is everything you don’t see: it’s logistics, lighting, renting space in cities that by nature are very expensive. Like, for example, did you know that models cost more in Milan?”.

Other recent and noteworthy fashion shows include: the Musée Rodin with posters and covers of fashion magazines for Dior‘s FW18 collection or the stage where we could see Viktor & Rolf‘s commented pillow suit. Although one of our favorites has been the scenography of the last Yves Saint Laurent show – SS19 -, in which the iconic postcard of the New York skyline becomes a reality that in the mix with the catwalk creating a unique visual and emotional experience.

It’s a thing of the past to have a group of models walk along a straight catwalk in a single line. Bureau Betak has redefined the concept of parade and has done so in a unique and sometimes epic way. #mustfollow