From 22nd April to 6th May, Alpha Crew worked with premier special events company Villa Eugénie on the Chanel Cruise 2024/25 show in the city of Marseille in the South of France. The show took place at MAMO - Centre d'art, a rooftop on the UNESCO-listed Cité Radieuse apartment complex designed by Le Corbusier.
Cité Radieuse's corridors feature hotel rooms, businesses and shops, including vintage furniture stores, fashion stores, bookstores, which were open for guests to explore before the show. Chanel transformed the building's supermarket into a temporary gallery showing British photographer Jamie Hawkesworth’s portraits of Marseille and the women who call it home, in collaboration with French poet Laura Vazquez. Elsewhere in the building, a hotel foyer was turned into a recording studio for the day to broadcast a special Radio Chanel programme discussing creation with Chanel ambassadors, friends of the House, and local artists and personalities.
Chanel's creative director at the time, Virginie Viard, imagined 'an underwater reverie with reflections of the sun' for the collection in the form of swimwear, diving hoods, shell motifs and sequins. Pastels and greys combined with tweed checks and open-work knits were reflected in the backdrop of MAMO's coloured tiles and grid patterns.
Alpha Crew members completed a combined total of 1000+ hours covering a full range of tasks with the production team and supporting the technical suppliers.
Later in May, Alpha Crew took to the Tate Modern art gallery in London which hosted the Gucci Cruise 2025 show. Alpha Crew's team of 100+ joined forces with agency creative events agency Inca Production and events production company Bureau Betak for eight days to showcase the collection's 'Englishness with an Italian accent'. We put in 5000+ hours total to make the gallery fashion show ready with 30-40 crew members on site each day, increasing to 80 people during crunch time.
The Tanks gallery spaces were used for the fashion show with an incredible plant installation featuring 700 m2 of moss, 100 trees and shrubs, 10,000 trees, and 1000s of plug plants, which were later donated to a community project. The undoubted star of the after party in Turbine Hall was the largest disco ball to ever be constructed. It rotated during Mark Ronson and Kaytranda's DJ sets to create an atmospheric light show.
Alpha Crew were responsible for strobe lighting, sound, rigging and derigging the event and everything in between. We were able to demonstrate our specialised skills and training, which includes traffic marshalling and first aid, to make sure Gucci's creative director Sabato De Sarno's vision was a shimmering success.
Alpha Crew headed north to round out our work on this year's mid-season shows at the impressive Drummond Castle Gardens in Perthshire, Scotland for Dior's Cruise 2025 show. From 21st May to 6th June, we provided 50+ crew who teamed up with full-service brand agency Karla Otto to make sure the manicured gardens were a picture-perfect runway.
The Dior 2025 cruise collection, conceived by the brand's creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri, celebrated Christian Dior's historical relationship with Scotland and his presentation of the spring/summer collection at Perthshire's Gleneagles Hotel in 1955. The show fittingly opened and closed with the bagpipes which bookended a spectacle of tartan, lace, velvet and embroidered Scottish symbols.
Alpha Crew worked up to 2000 hours to support the production team and technical providers from set-up to pack-down. We took extreme care to protect the delicate flower beds, hedges and lawns that hosted the outdoor show and its spectators, while working quickly and efficiently.
