Eli Russell Linnetz has written his first feature film, and plans to start rolling cameras next winter.
“Because it takes place in the show,” said the California-based creative, who directs music videos and takes pictures in addition to his growing ERL fashion business. He described the movie as a “comedy, but dramatic.”
His fall collection, titled “Crash,” was cinematic and dramatic, too, a tongue-in-cheek tragedy involving a cast of high school characters who perish in a car accident, which led Linnetz to create some heavenly, dressier looks in white, in addition to his usual cozy, lived-in casual wear.
“I’m always designing for these characters in my head,” he said, rattling off the punks, the jocks, the skater dudes, stoners and theater buffs who inhabited this season’s narrative. “Homing in on what it means to be an American teenager.”
He set his fashion tale in 1997, but his roomy cargo pants, denim flares, plaid shirts, striped sweaters and zebra-print prom suits came off as vaguely and pleasingly retro, but not definitively time stamped.
Turns out Linnetz wasn’t so easy to pigeonhole in high school. “I was on the wrestling team, but I was also in choir, in the school plays and also the art kid. I was always the guy hopping between every friend group,” he said, musing, “I was always more interested in other people than myself.”
