Coco Chanel once said “Fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening”. So does film.
Fashion and film have more similarities than most care to notice. They both have the ability to hold a mirror up to our obsessions and self image; they both trade in the creation of illusion and manipulation of dreams; they both possess the power to fetishise form, gender and sexuality as a way of building characters; and they both defend the notion that one shouldn’t judge on surface appearance.
Tom Ford’s directorial debut "A Single Man" has continued this symbiosis between fashion and film. Don't miss Anna McLeod's review of the film, and our related links.
As stylishly dressed as the surface of Ford’s film may be with its exquisite 60s fashions and architecture, this only forces us to pay attention to the struggle that goes on beneath it.
A Single Man is unusually beautiful, with some critics dismissing it as superficial, buffed too perfection, lovingly lit, even too pretty. But Ford’s multi-layered and complex characters keep it from being a ‘pretty picture’. It is more like a swan sitting elegantly on water, with its feet paddling furiously underneath.
Taking place over a single day in 1962, A Single Man tells the story of George, a gay college professor torn between the need to carry on and finding a reason to carry on after the death of his long-time lover.
It is with tenderness that Ford shows George’s starch white shirt collars not only mirroring his stiff upper lip, but also bolstering it; and how his immaculate bedroom only highlights the loneliness of his bed. Ford describes his story as one “of coming to terms with the isolation we all feel, and of the importance of living in the present and understanding that the small things in life are really the big things in life.”
Ford is one of the most significant fashion designers to have emerged in the last twenty years. After studying architecture, Ford went on to become a visionary powerhouse as the Creative Director of Gucci for over ten years. His knowledge of fashion, and the obvious delight and care he has taken with the surface of his film, ultimately made his characters more compelling.
When George performs his daily ritual of getting dressed, shining his shoes, perfecting his tie and “becoming George” as he puts it, Ford somehow finds the dignity in the way this middle aged man gets himself ready to play his role in the world.
Similarly George’s eccentric best friend Charley is an aging beauty with dramatic eyeliner and 60s up-do. This high maintenance look however, only accentuates her desperateness - a call for attention from a woman who’s past her prime.
Yes Ford makes the people more beautiful, the suits sharper, the houses smarter, the cigarettes pink, but his meticulous compositions merely prime you for the emotional core of the film. A film ultimately more memorable for its depth than its surface.
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A Single Man now joins a plethora of film’s made greater thanks to the director’s appreciation of fashion, and knowing how to use it. Films where costumes and surface appearances meant more than they appeared.
Funny Face
It was Givenchy’s collaboration with Audrey Hepburn that fundamentally changed the relationship between fashion and film. Originally she went to Balenciaga to dress her for her most iconic roles, but un-interested he sent her to his old assistant Givenchy.
The best of these films was Funny Face. Costume designer Edith Head collaborated with couturier Givenchy; Head created the drab every day clothes that Hepburn wore as the book shop assistant while Givenchy designed the show-stopping gowns that Hepburn wore after her character metamorphoses into a sophisticated, glamorous woman modeling clothes of a Paris catwalk.
The irony of the film is that for all the appeal of her couturier gowns, Hepburn is the most iconic when dressing down in black leggings, a roll neck and ballet flats.
Annie Hall
Ralph Lauren’s work as costume designer on Woody Allen’s 1977 film Annie Hall not only defined one of the greatest on screen characters of all time, but an entire decade of fashion trends.
Diane Keaton’s quirky eponymous character of Annie was perfectly styled in cheeky, chic menswear. She appeared simultaneously polished and ‘thrown together’ all at once in hat, waistcoat and men’s tie.
More importantly, Lauren saw something paradoxically feminine about dressing Keaton in genuine menswear – by not being fitted or accentuating the female line it actually drew attention to her femininity.
Belle de Jour
Yves Saint Laurent created one of the most influential pieces of costume design for Belle de Jour, dressing his French muse Catherine Deneuve.
A film that centers around the themes of bondage, dominance and submission, Deneuve’s character Severine, a prostitute, is epitomized in straight and muted clothes, notable for their unsexy elegance.
Chelsea Girls
Andy Warhol’s film Chelsea Girls, can be seen a merely a crowd of talking heads. But it is ample proof that you can use fashion’s attitude and self-expression to make a piece of celluloid film unforgettable.
It tells a story, creates characters and places them in context. That’s why it is a great fashion film.
Fashion has a story to tell, if you are prepared listen to its story. Start by looking beneath the clothes.
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