As part of the Winter School subject I am currently taking, entitled 'Fashion and Film', I am to construct and utilise this blog as a way to develop opinion pieces of the connections that lie between the lectures, readings, and tutorials that I will be undertaking. Not only this, but this blog is to be a place to develop ideas and express thoughts on the subject content that may develop into more solid theories for the later essay and fashion film to be conducted.
So here is my attempt to delve into the world of fashion and film, and the connections that lie beneath the surface. This blog for me will become my portal for reflection and analysis.
An Introduction to Film & Fashion:
The lecture's each day are to be conducted by Pamela Church Gibson of London College of Fashion. This first lecture and tutorial today, we received copious amounts of vital information for the introduction to the subject. So, I have attempted to sort out my pages of notes, and deliver here the key components of this first day and my thoughts on this.
- Inter-related are the patterns of Global consumption and Hollywood
- Film gave ordinary people a taste of fashion, with it's aim to make fashion democratic
- Public interest in 'stars' began to proliferate
- The title 'Celebrity' has held a growing dominance for actor's/actresses-more important would be their off-screen persona's
- 'Classic Hollywood' films contain a fast past narrative, stars, music, no open-ending, a storyline, while the viewer is able to identify with characters
- A great quote that sums up my understanding of fashion and film in the early 1900's is; "...what Hollywood shows today, you will wear tomorrow" (Chanel)
- Garments in film were originally used to assist the narrative, and to communicate a character's personality
- Growth of department stores and chain stores
- Mass Production in clothing made high end fashion available as copies at a much lower price
- Consumer capitalism relies on planned obsolescence
- Democratisation of fashion through cinema
- One question I will try and understand throughout this subject is how has Hollywood retained it's prevailing power in cinema?
Early Make-up in Film:
- During the 19th Century make-up was only worn by actors/ actresses and prostitutes
- The eyes were extremely important for conveying emotion, therefore it was necessary to outline the eyes on both male and female's, especially when the first films had no sound
- Max Factor a Hungarian make-up artist went to Hollywood and played on developing a line for make-up for the stars and then directed this line to the public. Max Factor perfected the first makeup specifically created for motion picture use all the way back in 1912
Judy Garland in an early 1940's ad campaign for Max Factor
Paris vs. Hollywood:
- Film costume was never intended to sell clothes, but rather (as I have already mentioned) tell the viewer about character, and help propel narrative, while not interfering with story-line
- Sex and the City has various distraction of the emotion the protagonist Carrie is feeling, by the wardrobe she is employing
- By the 1930's Macy's had opened a cinema shop that had been running for 10 years to sell copies of the clothes shown in films, as well as their paper patterns
- Joan Crawford alongside Coco Chanel popularised the sun tan look
- Jean Harlow in 'Dinner at Eight' (1933) was the first cinema blond and was labelled 'Platinum Blonde', while soon after hair dye's flooded the markets
- "...every foot of American film sells $1 worth of manufactured products someplace in the world" (Will Hayes)
Jean Harlow in 'Dinner at Eight'
- Star hairstyles have been copied everywhere since the beginning of cinema
- Louise Brooks-Sharp bob
- Marilyn Monroe-The Italian demi wave
- Jean Seberg-Short cropped
- Jennifer Aniston-The Rachel style
- Pam Greer-Afro
Louise Brooks
Transformation through clothes:
- Characters are made over through fashion
- Characters would be re-defined by the fashion transformation they employed
Theories of Consumption:
- Product Placement
- Information syndicated through patterns
- Different perspective on the theories of fashion consumption
- Films showed women how they could re-invent themselves
- 'Grooming Behaviour;
Gilbert Adrian-Famous Costume Designer:
- MGM head of costume department
- Designing for Greta
- 1935's fashion a padded suit available as shown in Vogue
Joan Crawford in 'Letty Lynton' wearing a bias cut dress designed by Gilbert Adrian
Contemporary ‘Synergy’:
- The Oscars are the most effective showcase for the fashion industry
- Fashion magazines and photographers regularly allude to cinema
- In the early 1900's, at the beginning of cinema, people couldn’t see Paris fashion except for in film. Today high fashion is much more acceptable to society, through magazines and mass media.
Opening Ceremony’s collection inspired by the film ‘Where the Wild things Are’
Subject Analysis:
- How has the relationship between fashion and film changed over the late 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st Century
- View great Hollywood films as pivotal seminal works that inform popular culture today
Charles Eckert famously argued that ‘Hollywood arguably gave modern consumerism its distinctive bent.’ Please present ONE example of a link you have found between film and the consumption of fashion. This can be an individual star of any national cinema in any decade past or present; or it may be a particular film in which you believe influenced fashion in some way or a genre (eg. Detective)
- Analytical rather than descriptive
- The term fashion can be used as a much broader subject than just clothes. Eg. The fashioning of accessories, hair, phones, bags, make-up etc.
- Films are always a product of the socio-economic and political times-look at these when analysing films that are outside pure aesthetic
- Can look at national cinemas, independent cinema and how it reacts with or against the mainstream
- Link to consumption and how branding can occur-can be very subtle, or can be a pre-mediatated spin-pff
- Branding of subcultures through film
- Contemporary examples of how designers have directed or created film. Eg. Jean Paul Gaultier for 'The Fifth Element', and Tom Ford for 'A single Man'
Fashion Film:
- Has to be taken with a mobile phone
- Has limitations
- After an imaginative use of the mobile phone
- Must be a narrative
- 3-4 minutes long
- Fashion Designers using film instead of photography-Why is this media form so appealing to designers?
An exploration of Fashion Films
Cocoon from Phillip Neil Martin on Vimeo.
Cocoon from Phillip Neil Martin on Vimeo.
Director & producer: Phillip Neil Martin
Director of photography: Oliver Prout
Editor: Paul Mumford
Stylist: Charlotte Stockdale
Make-Up: Jonas Oliver
Hair: Felix Daniel Bruns
Fashion: Chanel, Viktor & Rolf
Model: Erika Stasiuleviciute
Quite a cinematic and explorative fashion film this is, with the use of mirror effects adding greatly to the model's movements and ultimately the appeal of the clothing. This is a very conceptual film, with a solid transcendence of reality. I will definitely be exploring more fashion films, as they get my ideas moving for possibilities of mobile fashion film.
Film Viewing
IT:
- Flapper Girls
- 'IT' is that quality possessed by some which draws all others with its magnetic force. With "IT" you win all man if you are a woman-and all woman if you are a man. "IT" can be a quality of the mind as well.
- Consumer goods on display
- Set in the department store
- Clara Bow as the protagonist
- Department stores as feminine places for women
- 'The Ladies Paradise'
- A space where women could roam without chaperone's
- Quite a realistic setting
- She improvises a Chanel type outfit, with a pair of scissors
I found the entire film "IT" on the internet! Here is a scene, where Clara Bow is getting ready to dine at 'The Ritz'. We see her chopping up her old dress, to create something new and exciting. It reminded me of the Hollywood transformations, and how more prominent these have been becoming.
Gone with the Wind:
- The effect of that the civil war has on the Old South
- True causalities of the War are the plantation owners
- Hollywood narrative
- One of the most successful films in history-why is this?
- Tremendous competition on who was going to play Scarlett O'Hara-the film was set to be famous before it had begun production-did this add to it's everlasting appeal?
- Rhett Butler played by Clarke Gabbel
- Scarlett O'Hara played by Vivienne Leigh
- When reduced to poverty Scarlett fashions her own outfit using curtains
- It begins with the music welling up, the music being very important to the way film works
- Released in 1930-1940
- WW2 was just breaking out-why would people in a real war want to watch another representation of war which is portrayed in a very different way?
- Popularity of the new look which emerged a few years after the second world war
- The past is always a visionary through the contemporary aesthetic
- What a period film always tells you is that they vary. The past is re-interpreted by the contemporary makers
- 'Entre-Acte' Mechanism from the theatre and using it on the screen
- Musical score by Ma Steiner
- Directed by Richard Fleming
- 'A civilisation gone with the wind'
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