Touching Textures Through the Screen: A Cinematic Investigation of the Contemporary Fashion Film

Name: Simone Houg Supervisor: Dr. M.A.M.B Baronian Student Number: Second Reader: Dr. F.J.J.W. Paalman Address: University of Amsterdam Master Thesis Film Studies Phone Number: 26 June 2015 Email: [email protected] Word Count: 23709

2 Abstract The contemporary fashion film emerged at the beginning of this century and has enabled fashion and film to enter into an equivalent relationship. This symbiotic relationship goes back to the emergence of both disciplines at the beginning of the twentieth century. The fashion film is a relatively new phenomenon that is presented on the Internet as a short film, made by fashion designers and fashion houses that optionally collaborate with well-known filmmakers. The fashion film expresses itself in many forms and through many different styles and characteristics, which makes it hard to grasp. In the case studies on the fashion films commissioned by , Prada, Hussein Chalayan and Maison Margiela, concepts such as colour, movement and haptic visuality are investigated, in order to demonstrate that by focusing on the fashion films' similar use of these cinematic techniques, a definition of the fashion film can be constituted. The fashion film moves in our contemporary society; a society that is focused on ideas of progress, increased mobility and other concepts that characterise a culture of modernity. These concepts evoke feelings of nostalgia and the fashion film responds to this by immersing the spectator into a magical, fictionalised world full of desired garments, objects and settings. The ‘aura’ that surrounds the fashion brand is expressed by letting the viewer fully participate in this fashioned world.

Keywords: Fashion Film, Colour, Movement, Haptic Visuality, Modernity.

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4 Table of Contents Introduction...... 07 1. From ‘Film and Fashion’ to ‘the Fashion Film’...... 11 Fashion Newsreels...... 12 Film as Transmitter...... 14 Themes, Seating Plans and Cabines...... 15 Rise of the Mass Consumption...... 16 The Contemporary Fashion Film...... 18 Modernity and the Fashion Film...... 22 Conclusion...... 23

2. The Fashioned Worlds of Dior and Prada...... 24 Lady Blue Shanghai...... 24 Nightly Mysteries...... 25 Bodily Movement...... 28 Erotic Touch...... 29 Lady Grey London...... 31 Eroticism, Textures and Fabrics...... 32 Clothes as a Second Skin...... 33 Colour as the Évocateur of Desire...... 34 Prada: Leather, Luxury and Art Patronage...... 34 A Therapy: A Furry Haptic Sensation...... 35 Italian Nostalgia and Authenticity in Castello Cavalcanti...... 37 A Desire for the Past...... 40 Conclusion...... 41

3. Conceptual Fashion Films: Hussein Chalayan and Maison Margiela ...... 43 HUSSEIN CHALAYAN...... 44 Ideas and Narrativisation...... 45 Veiling and the Gaze...... 48 Transforming the Moving Image and the Human Body...... 49 MAISON MARGIELA...... 52 Substituting the Fashion Show...... 53 Communicating the Message...... 55 Depth and Motion...... 57 Conclusion...... 58

Conclusion: Dressing the Fashion Film...... 60

Bibliography...... 64

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6 Introduction

Fashion and film seem to be inextricably connected in the current era. The use of the medium of film to display, promote and sell fashion is widely incorporated in the marketing strategies of major and smaller fashion brands, large fashion chains and couture houses. Equally, fashion is also present in film: for example, in collaboration with Italian designer Miuccia Prada, the costumes of The Great Gatsby (Luhrmann, 2013) included designs from the Prada and Miu Miu archives. But the relationship between fashion and film goes beyond simply utilising film for fashion and fashion for film. The contemporary fashion film is a genre that has experienced an explosive growth in the current digital era. These short films, lasting from one to approximately fifteen minutes, are continuously available on the Internet and they can be viewed at any time from any place: at home, in class, in shops, or at (fashion) film festivals. These fashion films distinguish themselves from fashion commercials broadcast on TV in various ways, such as their length (they can be considered short films), their viewing space (The Internet) and their content and style (there is no specific product placement).1 Fashion films are presented in a variety of guises. In 2012, the Italian filmmaker Carlo Lavagna gave the viewer a glimpse into the world of the fashion house Valentino in his film L'Unico. He recorded the making of a Valentino's haute couture dress in a poetic sense and followed the dress from the designers' drawings to the eventual presentation of it on the runway. Images of women sewing complex patterns onto the dress are accompanied by serene music. These gentle scenes are in stark contrast to a fashion film made by the British filmmaker Ruth Hogben and the fashion designer Gareth Pugh for Pugh's Autumn/Winter 2015 collection. The film was used as a prelude to Pugh's fashion show and is featured by dark, horror images. We see a woman that starts cutting her long blonde hair with a large pair of scissors. In the next scene we see her wearing a black and white outfit as she starts putting red paint on her body and face, applied in the shape of a cross. After this she disappears into flames of fire. Ominous music accompanies the disturbing scenes. When the film ends, models appear on the catwalk, wearing similar outfits and are covered in red paint, as if they just walked out of the fashion film. These two fashion films seem to be completely different, which can be explained by the fact that the fashion both designers create is radical different. Valentino is known for its romantic, feminine designs while Gareth Pugh's designs are more experimental and play with the shapes of the human body. Although at first sight there can be found little similarities between these two examples that are both considered to be fashion films (they both depict clothing from known fashion designers), there can be found more parallels between these and other fashion films when they are analysed more closely.

1Product placement is an advertising technique that companies use to promote their products by integrating the products subtle in the films' or TV series' narrative without mentioning that it concerns 7 This thesis will examine the connections and relationships between fashion and film. By tracing the emergence of both discourses, forms and their connections with mass media and modernity, an in depth exploration of their corresponding concepts will be given. I will investigate how fashion and film developed in parallel, always exchanging shared characteristics, which has led to the intertwined connection expressed within the fashion film genre. This investigation of the fashion film through the exploration of cinematic concepts, will demonstrate that the fashion film is a complex, interdisciplinary phenomenon that has many underlying references to art, history and our contemporary culture - aspects that are perhaps not so visible at first sight. This research has an interdisciplinary approach. The fashion film will be investigated from the perspective of both fashion studies and film studies, where the latter will be more emphasised due to the educational background of this thesis. The presence of fashion in film is a remarkable research field. Researchers have made major contributions by exploring dress in cinema (Bruzzi 1997; Street 2001; Munich 2011), which deserves much attention when researching the relation between fashion and film. But this research will not focus on fashion in film, but rather on the exact opposite: film in fashion, in other words cinematic concepts that can be found within the fashion context. In the first chapter the similarities between fashion and film’s concepts will be investigated. I will look closely at the emergence of film and fashion and how cinema, from the beginning, has shared many affinities with fashion. It will be argued that these two fields went through a coherent development in the twentieth century and it will be demonstrated how these linear developments eventually resulted in the emergence of the fashion film. Characteristics and cultural contexts of the fashion film will be researched; different findings, definitions and descriptions of the genre will be outlined. The following two chapters provide current examples of fashion films. The first part will focus on fashion films created by the two major fashion houses Prada and Dior. These fashion films will be analysed using concepts that find a shared background in film and fashion - namely colour and movement. Their use of renowned film directors is important in this case, since the choice for a certain director influences the representation of the fashion house. The couture house Dior made an interesting cinematic project around the launch of the Lady Dior . Since these come in several colours, they linked each colour to a different city in the world and let well-known film directors produce short films about these bags, all starring the actress . Lady Rouge (Jonas Åkerlund, 2009) was followed by The Lady Noir Affair (Olivier Dahan, 2009), a year later Lady Blue Shanghai (David Lynch, 2010) was released and the last in this series, Lady Grey London appeared in 2011 (John Cameron Mitchell, 2011). 8 Prada has also asked several well-known filmmakers to produce short fashion films. , in collaboration with , has produced two fashion films for Prada: the triptych Prada Candy and Castello Cavalcanti in 2013. Roman Polanski was hired by Prada to make A Therapy, starring Ben Kingsley and Helena Bonham Carter in 2012. To give a greater perspective on the use of film and its techniques within the fashion industry, the third chapter will focus on relatively few conceptual designers. These designers have a closer connection with art world and are often asked to show their creations in the museum setting. The role of film and the context of art within their creations, play a significant role. Their use of film, therefore, also differs from the major fashion houses, but still the cinematic features pervade their creations. The British/Cypriot designer Hussein Chalayan is a conceptual designer who uses film throughout its creations: not only in a physical way by using the medium of film to represent his clothing, but also in a more abstract or immaterial sense, where cinematic concepts flow through his collections. An example is his film Afterwords, which was made during the launch of the eponymous collection of Autumn/Winter in 2000. The conceptual designers’ use of film will be analysed by focusing on the presence of cinematic concepts such as colour, movement, narrative and special effects. These cinematic concepts provide guidance through the collections of these designers. Their conceptual approach to fashion has ensured that they are at the forefront of using new technologies and that they are able to make “intellectual” sometimes critical - ideas tangible in their collections. These concepts also are visible in the work of the conceptual fashion house Maison Martin Margiela who recently changed its name to Maison Margiela. The designs of the maison (they clearly indicate that the creations are made by the whole team behind Maison Margiela and not just one designer) are approached in an avant-gardist way and some features are recognisable through each collection. In the creations, the conceptualisation of time and its view on the human body are visualised, just as the designs include of trompe- l’oeil and deconstructed clothing. In their radical, non-mainstream approach of fashion, the medium of film is placed in an experimental dialogue with the creations. Maison Margiela uses film to substitute their fashion shows, to represent the house’s style, characteristics, and the production process. The embracing by well-known fashion designers and houses of film as a medium that has many similarities with the fashion industry, uncovers the ever-present relationship between these two art forms. Both have evolved in a cultural context of modernity and mass consumption. The use of specific cinematic techniques such as colour, movement and haptic visuality ensure that both fashion and film are treated equally. The desired garments, textures, fabrics and objects become the most central and significant feature in these films. They evoke 9 the feeling to be touched, and this, as I will argue, enables the spectator to create an emotional relationship with the things represented on the screen.

10 Chapter I. From ‘Film and Fashion’ to ‘the Fashion Film’ Fashion and film emerged almost simultaneously as industries at the end of the nineteenth century. Both discourses actually existed earlier2, but at the end of this century some important changes took place. Cinematic experiments took place before the Lumière brothers showed La Sortie de l’usine Lumière à Lyon in 1895, but still it was one of the first shows where an audience paid to view the film. Fashion experienced the same transformation. Back at the French court of Louis XIV, reputable tailors already designed costumes, but an important shift in the relationship between the tailor and the wearer occurred at the end of the nineteenth century. Tailors did not stay attached to one costumer only, but became independent entrepreneurs who opened their own businesses in large cities like Paris. Clients had to visit their salons and therefore the tailors’ designs were accessible for a larger part of the population (English 5-12). From this simultaneous rise at the end of the nineteenth century, fashion and film have shared concepts and features that enabled both industries to express themselves. In her article ‘The Walkies’, Caroline Evans asserts that the “French fashion show [...] had many affinities with the “cinema of attractions”, in particular with the féeries and trick films of Georges Méliès from around 1903” (Evans 2011: 110). The “cinema of attractions” refers to the first period of film from 1895 to approximately 1906 or 1907. Tom Gunning, one of the first researchers that used the term “cinema of attractions”, explains that this cinema wanted to show something rather than being a device for storytelling. In early cinema, actors have a relationship with the spectator, since they look into the camera to connect with the audience (Gunning 64). The trick films of Méliès show that cinema itself could be seen as an attraction and, according to Gunning, depicts the “magical possibilities of cinema” (65). Evans argues that these features can also be applied to the first fashion shows. In these films, the fashion shows were “presentational rather than possessing a narrative: the mannequins were being looked at as if they were attractions rather than characters with a thoughtful personality”. The gaze from client to model also has affinities with the cinema of attraction’s direct addressing of the spectator (Evans 2011: 118). Gunning demonstrates that early showmen exhibitors had a great influence on the display of the film: they were able to re-edit the film and, for example, add music, sound effects, or explanations after they had purchased it. Evans also sees this phenomenon appear in the fashion shows, where clients could ask the

2 The exact emergence of both film and fashion is questioned and interpreted variously by scholars. According to the dominant discourse, film’s emergence is linked to the viewings of the Lumière brothers. But media archaeologists such as Laurent Mannoni and Thomas Elsaesser declare that predecessors of film could be found in the ‘pre-cinematic’ period. Within fashion theory too, discussions take place about which periods should be referred to as fashion. Some state that in the Egyptians’ costumes a certain fashion could be found, while others suggest that the beginning of fashion should be associated with the opening of the first couture house by Charles Frederick Worth (See for example Valerie Cummings 2004). 11 mannequins to stop to take a closer look at the clothes. In that sense the designer could be seen as a kind of scenographer, directing the models in the same way a director of a film would do (Evans 2011: 119). Another cinematic element that is revealed in fashion shows is the fascination with the human body in motion. Like early film, fashion shows emerged from the desire to show clothing into movement, something that was found more important than to elaborate questions of psychological depth, narrative or truth (Evans 2013: 247). These cinematic characteristics were not only visible in fashion shows, but also in other fashion utterances like the fashion journalism and the fashion newsreels that arose from the 1910s. Evans demonstrates that film language entered fashion journalism, suggesting that fashion journalists looked at fashion and fashion shows in a certain way that was influence by the cinematic viewing mode (Evans 2011: 111). She quotes several reviews from magazines, including the French magazine Femina that referred to the forthcoming fashion of the 1910 fall as ‘a veritable cinematograph of tomorrow’s fashion, and the French Fantasio magazine describing the well-dressed people in the Bois de Boulogne as ‘an admirable cinema’ (Evans 2013: 249).

Fashion Newsreels Characteristics from the “cinema of attractions” were also visible in the fashion newsreels that were produced from the 1910s. Before the 1910s, these newsreels on fashion did not exist. The only available images of fashion came from the reports on Bois de Boulogne or Longchamp, which showed us the latest fashions worn by the French jetset who accidentally walked through the screen (Teunissen 32). Elizabeth Leese is one of the first to investigate these fashion newsreels. One of the earliest fashion films described by Leese is Fifty Years of Paris Fashions 1859-1909, which was shown in London in 1910. This film was well received and made it possible to bring high fashion from Paris to a wider audience (Leese 9). From the 1910s Gaumont and the Pathé brothers started to make their own fashion reports. In the beginning, these reports lasted not more than one minute and were shown among other news items. These items were successful and became independent newsreels lasting about ten minutes. Pathé became one of the leading production companies of these fashion newsreels, showing the coming fashion in their weekly released Pathé Animated Gazette (Evans 2013: 66). These reports stood out because they were the only reports in the newsreels that were in colour (Teunissen 32). The short fashion films were ideal for experimenting with colouring techniques like Kinemacolour, Pathécolour and the later Eastman colour process (Leese 9). The use of colour in these fashion newsreels was important because it gave the garments a realistic look and colour created a spectacle for its viewers. The clothes were colourised with great importance for detail, showing the willingness to make the clothes a haptic sensation. 12 ‘Haptic visuality’, in the context of contemporary film studies, is a term coined by the media theorist Laura Marks. She describes this concept as “a kind of looking that lingers on the surface of the image rather than delving into depth and is more concerned with texture than with deep space (quoted in Barker 35). The creation of a haptic sensation within these fashion newsreels is important, since the spectator is not able to touch or to view the clothes as they would in [three-dimensional] reality. The representation on the screen needs to invite the viewer to touch; a tactile relationship between the viewer’s skin and that of the film needs to be provoked. Besides this realistic and tactile function of colour, Eirik Frisvold Hanssen argues that colour is used as a visual material of desire that “signified the social identity, emancipation and social mobility” (Hanssen 118). The clothes were displayed in settings where the social milieus were clearly made visible. The sets were indeed full of luxury and colour where not only the garments were desired, but also the whole environment surrounding it (Hanssen 115).3 The emergence of the fashion newsreels is in line with the evolving desire of capturing the body in movement. José Teunissen explains in her book Mode in beweging: van modeprent tot modejournaal, that the display of the human body in motion developed alongside the emergence of photography and film. Furthermore the general fascination for movement that marked the beginning of the twentieth century meant that the body was often depicted in motion. Fashion prints already existed from 1770 but became accessible to a wider audience from 1830 in fashion magazines. These illustrations showed the clothes in great detail, but the feminine body was depicted in a frontal, static way. This depiction fitted the dominant fashion of that time: the bodies were literally ‘stuck’ in the corsets and thick layers of skirts (Teunissen 9 and 11). When photography became standardised in fashion magazines from 1890, the photos mainly imitated the static fashion drawings that were used before. Teunissen names two people in particular who had a great influence on bringing the body into motion. Firstly, she refers to the French photographer Henri Lartigue, who shot photos of fashionably dressed women in action, walking at the horse races in Bois de Boulogne. Secondly, fashion designer Paul Poiret, who reformed the dominant fashion by removing the corset (Teunissen 19). Poiret also experimented with film, taking footage which he made himself, with him on a promotional tour through the United States to substitute live fashion shows (Leese 10; Evans 2011: 120). The transition from fashion drawings and photography to fashion newsreels therefore made fashion more mobile, both literally and figuratively speaking. Built on the ideas of Roland Barthes’ Système de la Mode (1973),

3 In the recently released and beautifully illustrated book Fantasia of Color in Early Cinema (2015), an important contribution is made to the studies of early color film images and its techniques. See Fossati, Giovanna et al. Fantasia of Color in Early Cinema. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2015. 13 Nathalie Khan refers to fashion photography as a medium that captures a specific moment in time (Khan 238). Barthes declares that photography holds on to the past and is imbued with stillness, immobility and death, while as Khan argues, the fashion film “makes it possible to interact which each instant within the fashion circle” (238). Besides this interaction, these fashion films were able to show the passing of time, to show the garments in movement and reveal details from different kinds of angles. This made them more lively and directed attention through the use of colour, therefore showing them, as Uhlirova notes, as “living organisms” (Uhlirova 2013b: 123). The fashion newsreel shares characteristics with the fashion show and the cinema of attractions. In the 1910s the narrative of these fashion films depicted the daily activities of the middle class woman, but this changed during the 1920s. The short fashion films from this period have a more presentational feature: the models on the screen directly address the spectator, like in the cinema of attractions (Hanssen 116). This presentational aesthetic is combined with simple narrative stories: fictionalised situations are alternated with images of static, posing models looking into the camera. This seems to evoke unrealistic stories, since the narrative literally stops - pausing for a couple of seconds - to show the garments in more detail. But according to Eivind Røssaak, the change from a moving to a static image instead creates sensation. He shows that digital techniques today still make use of this combination. For example in The Matrix (The Wachowski Brothers, 1999), frozen images manipulate time and movement (Røssaak 324). The still images in these fashion newsreels provoke the same feelings in the viewer as with the frozen, so-called “bullet time effects” in The Matrix: “The Wachowski brothers are fascinated not by immobility, but by its effect on a moving body, and this effect is explored through the process of isolation, both technically and aesthetically, to achieve the most intense figure of sensation” (Røssaak 329). As Marketa Uhlirova explains, throughout the 1920s and 1930s the style of the fashion newsreels did not change much. During the Second World War the genre persisted, serving as entertainment among other news items which were mostly war related (Uhlirova 2013a: 143).

Film as Transmitter One of the main purposes of the fashion newsreel is that film serves as a transmitter to transfer high fashion to a mass audience: “it […] introduced the mass of consumers to everything from the aristocratic glamour of Paris” (Hanssen 112) and Evans describes this phenomenon as bringing “the image of haute couture to a wider audience through the very process of promulgating its mystique and aura of exclusivity” (2001: 285). Film participates in a system that is visible in fashion and firstly described by German philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel in 1904. Simmel observes that fashion is a product of class 14 distinction and therefore the fashions of the higher class are never identical to that of the lower class (Simmel 133). He considers this system a vicious cycle that is still at work today:

Just as soon as the lower classes begin to copy their style, thereby crossing the line of demarcation the upper classes have drawn and destroying the uniformity of their coherence, the upper classes turn away from this style and adopt a new one, which in its turn differentiates them for the masses: and thus the game goes merrily on. (Simmel 135)

The lower classes imitate the latest fashions of the upper classes, and film functions within this system as a transmitter: film makes it possible for the lower classes to copy their styles and which results in the change of style of the upper classes. Previously the lower classes needed to read magazines to mimic the style of the elite, now film accelerated the adoption process and therefore it could partly be held responsible for the rapid changes within fashion. Evans notes that before the newsreels entered the fashion world, film and the fashion show evolved separate from each other, but nevertheless they drew upon many of the same historical antecedents (Evans 2011: 114). Their corresponding reliance on the same historical concepts shows that from already from the emergence of both fashion and film resemble each other. But although it seems that fashion first distinguished itself from film since it was meant to be for only a small group of clients, this was not the case. According to Evans, the emergence of the fashion show was an effect of French haute couture being a global export industry: selling the ideas of the Parisian high fashion to North American buyers who produced simplified forms on mass scale (Evans 2013: 2). The fashion newsreel can be considered as one of the first forms where the intertwined connection between fashion and film is made explicit. The concepts that form the basis of cinema, for example movement, spectacle, colour and narrative, are visible in these newsreels. And as we shall see later on, many characteristics of the fashion newsreel share similarities with the contemporary ‘digital’ fashion film, and therefore the fashion newsreel can be considered one of the predecessors of the current fashion film.

Themes, Seating Plans and Cabines Gunning demonstrates that from 1913 a narrativisation of the cinema took place. He notes that the direct addressing of the spectator became taboo and cinematic devices were not used to reveal the new techniques and tricks of cinema, but were meant for the support of other purposes: namely that of the dramatic expression to develop the psychology of characters and their fictionalized world (Gunning 68). While narrative storytelling took over cinema, this cinematic concept also found its way into fashion and was combined with the element of 15 spectacle of the cinema of attractions. Elsa Schiaparelli was the first designer to give each collection a certain theme that resembled a (film) genre, the collection was accompanied by a fashion show that included spectacle, music, lighting, dance and stunts (Evans 2001: 289). One of the shows described by Evans is the Commedia dell’arte show of 1939. Commedia characters like a Harlequin, a Columbine and a Pierrot were used to create a fictionalized world (Evans 2001: 291). In 1952, Schiaparelli also instructed a film company to transform her own courtyard into a fairytale setting, where mannequins danced to Brazilian music (Evans 2001: 291). Cinematic devices were actually visible in all the utterances of fashion. Dior introduced the seating plan for its fashion shows in 1947, where people were required to sit in a particular place. This seating plan has affinities with the cinematic experience, since the viewer is obliged to sit in a certain place to watch the show. For instance, the apparatus theory developed by Jean-Louis Baudry in 1970, investigates the central position of the spectator within the cinematic environment. According to him, the movie theatre is a closed off space, in which the viewer is “chained” and “captivated”, and can only look at the images represented to them on the screen (Baudry 44). Within this cinematic mirror-screen a paradox is visible: it reflects images, but these reflected images are not “reality” (Baudry 45). Through this mirroring effect a false ‘reality’ is created as the spectators identify themselves with characters represented onscreen. This secondary identification is useful within the fashion show. When the show begins and the lights go down, the visitors of the fashion show are forced to look at the spectacle unfolding in front of them. A mirroring effect is created when the spectators identify with the models and their appearance. This can serve as a proper advertising tool, as they are enchanted and captured by the “reality” created in front of them. Another striking similarity with film is present in the juxtaposition of the Hollywood studio star system and the system of the cabines where models were attached to certain fashion designers. A cabine (literally, a studio) consisted of a number of models who worked for one couturier. Each cabine had its own rules and codes concerning humour, language and tradition (Evans 2011: 293). Each couturier therefore developed a recognisable walk (the “Dior Walk”), pose (the famous “Chanel pose”), or signature look that characterised the designer. Simultaneously, the large film studios in Hollywood hired actors and actresses who signed exclusivity contracts during the 1950s. They were given distinctive personas, for example the actress Marilyn Monroe, who was presented as a ‘blonde bombshell’. Actresses were allowed to only work for that studio and the way they represented themselves had to meet with the codes and rules of the studio. This similarity shows that fashion and film did not only have shared historical antecedents, but even in the systems of the fashion and film similarities were present.

16 Rise of the Mass Consumption So far, we have seen that film found many ways to penetrate fashion. An important function of film was the transmitting of the haute couture fashions to the mass market, which eventually would end up copying their style. But from the 1960s the borders between high fashion and low confections clothes started to blur and thus the function of film in fashion changed too. In the 1960s, London became an important city within the fashion world. In Paris, a clear demarcation between haute couture and ready-to-wear clothing was visible, while in London the distinction between “high” and “low” fashion was questioned. With the emergence of British designers like Mary Quant4 - who was partly responsible for the current fashion shows’ speed and style - the boundaries between garments for the mass and luxury market were blurred. The democratisation of fashion also became clear with the rise of the prêt-à-porter (ready-to-wear) and menswear collections, made by reputable designers during the 1960s. Yves Saint Laurent designed his first prêt-à-porter collection for women in 1966, which made his clothes available to a much larger group of consumers (Evans 2001: 298). In the 1980s Thierry Mugler was one of the first designers who broke with the convention of having invited guests only, attending fashion shows. For his 1984 Autumn/Winter show, instead of only inviting important buyers, journalists and celebrities, Mugler made half his tickets available to the general public (Evans 2001: 301). The differences between haute couture fashion, prêt-à-porter collections and the mass market became less significant and the function of film as a medium transmitting high fashion to the wider public became less important. From the 1980s fashion designers cautiously opened up to the medium of film. They started incorporating videos in their shows and retail spaces. Furthermore, designers started to experiment with film and in the Spring of 1990, Rifat Ozbek, Jasper Conran and Antony Price all chose not to put on a live fashion show. These designers are known for their interdisciplinary approach of fashion: their designs are inspired on other art forms such as performance art and music. For both creative and economic reasons, these designers substituted their shows for videos (Uhlirova 2013a: 145). In collaboration with the English filmmaker John Maybury, Rifat Ozbek created a "Fashion Video" in 1989 that resembled a music video; it was even broadcast on MTV. A two minutes video showed models dancing to up-tempo music against a psychedelic backdrop. Still, the overall positive disposition towards the use of film in fashion continued to be limited to experimental designers. Conceptual designers like Hussein Chalayan and Maison Martin Margiela produced video installations and films from the end of the 20th century that will be discussed in detail in the third chapter. These films and installations

4 The British fashion designer Mary Quant (1934) was an important figure in the youth fashion movements of the 1960s. She has been credited with inventing the mini skirt and hot pants. 17 supported the themes of their collections and were shown during their fashion shows, or indeed substituted these shows completely. The experimental use of film continued until the beginning of the twenty-first century and it was not until the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century that digital fashion film evolved into its current form, becoming a mainstream phenomenon within the fashion world.

The Contemporary Fashion Film In 2000, British fashion photographer Nick Knight launched the website SHOWstudio, an interactive fashion platform that calls itself “The Home of the Fashion Film”. Filmic experiments related to fashion can be found here, often made in collaboration with renowned designers like Martin Margiela, Viktor and Rolf and Alexander McQueen. SHOWstudio gave fashion films the opportunity to function in a new environment, namely the digital world. It took some time before the fashion world fully accepted the use of digital techniques. For a long period, the fashion industry seems to have preferred the cinematic over than the digital. This is evident in, for example, the fashion film Thunder Perfect Mind made by Jordan and Ridley Scott for Prada in 2005, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival (Uhlirova 2013a: 150). In the film the model Daria Werbowy is followed through the streets of Berlin, reciting a poem through a voiceover. There is no dialogue, only a jazzy soundtrack that guides Werbowy and the viewer through the city, meeting younger and older women that happen to be Werbowy herself. The preferences for the cinematic become apparent from the fact that the film was premiered in a cinematic environment and that it makes use of (experimental) cinematic devices. The reluctance to use digital media in their marketing and advertising strategies can also partly be linked to technological limitations (Uhlirova 2013a: 150). Since the embracing of film within the fashion world happened only recently, it makes sense that the acceptance of the digital media took some time. The embracing of the medium film had to overcome all kind of obstacles, where one of the biggest challenges was to convince fashion designers of its importance. These films have to prove their value beyond simply being a medium to transmit fashion. They have to convince the fashion world that they have much more to offer to various aspects of fashion. Uhlirova identified two reasons for mainstream acceptance at the end of the 2000s. First, the substituting of live fashion shows for films became more common (Uhlirova 2013a: 151). Maison Martin Margiela presented their Fall/Winter 2004 show in a film made by the English actor and director Nigel Bennett that was viewable in nineteen different bars in Paris (Uhlirova 2013a: 151). Viktor and Rolf created a film for their Spring/Summer 2009 collection that showed a fashion show only accessible online. In this film, all creations are worn by one model, Shalom Harlow, and the show lasts for about ten minutes. The fashion 18 press was especially attracted to Gareth Pugh’s Fall/Winter 2009 womenswear collection in which he replaced the elite fashion show by a film. A critic described the effects of Pugh’s substitution of a live fashion show on the website Style.com:

Pugh presented his new looks in mesmerizing video form. And in that context, his clothes made perfect sense in a way that they haven't always on the runway. While the 2-D format meant it took a visit to the showroom to appreciate the texture of Pinhead outfits carpeted with fine spikes like a lethal fur, it did allow for a chance to see the clothes in movement, whipped into aerodynamic shapes on screen by an elemental wind. (Tim Blanks, Style.com)

This review mentions some important effects as a result of using film as substitute for clothing. On the one hand, Blanks appreciates the fact that the garments can be seen in spectacular movement. But on the other hand, he also points to the limitations of the use of film, since he felt the need to visit the show room to “appreciate the texture”. The second reason that gave the fashion film mainstream acceptance was the fact that large fashion brands/houses invested bigger budgets in fashion films. By making them available online among other media like television, cinema and retail spaces, they became accessible to a large audience (Uhlirova 2013a: 152). Reputable film directors like Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and Wes Anderson lent themselves to major fashion houses like Chanel, Dior and Prada by producing short films that were released online.5 As we have seen, the fashion film appears in all shapes, sizes and styles. These films can be literal translations of live fashion shows that are published online and they emerge in all different kinds of shapes. In her article “The Fashion Film Effect”, Uhlirova tries to define the fashion film as a specific genre. But she admits that it is difficult to describe the fashion film, since “it borrows and combines conventions of other genres and modes of production, including music video, avant-garde and experimental cinema, video art, documentary film, dance film and commercial” (Uhlirova 2013b: 120). She describes the fashion film as “a simultaneous exploration of the properties of cinema and fashion” (123) by linking both disciplines’ interest in movement and rhythm. She refers back to the intertwined relation between fashion and the cinema of attractions as described earlier in this chapter. According to her, if we want to define the fashion film as a genre, we have to let go of our standard ideas about a genre, and accept that it is “fluid and sometimes self-contradictory” (Uhlirova 2013b: 122). Gary Needham attempts to define the digital fashion film by dividing the films

5 Martin Scorsese directed Bleu Chanel: The Film in 2010 for Chanel; Lady Blue Shanghai is a short film by David Lynch made for Dior in 2010 and Wes Anderson directed respectively Prada Candy and Castello Cavalcanti in 2013 in collaboration with Prada. 19 into four sub-genres or types: the ‘boutique film’, which has been made primarily for e- stores; the ‘designer’s film’ which is associated with the creative designer or brand; the ‘authored film’ created by a known film director and finally the ‘artist’s film where a fashion brand has funded a fashion film that is created by an established artist (Needham 107). But again he notes that these sub-genres are not static, sometimes overlap and share characteristics, which will become apparent when analysing the case studies in the next chapters. Nathalie Khan researches the presence of ‘digital’ within the fashion film. She describes examples of contemporary fashion films, which according to her “break down the boundaries between consumption and representation, by relying on cinematic language” (Khan 237). The combination of cinematic conventions within the digital world has different consequences. First of all, the notion of time changes since the digital image makes it possible for fashion to have a “permanent present”. This concept by Lev Manovich explains that digital images are not restricted by time or space and therefore they are always accessible (Khan 237). This “permanent presence” means the fashion film can be watched at any time and in any space the spectator demands. This gives the mass audience increased access to the high fashion that was unreachable before. Uhlirova sees this space mainly as a “distracted milieu”, where the spectator is easily distracted from the images presented to him/her on the screen, since it is not shown in the cinematic experience setting of Baudry mentioned previously (Uhlirova 2013b: 126). Another consequence of the presence of cinematic concepts in the digital world is the changed position of the viewer. Khan argues that a shift from the viewer as consumer to the viewer as spectator occurs through the use of cinematic conventions as narration and editing (Khan 237). Gary Needham refutes Khan’s argument by saying that instead of a shift from consumer to spectator, there is a merging of consumption and spectatorship (Needham 106). He describes the fashion film as “a digital moving image that produces hybrid modes of engagement in which old and new media, and activity and passivity, productively merge” (Needham 106). In my view, the fact that the fashion film is shown in a digital environment is subordinate to the cinematic characteristics of the fashion film. In our contemporary society the digitisation is one of the latest technologies and therefore it is an interesting platform for (fashion) brands to present their products on. The viewing mode and audience might be changed; this does not mean that it has had much influence on the content of the fashion film. These descriptions of the fashion film show the complexity in attempting to define the fashion film, since it renders itself in many different forms and places, even if there are some recognisable features present in the majority of these films. Most of the time, they are released online, often on a brand’s website, YouTube, or on fashion film related sites like SHOWstudio. The films last between one and approximately fifteen minutes and therefore 20 they can be called short films. Although the themes of the films differ, they all transfer the ideas of the fashion house, designer or specific collection. Sometimes these translations can be quite literal, as for example in the Viktor and Rolf film mentioned before, which resembles a live fashion show. But it also can be more abstract, as in the short film Blue de Chanel made by Martin Scorsese for Chanel in 2010. In the latter, a fictionalised narrative tells the story of a man, seemingly a criminal/vampire figure who chases a woman, who in the end turns out to be an undercover journalist. That the film promotes a perfume for men, becomes clear only in the lasts seconds, where the product is explicitly shown. But within the story itself, the perfume is never shown or mentioned. The use of known film directors by major fashion brands is another feature that seems to characterise these short films. Besides Martin Scorsese, Jean-Pierre Jeunet also produced a short for Chanel, just as David Lynch and John Cameron Mitchell lent themselves to Dior, and Roman Polanski and Wes Anderson collaborated with Prada. More conceptual designers like Hussein Chalayan or Maison Martin Margiela collaborated with other known artists, photographers and graphic designers to produce their fashion films. Moreover, these films blur the boundaries between art and advertising. Clothes or products are often not presented through a presentational mode, but are interwoven into the narrative, or in some cases not even mentioned at all. Fashion films do not appear on TV or in stores, but on the Internet, which has as effect that not all viewers are potential buyers. The blending of art with advertising raises the question of whether these films can be considered art, or rather an advertising strategy that uses ‘artistic’ features to sell products. Fashion positions itself in this ambiguous position wherein the distinction between art and commerce is blurred. In her article on this topic, Melissa Taylor demonstrates how fashion brands' collaboration with the art world through for example cultural sponsorship, or shops being designed by well-known architects, question the dominant discourse on fashion being just a commercial product (Taylor 451-453). The fashion film seems to thrive on this ambiguity: there is no presence of a clear commercial purpose in the film and this is exactly what these fashion brands want to express. In his praising review of the film Castello Cavalcanti(2013) of the director Wes Anderson, Christian Blauvelt mentions the few references to Prada in this film and how this evoked the ambiance that we find regularly in fashion films: "Prada certainly understands one thing: sometimes it takes a spoonful of auteur artistry to help the advertising go down" (Blauvelt, BBC.com). According to Uhlirova, the fashion houses' motivation for producing these fashion films is that they can connect with a greater base of consumers and therefore make the brand more accessible than otherwise elite shows. The easy access through the Internet and the artistic value that predominates the fashion film thus enables it to overcome the dominant distinction between art and commerce, and this requires the fashion film to be evaluated by means of a new value system. 21 Modernity and the Fashion Film In defining the fashion film, researchers have put much emphasise on the effect of the digital on the fashion film. The spectator’s experience, position and notions of time change. But as Uhlirova notes, the fashion film is a hybrid, fluid, ‘umbrella term genre’, that is sometimes even self-contradictory. Since these fashion films are produced on behalf of the fashion world, approaching the fashion film from a fashion theory perspective cannot be left unremarked. For instance, Evans explores the relationship between fashion and modernity in her book Fashion at the Edge (2003). In defining modernisation and modernity, Evans uses two terms that have been raised by the American philosopher Marshall Berman. ‘Modernisation’ is explained as “processes of scientific, technological, industrial, economic and political innovation that also become urban, social and artistic in their impact (Evans 2003: 7). And in relation to this, ‘modernity’ refers to “the way that modernisation infiltrates in everyday life and sensibilities” (Evans 2003: 8). In her book she namely focuses on the change in sensibility that took place in the nineteenth century caused by late eighteenth- century industrialisation. Ulrich Lehmann and Elizabeth Wilson have researched the similarities between fashion and modernity. Lehmann recognises the etymological affinities between the French words modernité (modernity) and mode (fashion).6 Wilson links modernity to features as speed, mobility, mutability and ideas of progress that are present in a certain zeitgeist rather than a defined period in time (Wilson 9). Wilson also links modernity to mass production and technological developments entering everyday life (10) and Evans relates these ideas to contemporary fashion. Our current era is marked by the rapid technological developments and globalisation. These changes are visible in the fact that fashion has to be different every season, but it also can also be seen in other ways. Wilson demonstrates that in modernity, where thinking forward is aimed, the idea of nostalgia is also present: “the magic of the world has been lost” (10). Fashion utters these nostalgic and reflexive feelings in a remarkable way, which has been explained firstly by Walter Benjamin as the Tigersprung. He describes fashion as taking a ‘tiger’s leap’ through its own history, taking elements from the past in a non-chronological way that causes friction and reference simultaneously in the present when it is represented in the new garment/design (Benjamin 261). Evans names this ‘ragpicking’ (a term describing a fashion designer’s technique): it refers to Benjamin’s idea of fashion that remixes elements from the present and past (Evans 2003: 11). Fashion’s approach to the past differs from other decorative and applied arts that rely on historicism, and this might explain the incomprehensibility that reigns around fashion. Situating film and in particular the fashion film within this context, Wilson’s notion of the nostalgic feelings that are present in the culture of modernity, comes into play again.

6 See Ulrich Lehmann. Tigersprung: Fashion in Modernity. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2000. 22 According to her, the longing for the past is accompanied by the presence of tradition and superstition. Cinema is the main medium through which the ideas of magic and the irrational can be explored and exploited (Wilson 11). This creates a remarkable paradox since cinema is a typical art form within the industrial period, but relies on the opposite concept of irrationality. These irrational and magic features are clearly present in the cinema of attractions, where tricks and phantasmagorical effects are basic concepts, but also contemporary cinema where the spectator is pulled into an ‘other world’ which contains clear features of these irrational, magical aspects. Fashion can be viewed from the same perspective: it is a product of the industrial society, but it also relies on irrational aspects and can be seen as the “field for the expression of fetishism and magical impulses and beliefs” (Wilson 11). The fashion film thus is able to pull the spectator into a magical world full of desirable objects and garments.

Conclusion The fashion film exists as a combination of two industries that have phantasmagorical features and function within a culture of modernity. The complexity in defining the fashion film because of its fluid, contradictory sense is partly caused by the role of fashion within this genre. Fashion uses the concept of ‘ragpicking’, where elements from the past are remixed into a new design in the present. The fashion film does exactly the same, since it combines all kinds of cinematic devices: concepts of the cinema of attractions are used next to narrativisation and is combined with characteristics from, for example, music videos or experimental films. The cinematic features of colour and movement marked one of the first collaborations between fashion and film in the fashion newsreels of the 1910s. This chapter has demonstrated that the fashion film is the uniting of two industries that have moved next to each other, relying on the same techniques and have cooperated from the beginning to get the most out both discourses. In the next chapter contemporary fashion films will be analysed and, as we shall see, these cinematic features still play an important role. The use of colour can refer to the fashion brand and the director at the same time. Their visual style, movement and the haptic sensation created by these two cinematic features are used to depict the clothes and environments in this film as living organisms.

23 Chapter II. The Fashioned Worlds of Dior and Prada

In the previous chapter I have looked at the connection between fashion and film, two fields that both emerged at the end of the nineteenth century. It became clear that both fashion and film relied on the use of cinematic concepts such as colour and movement. These elements are still present in the contemporary fashion film. In this chapter, some of these contemporary fashion films will be analysed and the focus will be on the cinematic concepts that were highlighted in the first chapter, namely colour, movement and emerging from this, the haptic sensation. Based on these analyses, it will be suggested that the contemporary fashion films, in order to create a world in which fashionable characteristics such a fabrics and textures are brought to life, that they make use of concepts such as colour, movement and haptic visuality. The choice for a certain filmmaker will contribute to the creation of this world. These directors are known for their significant styles, and it will become evident that their styles are in agreement with the fashion brands’ signature looks. The first part of this chapter will focus on two films made for the Lady Dior bag campaign, namely Lady Blue Shanghai (David Lynch, 2010) and Lady Grey London (John Cameron Mitchell, 2011). The second part will investigate A Therapy (Roman Polanski, 2012) and Castello Cavalcanti (Wes Anderson, 2013) that were made for Prada.

Lady Blue Shanghai The Lady Dior Bag was created in 1994 and emerged from the desire to design a bag that had an instantly recognizable look. Its first name was Chouchou (darling, favourite) but its name changed to Lady Dior as a tribute to princess (Dior.com). Lady Blue Shanghai and Lady Grey London both feature the French actress Marion Cotillard, who has been “the face” of the promotional campaign of the Lady Dior bag since 2008. The two films are part of a larger series of fashion films that support the Lady Dior campaign. The other three films focus on other colours of the bags, namely black in The Lady Noire Affair (Olivier Dahan, 2008); red in Eyes of Mars by Lady Rouge (Jonas Åkerlund, 2010) and multicolours are present in L.A.dy Dior (John Cameron Mitchell, 2011). Lady Blue Shanghai and Lady Grey London both depict a certain colour and city that represents the Lady Dior bag. The choice for these two films from this series was motivated by the films’ depiction of colour, movement and the representation of fabrics and textures, which all refer to certain characteristics of the brand Dior, and to a certain extent, as I will argue, they also represent the styles of the directors. The collaboration between the Dior fashion house and these filmmakers will give new perspectives on the use of the clothes and settings in these films in order to bring them to life on screen. Lady Blue Shanghai is a sixteen-minute short film that is situated in Shanghai. The

24 film was available online at the Dior website after its release and can still be found on YouTube. In the opening credits of the film, the words “Dior presents Lady Blue Shanghai” are visible and Shanghai by night is shown in the background. In the first scene we see Marion Cotillard (her name is not mentioned) walking into a hotel lobby. As we follow her through the hotel corridors, we hear music getting louder as we come closer to her room. When she enters the room, she turns off the record player and as she does this, we see a flash at the other side of the room and the room is filled with smoke. A blue, leather bag appears from the smoke. Cotillard immediately calls the front desk to tell them there is someone in her room, and they send up two men in suits. They search the room, but cannot find anything suspicious. The two men in the suits ask her if the bag is perhaps a gift from someone she has met before. She tells them she arrived only yesterday and she does not know anyone in Shanghai. But then she starts reflecting back on what she did that day. Cotillard tells them she visited the Pearl Tower. In a flashback we see the Pearl Tower, and she explains to the two men that she feels she has been in Shanghai before and describes what see saw: buildings, a narrow flight of stairs and that she heard music. Her flashback is visualised as we see her enter a red room, where she sees another man in a suit (that matches the suits worn by the two men) and they kiss each other. When they hear people entering the building, they escape from the red room and run through Shanghai until they eventually end up at a roof that has a view over Shanghai. He tells her he cannot be with her and that he loves her, as he walks backwards, giving her a blue rose before disappearing. Then we turn back to the setting in which Cotillard is being interrogated by the two men in suits. She carefully walks towards the bag, opens it, and finds the blue rose inside. In analysing this film, the focus will be on the use of colours (especially red and blue) and the bodily movement of the characters. It will become evident these cinematic elements refer to both Dior and Lynch’s themes and styles.

Nightly Mysteries In Lady Blue Shanghai, colours, textures and movement are significantly present and interconnected with each other. In her book on touch and the cinematic experience, Jennifer Barker discusses the concept of ‘the skin’ in her first chapter. According to her, the viewer and the film both have a ‘skin’. She follows philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s notion of ‘flesh’ by saying that the skin is “a mode of perception and expression that forms the surface of a body […]” (Barker 26).7 The skin here functions as something that is in between the film

7 In Phenomenology of Perception (1962), Maurice Merleau-Ponty gives the body a central position within perceiving the world. According to him, we perceive and experience the world through our bodies and thereby Merleau-Ponty determines the dominant discourse on the distinction between the subject (the for-itself) and the object (the in-itself), which forms the basis of the work of philosophers such as Jean-Paul Satre. In perceiving the world through our bodies, an interconnected relationship 25 and viewer; it connects the inside with the outside; it conceals and reveals at the same time. Like Merleau-Ponty, she questions the distinction between object and subject within cinematic experience, as she both sees the film and the viewer having a mutual experience of engagement (Barker 34). In the relationship between the film’s skin and that of the viewer, they touch each other’s skin, but the boundaries between them are not blurred. This touching is therefor a pleasurable, and erotic activity. Both the film and the viewer communicate their desires, and according to Barker, these desires are “not only for the other but for themselves, in the act of touching” (Barker 34). The viewer's desire to touch the film's skin, and vice- versa, is described by Laura Marks as “haptic visuality”. She describes this concept as “a kind of looking that lingers on the surface of the image rather than delving into depth and is more concerned with texture than with deep space” (Marks quoted in Barker 35). It focuses on the erotically charged interaction between the film and the viewer. The exact opposite way of approaching the viewer is done through ‘optic visuality’, where things are observed from a distance and “a separation between the viewing subject and the object” is evoked (Barker 58). I will investigate whether haptic visuality is present in Lady Blue Shanghai. One of the purposes of the fashion film is to make the clothes and the constructed world presented by the director and in this case Dior touchable, to overwhelm the spectator with haptic sensational feelings and desires to feel interconnected with the objects and setting presented in the film. The distinction between subject and object needs to be put aside in order to create a tactile relationship between the viewer and the fashion film. Colour, as I wish to examine, creates a haptic sensation. The title of the film refers to the colour blue. Besides the Dior bag being blue, this colour has multiple functions within this film. Blue features in the opening credits of the film, where the skyline of Shanghai is shown with blue rippling water and a dark blue coloured sky. The blue sky refers to the time of day in which the film is set, namely at night. As in several of David Lynch’s films, the night has specific meanings. For instance, in Blue Velvet (1986), most of the scenes are situated at night, and it is in these scenes, that the protagonist Jeffrey, played by Kyle MacLachlan, is subjected to the most terrifying experiences. In his book on David Lynch, Michel Chion mentions the importance of the night in his films. Lynch uses the night in a theatrical way, by “putting out the lights or shutting the curtain”, and the “darkness unifies and fuses what light separates” (Chion 186). This theatrical depiction of the night is also present in Lady Blue Shanghai. In the hotel room of Cotillard and the red room later in the film, the windows and light from outside are not visible because curtains, of made of a thick red fabric, are draped in front of the windows. When the two men in suit search her room, we

between the body and the outside world takes place as the body exists in both.

26 see one of them walking into several rooms and after he has checked them, he switches off the lights. When the camera focuses on Cotillard by showing a close-up of her face, we hear the man, pushing aside one of the curtains, and closing it before the camera turns back to the man. By not allowing any light in the room, the dark blue night outside is made to seem mysterious, and perhaps frightening. The mysterious feelings evoked by the colour blue are also important in the relationship between Marion Cotillard and the Dior bag. When the bag suddenly appears in the room after several electrical flashes and smoke, we as a viewer, anxiously gaze at the bag through from Cotillard’s point of view. This shot is followed by one from the direction of the blue bag, which ‘looks’ back into the scared blue eyes of Marion Cotillard. The last important object is the blue, silky rose. While a red rose normally represents love, the colour blue connects the rose with the night. The silkiness and softness of the rose is depicted in the final scene, as Cotillard caresses the blue bag with the rose inside, embracing it as if it is the man she loves. The transition between the flashbacks of Cotillard and reality are depicted through shots of Shanghai such as bridges and buildings that are illuminated by blue light. In these dream sequences, she meets her lover at night, but they cannot stay together. The blue bag replaces the man she cannot be with, and the blue rose inside symbolizes his love for her. In Lady Blue Shanghai, the colour blue is juxtaposed with the colour red. Red can obviously be considered as the colour of love. When Cotillard meets with the man, first in a flashback, later in the present, in her hotel room, the bag is depicted as a surrogate character of the man; the colour blue and red dominate the setting. In her flashback she is in a room with red walls, red curtains and a red carpet. Her hotel room resembles this room, as it also has large red curtains and the blue bag is positioned on a red carpet. The “Red Room” is a typical Lynchian feature that he has used in several films and series, including the series Twin Peaks (1990-1991), where this room is part of the dream world of the main protagonist, special agent Dale Cooper. The colour red is in contrast with the blue of the night, bag and rose. The effect of “colour juxtaposition” in film is investigated by Natalie Kalmus. Both red and blue are primary colours, and when these colours are placed side-by-side, they do not get fused but instead emphasize themselves. Colours can also be divided into “cool” colours, such as blue, and “warm” colours, such as red. When these colours are juxtaposed, the red can feel “warmer” (redder) and the blue can be perceived “cooler” (more-blue) (Kalmus 26). In the scene where Cotillard and the man are standing on the roof of a high building, she touches his check with her red (Dior) polished nails. The red appears redder, because it is in contrast with the blue night at the background.

27

Figure 1. Marion Cotillard meets her mysterious lover. The red curtains match the red wallpaper and no windows or natural light are shown.

The use of the colours red and blue are significant for Lynch’s cinematic style. The colours pink and black accompany these colours. David Lynch’s distinctive colour palette shares many similarities with the key colours of the Dior house, which are red, blue, grey, pink and black. In this short film Lynch emphasizes the Dior grey by letting Cotillard wear a grey skirt suit. Her grey outfit merges with the yellow couch on which she is sitting, as the textures of both the suit and the couch have the same pattern. The black suits worn by the men who search her hotel room resemble the tuxedo worn by her mysterious lover. These black suits emphasize the stiffness of the bodies, to which I will return later when discussing movement in this film. The ambiance created in Lady Blue Shanghai is characterised by a specific use of colour, whereby red and blue are the most important ones. David Lynch uses colour instead of lighting to create contrast, which has as effect that the setting and objects depicted in these colours are emphasized even more. The blue bag is in contrast with the red carpet; the red nails of Cotillard touching the skin of her lover at night. In the end, colour forces the viewer to focus his/her gaze at specific objects within the film.

Bodily Movement Another cinematic element that creates a haptic sensation is movement. David Lynch’s depiction of the body is characterised by presenting the body as a “primary mass, the lower limbs attached to the as a single, oblong, stiff […] column” (Chion 163). This stiffness seems to predominate in Lady Blue Shanghai. When Cotillard enters the hotel lobby, she walks in without moving her body parts except her legs and one arm; almost like a military march, which in addition, has many affinities with a fashion parade (défilé). Her stiff movements match the clothes she is wearing: a tight, grey textured skirt suit that does not 28 allow her move exuberantly. The two men who search her room are depicted as primary masses, since they only move the required parts of their bodies. They stand in front of Cotillard, only moving their mouths. These stiff, inexpressible bodies are in contrast with the scenes in which Cotillard and her lover meet. After meeting each other in the red room, they hear people entering the building and run through the streets of Shanghai. This is visualised by a superimposition of the couple running, combined with images of Shanghai by night. David Lynch’s representation of the body functions well with the representation of the Dior garments. The stiff movements and depiction of the body as a primary mass allow the viewer to look at the clothes in great detail. The resemblance between the bodily movements in this film and that of models on a catwalk makes it possible for the viewer to gaze at the clothes as if she/he was a visitor of a fashion show.

Erotic Touch In enabling the viewer to touch the film’s skin, the viewer needs to lose himself in the image that is presented to him on the screen. This desire to touch evokes a certain erotic tactility, which is not only expressed by Cotillard, but also by the film itself. This can be done through the use of point of view shots of desired objects, which creates a certain tactile pleasure. When we as viewers look from a point of view shared with Cotillard at the blue bag as it appeared all of a sudden in the room, we as viewers look back at Cotillard from the blue bag’s point of view. Another cinematic technique used in the film to arouse an erotic desire for certain objects and persons is the use of transitional shots. In these shots, objects are not being desired through point of view shots of the characters, but the camera itself focuses on the objects it desires (Barker 41). When Cotillard is walking down the hotel corridor, a close- up of her feet is given. This close-up lets the viewer focus on the Dior heels, moving through the hotel corridor on the crunching red carpet. In her article on the fashioned world in films of the director Wong Kar-wai, Guiliana Bruno states that fashion creates an erotic bond (Bruno 83). In the short film The Hand (Wong Kar-wai, 2004), a tailor designs clothes for a woman, but they cannot be together, and according to Bruno, these clothes enable a form of contact: they connect the designer with his beloved one. This is also the case in Lady Blue Shanghai: when Cotillard and her mysterious lover cannot be together, the blue Dior bag is a connective thread between them. By touching the bag, she is able to metaphorically touch him. In describing the film In the Mood for Love (2000), Bruno demonstrates that fashion in this film is constructed as “a tangible form of architecture, while lived space, in turn, is fashioned as if it were an enveloping dress, a second skin” (Bruno 87). This being the case, a reversible construction is created that connects the subject, objects and settings of the film (Bruno 96). Natalie Kalmus wrote in her article “Color Consciousness” the importance of “color separation”: 29

For example, there must be enough difference in the color of the actor’s face or costume and the walls of the set to make him stand out from the colors back of him; otherwise, he will blend into the background and become indistinguishable, as does a polar bear in the snow. (Kalmus 28)

Kalmus’ recommendation seems to contradict the findings of Bruno in the Wong Kar-wai films. In his films, a real visual tapestry is created: “clothes are turned into walls and walls into fabric” (Bruno 99). As Kalmus notices, the colours need to be separated to make the actor stand out from the colours behind him; while in Lady Blue Shanghai it is important that the main protagonist merge with the background, to connect her with the objects and setting within this film. This is for example visible in the similarities between the outfit of Cotillard and the couch she sits on. The fabric of her suit matches the fabric of the couch and therefore she blends into the space of the hotel room. Bruno mentions the German art and architectural historian Gottfried Semper who demonstrated that walls have an origin in textiles, as they were hung with cloth or woven mats (Bruno 99). He sees these walls start moving by looking at the etymological similarities between the wall (wand) and clothing (gewand). The walls in the hotel of Lady Blue Shanghai are decorated with red, Chinese tapestries that resemble the traditional Chinese outfit of the hotel receptionist. They are connected with the deep pile red carpets in the hotel. Not only is the desire to touch the things represented on the screen projected onto the protagonists and objects, but the tactile space also becomes part of this haptic sensation.

Figure 2. Cotillard touches and subsequently opens the blue bag that is in contrast with the red carpet.

30 As described by Bruno, the film screen functions as a lively canvas “in which distinctions between inside and outside temporarily dissolve into the depth of surface” (Bruno 103). Colours, textures and fabrics guide the viewer through the fashioned world of the blue Lady Dior bag created by David Lynch. Unity between subjects, objects and the setting is created by the use of shared colours, textures and fabrics.

Lady Grey London The erotic bond that is created through fashion is further expanded in Lady Grey London. This fashion film was released a year after Lynch’s film for the Lady Dior bag. The seven minutes fashion film is situated in London this time. Marion Cotillard plays a nightclub dancer who performs in front of an audience. Her first appearance is in an hourglass that is filled with red sand. The sand slides down and slowly reveals Cotillard’s body. The hourglass is a reference to the signature look of Dior from 1947, called the New Look. The eight- shaped, hourglass figure was a unique silhouette created by Christian Dior just two years after the ending of World War II. During the war, fabrics were in short supply and lots of women worked in factories where they were obliged to wear masculine uniforms. Christian Dior wanted to give women back their “art of seduction” by designing garments with great use of (expensive) fabrics, creating a new voluminous, feminine dress (Dior.com). This seduction is uttered in Lady Grey London, where Cotillard is depicted as a nightclub dancer, seducing both men and women with her performances and outfits. In her second act, Cotillard wears a glitter/metallic dress with a white-feathered headpiece and she holds the grey Dior bag in her hands.8 The grey bag becomes an erotic object, when she slowly lets the bag slide down her body. As the bag disappears from the frame, it looks as if she is caressing herself. In the next shot we as spectators see the bag and it becomes clear that she was not touching herself, but the grey Dior bag. She conjures the golden key of her dressing room from her dress, and the label matches the design of the grey bag. She gives the key to a man in a wheelchair, who is played by the British actor Sir Ian McKellen. When McKellen enters her dressing room, Cotillard gets a hip flask decorated with the grey cannage stitching out of the bag and they drink from it together. Cotillard ‘uncovers’ the man by removing the blanket on his lap and she starts touching his paralyzed legs. Then the camera moves to a young guy, played by Russel Tovey, who is depicted as the handyman of the club, as he was painting the red walls at the beginning of the film. Now he is making a portrait of Cotillard, as she suddenly walks in and he is shocked by her appearance. She takes a cannage-stitched crayon out of her grey bag, and starts to draw on his sketch and then disappears again. In the next

8 The bag consists of cannage-stitched leather, which is the signature Dior motif. The leather cushions resemble small diamonds and the bag is finished with an arched handle, which according to the Dior website is a “symbol of a feminine and elegant gesture” (Lady Dior on Dior.com). 31 scene we see Cotillard leaving the building and people are applauding. In a vertical pan shot, Cotillard is depicted with a scarf around her head, wearing a grey coat and carrying the grey bag which makes her look like a classical Hollywood movie star. As she walks down the stairs towards the white light, she seems to bring people alive: McKellen stands up from his wheelchair and Tovey starts making a big painting on a wall. The final scene opens with what seem to be a close-up of grey large threads, a pattern of a woven fabric. But in the next shot it becomes clear that these threads are part of the wiring of the London Eye. We see Cotillard dancing in one of the cabins and in the background the centre of London is visible.

Figure 3. The hourglass shape refers to the New Look of Dior. The audience gazes at Cotillard as she performs her act on a stage with both red and blue curtains.

Eroticism, Textures and Fabrics Lady Grey London uses the colour red to depict the erotic feelings in this film. The nightclub setting, with red curtains and red painted walls, support the desired ambiance that is created. The grey bag in this fashion film can be seen as an extension of Cotillard’s body; it is desired and worshipped just as Cotillard, and it helps people to feel connected again. Director John Cameron Mitchell is familiar with the creation of the kind of erotic, sexual ambiance we see in this film since sexuality is an important theme in his earlier films such as Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) and Shortbus (2006) as well.9 The first has some corresponding themes with Lady Grey London. In this film, the transsexual singer Hedwig tours with her rock band through the United States. Dialogues are scarce in this film. Hedwig’s youth, family history

9 Shortbus deals with inhabitants of New York that have problems with their sexual relationships. 32 and problems are discussed in her songs, and visualised through animations. Often performing in nightclub settings, Hedwig spends much time on her looks, outfits and make- up. Just as in Lady Grey London, in each performance she is dressed up in a different exuberant outfit. Lady Grey London differs from Lady Blue Shanghai in the sense that none of the characters speaks; there are only two soundtracks. These differences again reveal the diversity and complexity of the fashion film: whereas Lady Blue Shanghai resembles a short narrative film, Lady Grey London seems to have more in common with a music video or the cinema of attractions.10 This kind of film concentrates on showing rather than telling, the spectacle dominates this film. The nightclub audience gaze at Cotillard as she performs and she gazes back at them by looking directly into the camera. On the one hand, Marion Cotillard is depicted as a woman that is desired, perhaps even worshipped when she walks out of the door as a saintly figure. But on the other hand she is also displayed as a strong woman, who inspires young and old men to relive their lives and fills them with inspiration. John Cameron Mitchell explains the character of Cotillard: “I envisioned Marion’s character as a hybrid of Louise Brooks, Mary Poppins and Jesus. She literally ascends into heaven at the end” (Holgate, Vogue.com). Since the grey Dior bag is an extension of the body of Cotillard, the viewer can relate the depiction of Cotillard to that of the Lady Dior woman. Lady Grey refers to Lady Grey Jane, a young woman who was the Queen of England for nine days in 1553, and was known to be exceptional well educated. The representation of the bag as part of Cotillard’s body enables the viewer to identify with Cotillard, the grey bag and the characteristics they present.

Clothes as a Second Skin According to Barker, in order to create a haptic sensation, a mutual relationship between the film and the viewer must be created: the viewer’s skin needs to be able to touch the film’s skin. In these fashion films, the skin Barker talks about seems to be substituted by clothes, and fashion therefore can be considered as a second skin. Barker demonstrates that people experience the skin as a limit and as a : “it is the thing that brings us in contact with the world, but always also that which separates us from everything and everyone else” (Barker 49). The subjects, objects and settings within these fashion films seem to have adopted these features of the skin. In Lady Blue Shanghai, the red curtains conceal the dark

10 Marketa Uhlirova briefly highlights the similarities between fashion films and music videos in her article “The Fashion Film Effect”. The use of styles and techniques from music videos in films is referred to as “MTV aesthetics”. According to Marco Calavita, these aesthetics have three significant features. First of all, the use of popular songs for the film’s soundtrack; secondly the “tendency to privilege gloss, atmospheric and camerawork and the last feature refers to the quick pace and rhythm that seems to mimic MTV videos" (Calavita 16). 33 blue night outside, but at the same time they bring her in contact with her mysterious lover; in the first place the bag is depicted as an object that needs to be feared, but after Cotillard’s dream sequence, we understand that the blue bag needs to be caressed. In Lady Grey London the grey bag is depicted as an extension of Cotillard’s body, and this links the objects and characters on the screen with the viewer. The distinction between the object and subject is dissolved within the fashion film; this makes it possible for the viewer to ‘touch’ the desired objects on the screen.

Colour as the Évocateur of Desire In his article on the use of colour in fashion newsreels, Hanssen notes that colour can function as a spectacle (118). He divides the functions of colour in these newsreels into two levels. In the first level, colour functions as a visual reinforcement of the garments and bodies depicted on the screen. Secondly, colour is a visual material of desire, which makes the garments and objects represented on the screen “signifiers of social identity, emancipation and social mobility” (118). Both films link the colour grey to the brand Dior: the grey suit of Cotillard in Lady Blue Shanghai and the grey Lady Dior bag in Lady Grey London. Grey thus not only depicts the garments and objects as desired objects, but it also functions as a signifier which links the colour grey with (the status of) the brand Dior. The garments, objects and the setting of these fashion films are linked through the use of similar colours and fabrics, which all evoke a certain desire. According to Hanssen, this already occurred in the fashion newsreels of the 1910s and 1920s: “Here the garments are integrated within an environment of luxury and colour, featuring other commodities to be desired apart from the clothing” (115). These elements all constitute meanings by themselves, but precisely when these elements are brought together through overlapping features, a desire for the objects, environment and subjects on the screen is evoked. These interconnected relationships will become even more evident in the description of the fashion films produced for the fashion house Prada.

Prada: Leather, Luxury and Art Patronage The Italian Mario Prada founded the company in 1913. Initially, the brand was specialised in luxurious leather products such as bags, trunks, beauty cases and other leather accessories. The brand appealed mostly to the higher, aristocracy classes, as it became the official supplier to the Italian Household in 1919. They stuck to the selling of their original products for a long period, since their expansion to women’s footwear and garments collections was initiated respectively in 1979 and 1988. Their expertise for a specialised product still features Prada, and the brand is known for its attention to detail and craftsmanship (Prada 90). Besides focusing on the designing of clothes, shoes and other accessories, Prada is 34 also known for its broad collaboration with the art world. In her article on the Prada and its relationship to art patronage, Nicky Ryan refers to some of these collaborations, such as the partnership between Prada and the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, who designed several stores and the new Fondazione Prada which was finished this year (Ryan 9).11 Another artwork that drew a lot of attention was the Prada Marfa, designed by the Danish artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset in 2005. The sculpture resembles a Prada store and is situated on a desolate highway in the desert of Texas. Prada’s collaboration with film started with the short film Thunder Perfect Mind (Ridley and Jordan Scott, 2005). In 2006 Prada asked nine emerging filmmakers, including Pietro Scalia, Hyuk-Jae Kwon and Michael Merryman, to create a short film inspired by the perfume Infusion d’Homme. The two animated shorts Trembled Blossoms and Fallen Shadows by James Lima followed in 2008. The fashion film A Therapy by Roman Polanski released in 2012 will be analysed in the next section.

A Therapy: A Furry Haptic Sensation A Therapy is a three minutes short film starring the actor Ben Kingsley as a psychiatrist and Helena Bonham Carter who plays his patient. The film opens with a shot in which we see Kingsley, who wears a tailored dark grey Prada suit, writing at his desk. This shot lasts for about ten seconds and gives the viewer the chance to investigate the decorations in his office in more detail. His desk is made of dark shiny wood that matches the bookcase behind him. In this case, we see sculptures and a skull. The red/golden curtains made of a thick material match with the fabric of the sofa and the Persian carpet on the ground. Kingsley is sitting in a large chair with made from padded leather. This luxurious, wealthy-looking office is completed with a designer chair from Marcel Breuer. When looking through the windows, skyscrapers are visible, which situates the office in a large city in the United States. When the bell rings, Kingsley gets up from his chair and walks to a large silk red padded door that matches the chair he was sitting on. The green walls correspond to the green colour that Prada uses within all of its stores to create a certain unity between them (Prada 406). Helena Bonham Carter walks in, wearing a large purple fur coat, with a matching purple silk shirt, a pearl necklace, a red skirt, black sunglasses and a brown Prada bag. She takes off her fur coat and hangs it on a coat rack. The clothes and office space are filled with the colours of Prada: the traditional colours of red/brown leather, white and cream colours are complemented with purple, a colour that was later added to Prada’s colour palette. As Bonham Carter lies down on the sofa, we see her through a close-up, taking off her snakeskin

11 The Fondazione Prada in Milan opened for the public on May 9 2015 and includes a 11,000 square metres exhibtion space, a bar designed by the film director Wes Anderson and a cinema that screens films selected by the film director Roman Polanski. 35 heels, touching the soft Persian carpet with her bare feet. She starts talking about a dream she had and wonders what the underlying meaning of this dream could be. Kingsley writes some things down and we get a closer look on the wallpaper in the background that is made of a green, soft fabric. On a shelf made out of the same fabric we again see sculptures, and some small Persian tapestries.

Figure 4. The office of Ben Kingsley is decorated with all kinds of fabrics: the green wallpaper, tapestries and the sofa create a touchable space.

At this moment, Kingsley does not listen to his patient’s story anymore as his attention is drawn to something else in the room: the purple fur coat. The camera zooms out as Kingsley puts down his notes and walks to the coat. He gazes at the coat, and after a slight hesitation he starts touching it softly, as if he is touching someone’s skin. On the background we hear Bonham Carter talking about her loneliness, while Kingsley takes the coat off the coat rack. He holds it against his cheek, smells at it, and looks at himself in the mirror. The erotic bond between him and the coat rises to another level as he puts the coat on: heavy breathing emphasizes his enjoyment. Kingsley looks at himself in the mirror, showing off like a proud peacock. The film ends when the ironic sentence “Prada Suits Everyone” appears on the screen; a sentence that resonates with the humoristic tone of the film. This portrayal of the rich fashion world matches Polanski’s approach of important issues within society. His films address existential issues, often in an ironical way, just as in A Therapy. Like in Carnage (2011) and Venus in Fur (2013), his films are often situated in

36 one, closed off room. Venus in Fur was released one year after A Therapy, and this film also deals with a man who develops an obsession, this time for the female main protagonist. Besides his erotic relationship with this woman, he is also characterised as a man with an obsession for fur. The complete setting in A Therapy is fashioned, decorated with all kinds of fabrics: the floor, the furniture and the walls evoke a desire to be touched. The erotic pleasure is not only focused on the coat, but through a visual intersection between the clothes, objects and setting; the whole film seems to “breathe” Prada and resonates with Barker’s words: “The film speaks through its texture” (44). At various points in the film the viewer is invited to share this erotic desire. Through the transitional shot at the beginning of the film, we as viewers are enabled to investigate the office in detail. The point of view shots that alternate between the perspective of Kingsley and the perspective of the fur coat make it possible for the viewer to desire both characters as they develop an erotic bond. According to Barker, this is exactly the aim of haptic visuality. If we feel for the characters on the screen, “it is in part because we feel with them, experiencing the film with the same tactile fascination that they have toward their world” (Barker 44). She relates this erotic relationship to what is described by the psychoanalyst Didier Anzieu as the “attachment drive”: “the desire for contact as a need for pleasurable qualities such as gentleness, softness, furriness, hairiness” (Barker 39, 40). This desire for pleasurable furry, hairy objects is even more emphasized by the fact that Kingsley is exactly missing this: his bald, shiny head is portrayed in great contrast with the furriness of the purple coat. A therapy brings the erotic, pleasurable desire for clothing, objects and textiles to the next level. The whole setting evokes a need to be touched. The haptic space created in this fashion film does not only evoke feelings for the fur coat that is depicted, but it connects these evoked feelings to the brand Prada by letting the whole space participate. This full haptic experience is also visualised in Castello Cavalcanti. The investigation of this film will show that underlying meanings and themes from both Prada and de director Wes Anderson also find their way through these haptic fashion films.

Italian Nostalgia and Authenticity in Castello Cavalcanti Castello Cavalcanti (2013) is the second film made by Wes Anderson after the trilogy Prada Candy (2013). His cinematic style is instantly recognizable through his use of a specific colour palette and his explicit use of objects. According to Stefano Baschiera, the objects and setting in the films of Anderson are not just props, but they fulfil a significant function in regard to the visualisation of the story (118). The importance of the objects in his cinema eliminates the distinction between subject and object: both are found to be equal. Therefore Anderson’s cinema functions well within the ideas of haptic visuality, where the film’s screen is depicted as a canvas that dissolves the inequalities between inside and outside. 37 Objects and clothes are extensions of his invented characters: as Baschiera notes, “they would be different characters when wearing different clothes” (123). Another important theme in Anderson’s film is the presence of the domestic space, which also has an active role in his films’ narratives. Objects within this domestic space reveal the family past and they create a kind of nostalgic feeling. The objects in Anderson’s cinema are mostly vintage: just as in Castello Cavalcanti, “clothing, technology and artefacts all belong to a past that does not match the diegetic time of the film” (Baschiera 129). Castello Cavalcanti depicts an old, small Italian village in which the time seems to have stood still. The track of a race contest runs through the village and one of the cars crashes. Inside is Jed Cavalcanti, played by . He finds out that he ended up in the village of his ancestors, Castello Cavalcanti. He thinks the crash happened for a reason, and decides to stay to strengthen the relationships with his family. This eight-minute short film shows Prada’s attention to detail and craftsmanship at various moments. Through an establishing shot the inhabitants of the village are introduced. We see three women, one smoking, the other knitting and the third one wearing a knitted cloth. The camera then turns to a kid with a straw hat sitting on a bale of hay between two men, playing with a red toy car. The men are depicted as hunters, since one of them is carrying a dead chicken. The depiction of these traditional crafts is accompanied by the representation of a small Italian village, with large dark grey bricks and arches. Old Italian men are playing a card game in front of the caffé, wearing traditional/stereotypical Italian outfits: brown/red vests and red braces are combined with white shirts and brown berets. Besides these outfits being traditional Italian, the colours also refer to the basic colours used by Prada: the red/brown leather, combined with white and cream colours. The colour green returns in the film in the form of the “local hooch” that is offered to Schwartzman and it can be found in the interior of the café, where the bar has a pale-green colour. Jason Schwartzman is wearing a remarkable outfit, namely a red/yellow leather race uniform with “Prada Racing” on his back. His cliché traditional Italian look is completed with a small moustache and his dark hair that is combed back. That the outfit is not only functional but also fashionable becomes clear from the fact that the uniform is finished off with a small collar. The colours yellow and red have several meanings within this film. First of all, Prada’s contemporary colour palette was expanded with the colours yellow and purple. Secondly, in an interview with Wes Anderson, he states that Castello Cavalcanti was inspired by Amarcord, a film by from 1973. In this film, Fellini returns back to his hometown Rimini and cliché images of a hysterical Italian home are given. In this film, just as in many of his other films, Fellini has incorporated the circus theme to emphasize the theatrical and comical aspects of life in (Ledeen 100). Anderson also adopted some other Fellini features in his film, especially from the film La Dolce Vita (1960). When the 38 race passes through the village, a paparazzo stops to make photos of the races and then jumps onto his motorbike again to follow the race. A few minutes later Schwartzman crashes into a Jesus sculpture, which like the paparazzo, is featured in La Dolce Vita. Besides the fact that the colours red and yellow pay a tribute to Fellini, they are also a leitmotif throughout this film. The colours symbolize the race, visualised in the inhabitants’ small flags with a red/yellow-chequered pattern on it. I will highlight one scene in which it becomes clear how this pattern merges with Schwartzman and the walls of the café. When Schwartzman is calling his wife and brother-in-law, the camera first records him through a point of view shot from the telephone booth, with Schwartzman looking directly into the camera. This shot is followed by a medium shot of Schwartzman from the back. This shot visualises the idea of Bruno, in which the depicted clothes (gewand) merge with the walls (wand). Schwartzman’s leather, yellow/red uniform dissolves into the red/yellow-chequered painted pattern on the walls. This merging connects Schwartzman with the space he is situated in, the café, but also the village of his ancestors, Castello Cavalcanti.

Figure 5. Schwartzman's outfit merges with the red/yellow walls of the café.

When Schwartzman finds out this village belonged to his family, he immediately starts greeting everyone. The kissing of his great great-granduncle Michael Angelo is followed by a gentle pat on the cheek with his black-leathered gloves. He sees the crash as a sign. As he tells the villagers he is glad he crashed and regards it as a warning. Schwartzman returns to his ancestors and their domestic space, that is filled with cliché traditional Italian items: the

39 knitting ladies, hunters, the café with an Italian coffee machine, the waitress wearing a traditional black and white outfit. Schwartzman seems to have created a nostalgic idealisation of the past, something that can also be found in other films of Anderson as for example in (2001) and (2007). According to Baschiera, nostalgia in The Royal Tenenbaums is objectified “by the fact that the children in this film still dress in the same sort of clothing style 20 years later” (124). In their longing for the past, they try to keep as much connected with it through the wearing of specific apparel.

A Desire for the Past Baschiera defines the objects within Anderson’s film world as part of the “restorative nostalgia”, a concept by Svetlana Boym that “attempts a transhistorical reconstruction of the lost home” (Boym quoted in Baschiera 130). The reliance on the past by Anderson’s characters can be considered as a suppression of modern times, a flight into nostalgic feelings, escaping from our contemporary time of progress. In that sense Anderson’s film seems to have many affinities with the concept of Benjamin’s Tigersprung. As explained in the first chapter, Benjamin describes fashion as something that ‘jumps’ through its own history, taking elements from all kinds of periods in order to create a new product in the present, causing quotation and friction simultaneously. Like fashion, Castello Cavalcanti takes objects from the past and refers to the past in a non-chronological way, not matching the diegetic time of the film. In this film, a new domestic space is created in which these elements come together in a new magical world. Both Elizabeth Wilson and Svetlana Boym demonstrate that nostalgia is a reaction to the culture of modernity. As Boym suggests: “nostalgia is a rebellion against the modern idea of time” (Boym quoted in Baschiera 129). As mentioned in the first chapter, Wilson describes film as a medium that within modern times still can explore and exploit the irrational and magical aspects that surround these nostalgic feelings. Castello Cavalcanti situates the main protagonist in a dreamlike world, full of objects that offer him an idealisation of his family past. The cooperation with Prada suggests that this brand wants to be associated with its “authentic” family/company past and craftsmanship. In her article “The Performance of Authenticity”, Anneke Smelik investigates the longing for the authentic within the contemporary fashion world. According to her, the desire for authenticity gets stronger in a world that is filled with spectacle. Contemporary daily life is filled with spectacle and therefore the distinction between real and performance has disappeared.12 The merging of real and spectacle results in a search for the “really real”, and

12 Examples of these spectacles entering the real are according to Smelik reality TV-shows as Britain’s Next Top Model, but also the real news on television, that has been given more ‘spectacle’ for easier consumption (79). 40 within the fashion world this is acted out through the reliance on their cultural heritage. According to Smelik the “cultural memories of an (imagined) past can help to create an aura of authenticity” (Smelik 79). In Castello Cavalcanti, Prada pursues a depiction of the past, emphasizing its origins and craftsmanship by linking the brand with its Italian roots. Anderson seems to be the right man to visualise this, since his fashion film plays with the passing of time by paying a tribute to Fellini, and through his significant style that is characterised by nostalgic spaces, colours and objects.

Conclusion The fashion films of Dior and Prada use specific cinematic elements that bring life to the subjects, objects and settings represented on the screen. The tactility of the garments, accessories and other desired objects are emphasised by the participation of the whole cinematic space. Not only do the specific clothes represented on the screen acquire a certain meaning, but the fashion brand is provided with a certain aura as well: certain colours, fabrics and textures, erotic and mysterious ambiances are linked with Dior and Prada. The affinities between the fashion brand and the appointed director are made apparent in the use of a shared colour palette, style and theme. The analyses of these fashion films demonstrate that it would be generalising too much to just define them as new, modern marketing strategies. Given its complexity and diversity, the fashion film can be considered as one of the most recent formats of representing fashion. The investigation of these films shows that Uhlirova’s definition that was explained in chapter one is too wide and vague. These fashion films explore the properties of both cinema and fashion, but their overlapping interest does not remain focused on movement and rhythm only. The importance of the use of colour, fabrics and textures to create certain styles and ambiances are absent in her definition. Needham’s division into subgenres is on the other hand too tight. Looking at his definitions of these subgenres, these films could be subdivided into three of his four subgenres: they are designer’s films (“associated with the creative individual or brand”), authored films (“created by a known film director) and artist’s films (“brand funded features created by an established artist, which are more associated with art and patronage”) (Needham 107). His definition does not seem to cover the various complexities of these fashion films. So what does characterise these fashion films? One of the most important things is the equality between film and fashion in these films. Fashion is not considered as an unimportant prop within these films, but it is depicted as a main protagonist; characters would not exist if they were depicted without their garments. Cinematic techniques are used to display the clothes in their full glory. The screen functions as a living canvas, creating a touchable experience for the viewer. 41 The complexity of the fashion film will be further explored in the next chapter. This chapter will look at the use of film by the conceptual designers Hussein Chalayan and Maison Margiela. These designers are considered as ‘intellectual designers’, designers who use film and other arts within their work, and with whom these art forms occupy an important place within their designs. As we shall see, not only do they use film to transfer their ideas, but film and its concepts are often literally used within their work as well. Chalayan and Maison Margiela’s work will reveal new perspectives on the fashion film and its wide range of applications.

42 III. Conceptual Fashion Films: Hussein Chalayan and Maison

Margiela The fashioned worlds that filmmakers create for fashion brands, such as Dior and Prada, provide these houses with a certain ‘aura’: significant styles and characteristics of these brands, which are expressed in fashion films. But what if film is not just utilized as a medium to express this ‘aura’? What happens when film is used within their creations, ideas, shows and exhibitions? Conceptual fashion designers are marked by their interdisciplinary approach to fashion. Since the early 1980s, the notion of the conceptual designer has entered the fashion world. With the arrival of the Japanese designers as Rei Kawakubo and Junya Watanabe of Comme des Garçons, Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and the Antwerp Six consisting of Walter van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries van Noten, Dirk van Saene, Dirk Bikkembergs and Marina Yee, the fashion world went through a radical transformation. These conceptual designers questioned the dominant conventions of fashion. They played with the natural shape of the human body, designed clothes that were not bound to one season, and which both men and women could wear. In her article on conceptual fashion, Hazel Clark describes the Spring/Summer 1997 collection of Rei Kawakubo. The collection consisted of clothing that deformed the human body by putting lumps and bumps on unnatural places of the body (Clark 69). The two fashion designers described in this chapter, Hussein Chalayan and Maison Margiela, proceeded with the ideas of these designers from the late 1980s and beginning of the 1990s. The conceptual approach of their designs did not fit the conventional approach of other fashion couturiers. Their work is often explained as having an underlying idea that matches the collection. But as Susannah Frankel notes in her article “The Birth, Death and Re-Birth of Conceptual Fashion”, the word ‘concept’ shares many affinities with the word ‘idea’, and she argues that all fashion designers’ creations, including those of the larger fashion brands, are founded on ideas (Frankel 40). If this is correct, then what are the characteristics that distinguish conceptual designers from conventional designers? In their article on the work of Hussein Chalayan, Șölen Kipöz and Deniz Güner explain that conceptual fashion emphasises the process rather than the product, and that “the clothes are intensely charged with signs, symbols, messages and stratum of meaning” (Kipöz and Güner 334). Jane Morley suggests that a close connection can be found between conceptual fashion design and conceptual art. To support her argument, she quotes Kay Durland Spilker and Sadako Takeda from their book Breaking the Mode, in which they explain:

A number of contemporary fashion designers take a conceptual approach in their work. With strategies similar to that of the fine artist, they examine conventional

43 notions for origins – the “how” and “why” of the rules of fashion – then proceed to invalidate the rules with insidiously subtle or outrageously radical garments. In rejecting the formulaic use of media and technique, they have established new aesthetic principles of fashion – in construction, materials, form, and ultimately, in the concept or meaning of clothes to the designer, wearer and audience (Spilker and Takeda quoted in Morley 28).

Conceptual fashion designers question the dominant conventions that are present within the contemporary fashion world. They return to the origins of these conventions and rules and research them. These conventions are often linked to social tendencies, such as the way we think about the feminine body. Conceptual designers criticise or play with this dominant discourse in their creations. The first conceptual designer that will be analysed is the British/Cypriot designer Hussein Chalayan. His interdisciplinary approach to fashion has ensured that his work is often exhibited in a museum setting, in which he combines his garments with other arts including film. Chalayan uses film both in a literal and a more abstract sense, which means that on the one hand he uses film to express his ideas and creations, and on the other hand he includes cinematic techniques and concepts such as movement, voyeurism, narrative and special effects in his designs. The second analysis of a conceptual designer that uses film within its fashion is that of the fashion house Maison Margiela. This avant-gardist maison established its own rules and conventions with regard to the design of fashion. Their use of the neutral colours, black and white, is significant for their appearance. Besides this, Maison Margiela’s view of the human body and the use of the trompe l’oeil effect also characterises the brand. Their experimental use of film, in which the conceptual ideas of the maison are processed, will be analysed in the second part of this chapter.

HUSSEIN CHALAYAN When graduating in 1993, Hussein Chalayan immediately gained recognition with his collection titled The Tangent Flows. This collection included clothes that were burned and subsequently buried underground for six weeks. The underlying themes in this collection were the visualisation of destruction and the passing of time. His conceptual approach was thus already visible at the very beginning of his career. He is also known for his interdisciplinary approach, which is described by Evans as “[…] a designer, moving between markets, media discourses and communities – from fashion to film, from concepts to commerce, and from academic anthropology to the experience of exile” (Evans 2005: 8). Themes such as nature, culture and technology are leitmotifs throughout his creations and collections. He acquires a lot of inspiration from autobiographical sources. Being born as a 44 Cypriot in 1970, he had to move to England at the end of the 1970s due to the escalating ethnic conflicts between the Turkish and the Greek communities on Cyprus. He acquires inspiration from his personal history when developing recurring themes such as travelling, nomadism, migration and nostalgia. Besides relying on his personal background for inspiration, he is also engaged with social and political issues such as the depiction of the (female) body in both Western and non-Western societies, and he investigates the influence of technology on the body. He has made some experimental films himself, which are often intrinsically connected to a collection or exhibition, and sometimes screened in his fashion shows. Besides the literal use of the medium film, Chalayan also uses cinematic concepts within his creations in a more abstract, immaterial sense. To structure the investigation of his use of film I will divide this analysis into four categories, namely Chalayan’s use of narrativisation, voyeurism, special effects and movement. It will become apparent that this subdivision is only implemented for didactic reasons, since these cinematic concepts always interact with each other and can be found throughout his creations.

Ideas and Narrativisation In an interview held at the Istanbul Arts and Culture Festival 2014, Chalayan emphasises the importance of a narrative in his creations. He explains, “I’m an ideas person and fashion is my medium,” and that the common thread running throughout his creations is his intention to “create a sense of life in the clothes, either part of an animation I’ve created, or part of a story, and they become a component of that” (Chalayan, Interview A&C Festival). His 1997 Spring/Summer collection titled Lands Without was based on the fairy tale Rapunzel, who is trapped in a tower and can only escape through the use of her own belongings. Chalayan designed a kite dress to liberate herself from this situation. Another collection designed around a narrative is Chalayan’s Autumn/Winter 2000 collection named After Words. This collection was based on the story of a refugee during wartime. He thought of situations in which people were forced to leave home, and had the difficult task of selecting the personal belongings people would like to take with them. He designed clothes that could function as both interior and clothing. In his After Words fashion show, models walk into a living room area and start taking off the chair covers. Subsequently, as they put them on, it becomes clear that the covers function as dresses as well. In the final scene, a model steps into a table, pulls it up and it unfolds into a skirt. Created just after the ending of the Kosovo war, this collection was also inspired by Chalayan’s personal history of having been a refugee, since he was forced to leave Cyprus due to the escalating conflicts. Clothes that could function as furniture, and conversely interior that could be worn, creates unity between fashion, objects and the setting. This was also visible in the fashion films described in chapter two. In the films created by Dior and Prada, this unity was obtained through the 45 use of similar colours, textures and fabrics. Chalayan seems to utter this unity in a more direct way, by literally dissolving the boundaries between fashion and objects.

Figure 6. In Chalayan's fashion show After Words, a table unfolds into a skirt; a literal depiction of the connection between furniture and clothing.

Hussein Chalayan's fashion films are often screened in museums and galleries, and are often shown in exhibitions that explore the combination of art and fashion. Anaesthetics (2004) is a twenty-two-minute film that is divided into eleven chapters and was shown in the exhibition Fashination in the Modern Museum in Stockholm in 2004. Each chapter treats a different community from the world and shows how violence is camouflaged through ritualization, anesthetisation and codes of behaviour in for example Western/American and Eastern/Japanese cultures. In the film, the female protagonist undergoes all kinds of violent actions, but these actions are always concealed. In the first chapter, the female protagonist gets dressed up in a white cloth that covers her face. A wig that resembles the traditional Japanese hairstyle is attached to it. She tears the cloth from her face, as it hinders her seeing her own reflection in the mirror. On the other side of a dark wooden screen, we see a cook preparing sashimi from a living fish. The woman only appears when the aesthetically perfect sashimi is served to her and having not been made to witness the slaughter scene that was required in order to prepare her meal. In another scene, we see a little girl who is wearing a red dress, and two people dressed in white plastic suits blindfold her. They hand her a black gun, and she pretends that she is shooting with the weapon. The two figures in the suits and the female protagonist observe the actions of the little girl from another room, through a screen, which looks like a surveillance camera. Hiding behind the screens or walls make the actions seem less violent. As Chalayan explains: “the media give us a disembodied experience of looking at events through a screen. It removes us from brutality by censoring and prefabricating the reports we are supposed to interpret as reality.” Chalayan seems to comment upon the concept of “hyperreality”. This term, first coined by Jean Baudrillard in 1981, refers to the fact that in our contemporary postmodern society, people cannot

46 distinguish reality from the simulacra of this reality. Our society is built upon signs and codes, and commodities have been imbued with these signs and codes. It is not about the production or exchange value of a commodity, but about its status, and what it externalises. These signs do not depict reality; they are a simulation of reality (Baudrillard 13). People interpret representations in media such as newspapers, TV and the Internet as true reality. In his film, Chalayan seems to criticise this phenomenon by letting the viewer see both sides: through the literal use of a screen or wall, we as viewers are enabled to see both the real and the hyperreal.

Figure 7. A white cloth covers the woman's face in Anaesthetics. In the next aerial shot we see the wooden wall that separates the 'real' from the 'hyperreal' image.

The creation of a narrative seems to be of great importance for his designs. They are not just clothes or films that try to depict clothing, but are full of underlying meanings that refer to history, social and political issues, and his personal experiences. The starting point of his designs is the realisation of an idea instead of an object, since the latter would have limited outcomes:

“I try and create a process that grows and expands as the collection develops. The idea is the epicentre of that process, because an idea can be realized in 10 million different ways. If you take an object as your starting point – i.e. deciding how to design a dress, make a coat, etc. – it limits you. Initiating a process allows you to interact with several objects or with things like the environment, history or anthropology” (Chalayan quoted in Quinn 2005: 47).

Chalayan’s approach to fashion has many similarities with the way in which filmmakers realise films. Just as a filmmaker does, he starts from an idea, and from this a story is created, which in this case is not only visualised through the medium of film, but is made tangible in

47 his fashion as well. According to Bradley Quinn, the use of narratives in his designs “reveals one of his essential qualities: he thinks in visual terms” (2005: 51).

Veiling and the Gaze In the second chapter it was demonstrated that within the creation of a haptic sensation, the gaze played an important role. We as viewers join the desire of the protagonists for the clothes, objects and other characters. This is evoked by shared point of view shots, and the camera itself also seeming to gaze at the desired environment of the film through transitional shots. Hussein Chalayan seems to be aware of the feelings these voyeuristic looks evoke. He plays with this idea by using techniques that make it impossible for the viewer to gaze at objects. The use of a veil, pod or helmet in his designs “protect the wearer from others’ gaze” (Kipöz 335). His play with the notion of the gaze is most evident in his Spring/Summer 1998 collection Between. In this collection, he juxtaposes Western and non-Western aesthetics and behaviour. Models are wearing pods, helmets and burkas that prevent the viewer from interacting with them. Other models’ faces were covered with mirrors and, according to Evans, this creates a reversible relationship between the voyeur and the object: “The audience, looking at the model, does not just gaze at an object, but finds the object interacts with the viewer. The mirror that frames the model’s face thereby grants the audience a vision of itself” (Evans 2003: 76). His play with the voyeuristic view evokes the same feeling that is created within the fashion films described in chapter two. In these films, and in Chalayan’s creations as well, the subject and object are not considered as incompatible units, but the distinction between these two is eliminated in order for them to ‘touch’ each other. An equal relationship between the two is created: through the use of a helmet or pod, the viewer cannot gaze at the model, and the model, being closed off from the outside world, cannot see the spectator. Through the mirrors, the model is able to gaze back and therefore both the viewer and the model are treated equally. A film by Chalayan that uses the idea of veiling is Place to Passage (2003). In this thirteen-minute film, shown in several contemporary art museums across Europe, an androgynous woman is travelling from London to Istanbul in a small, futuristic pod. She moves through all kinds of environments, from urban habitats to icy landscapes, and eventually she enters Istanbul by flying over the Bosphorus and we see modern buildings on one side, and mosques on the other side. The pod is decorated as a home: she is able to eat, drink and sleep inside, and at one point she even takes a bath. According to Evans, this film deals with the notion of nostalgia. On the one hand, it is anti- nostalgic, since the woman is travelling and the pod functions as a home, so the trip can be considered as a kind of no-place that pulls her out of culture and history. But on the other hand, the woman cannot go home anymore, since she is merged with the pod. The pod therefore functions as a kind of imagined home (Evans 2005: 12). 48 Quinn considers the veil in Chalayan’s work as an architectural device: “the veil separates, conceals, and demarcates cultural boundaries […], it can function as both a boundary and border […] (2005: 50). Chalayan’s use of a veil, pod, helmet and mirror shares many affinities with Barkers notion of “the skin” discussed in chapter two. The skin, forming the surface of the body, is “the thing that brings us in contact with the world, but always also that which separates us from everything and everyone else” (Barker 49). The veil can therefore be considered as a second skin, since it functions as the surface that connects the body with the outside world, but it conceals the body from it at the same time. Barker’s cinematic concept of “the skin” seems to be literally translated in Chalayan’s fashion. The equality of the subject and object is further explored in his installation Micro Geography: a Cross Section (2009). In this installation, a human figure in a black dress rotates in a frosted glass box and cameras capture what is going on inside. The images are projected on large screens in the room. The cameras are looking at the object in the installation, as if the object is looking from inside at itself, and at the same time, you as a spectator are looking at this spectacle. This installation, and Chalayan’s aforementioned film and collection, all criticise the dominant discourse on voyeuristic looking and being looked at. In the cinematic environment, we normally gaze at the things represented to us on the screen, and visitors at a fashion show do the same thing as they watch the models walking down the runway. Chalayan seems to be fully aware of this behaviour, in which the viewer (the subject) gazes at an object (images on the screen or models at a catwalk). He plays with these conventions by preventing this relationship from happening (through the use of a veil, helmet or pod), or by turning the tables and letting the viewer themselves be gazed at (through the use of mirrors).

Transforming the Moving Image and the Human Body Chalayan expresses his fascination with technology in his creations. The use of the cinematic technique of morphing can be found in several of his collections. Morphing is used in films and animations to seamlessly transform one image into another. At the presentation of his Spring/Summer collection of 2007, models were dressed with garments that transformed seamlessly without being touched. Sarah Mower describes one of these “Remote Control Dresses” in the following review:

The girl walked in and stood stock-still, dressed in a long, high-necked corseted Victorian gown. Then her clothes began to twitch, move, and reconfigure of their own accord. The mono-bosom top opened, the jacket retreated, the hemline started to rise, and—finally, amazingly—there she was, wearing a crystal-beaded flapper dress (Sarah Mower, Style.com). 49

In this collection, Chalayan visualises the morphing technique through clothing. This special effect is visualised in slow motion, and the viewer sees the dresses change without human agency. Chalayan uses this literal depiction of morphing again in his Autumn/Winter 2012 collection; while walking down the catwalk, models tear apart their dresses and a new garment appears. In Chalayan’s Autumn/Winter 2002 collection titled Ambimorphous, morphing is used in a more abstract sense. This collection depicts cultural and geographical changes. The show starts with a model that is clothed in a Turkish traditional outfit, and the following models wear outfits in which this traditional costume becomes only part of the outfit, and is eventually substituted by a modern, black dress. Ted Polhemus stresses Chalayan’s striking juxtaposition of the Turkish traditional costume and his own designs. When fashion uses non- western inspirations, this is often visualised through a Western-orientated perspective. But by showing these traditional costumes in an equal relationship with his own designs, “he never caricatures, he never trivialises [the traditional costumes]” (Polhemus 108).

Figure 8. Hussein Chalayan's Ambimorphous collection literally depicts the technique of morphing by changing from a traditional Turkish costume to a modern black outfit.

By transforming one image into another, morphing evokes movement. Movement is another fascination of Chalayan that is present in his collections. These two cinematic concepts meet in his “Aeroplane Dress”, which is depicted in the short film Echo Form (1999) made by the photographer Marcus Tomlinson. In this film, a woman is wearing a dress made from thick white plastic. Parts of the dress are activated and open and close, revealing parts of the woman’s belly. The woman then starts rotating faster and faster until she slows down again and eventually stands still. The white plastic dress resembles an airplane, and the moving panels seem to be parts of an airplane ready for take-off. The sounds of an engine match the movements of the rotating woman. Chalayan’s depiction of a dress that resembles an airplane reveals his fascination with both speed and the human body. Bradley Quinn investigates, 50 amongst others, Hussein Chalayan’s use of technology in fashion. According to Quinn, Chalayan does not use technology to reveal the newest technological developments; rather, the technology’s purpose is to “enhance the body’s natural capacity to move quickly” (Quinn 2002: 50). His Inertia Spring/Summer 2009 collection was inspired by the notion of speed. This collection consists of garments that suggest movement, including the “Windblown dresses” that are shaped as if the models are walking in a storm. The hair of the models corresponds to the shape of the dresses. This suggested movement was already brought to life in his Autumn/Winter collection 2007, entitled Airborne. Here, he again made use of transformable dresses, but this time he also brought the clothes to movement by creating an artificial storm, as the collection was inspired by appropriating and reacting to the environment and the changing climate. One of the most striking pieces from this collection was the “video LED-dress”. More than 15000 LEDs were placed underneath the fabric of the dress, showing images of the environment such as seas, cities or a time-lapse of a flower. Hussein Chalayan does not only use motion as a cinematic element to bring the clothes to life, but he also incorporates movement within his clothing, and thus movement becomes a part of his fashion practice. In his fashion shows and films he is able to emphasise this movement even more, for example by letting the model rotate, or by adding wind or artificial rain to his fashion show. These fashion shows, just like his films, become an important component of his designs. Fashion theorist Fiona Anderson compares his fashion shows to art installations (385) and the curator Gregg Ginger Duggan describes Chalayan in his article on contemporary fashion shows as a ‘substance’ designer rather than a ‘spectacle’ designer. Spectacle designers create shows with a clear theme that can be expressed by the use of set design, props, lighting and music, while substance designers create shows around an abstract concept. Basing the show on an abstract concept “leads to choreographed performances that are visually stunning, but lacking in a narrative tied to a particular time or place” (Duggan 251). The fashion journalist Suzy Menkes expresses the importance of the presentation of his work through shows and films. Menkes states that “for Chalayan, creating a film is like ‘the ultimate fashion show’ and each medium has the same intrinsic idea of a sequence which becomes increasingly intense. But on celluloid he can abstract the concept” (Menkes 157). Within the work of Chalayan, film is not only used to express the characteristics, style or ‘aura’ of the designer, but it also becomes a part, an element of his creations. Cinematic techniques such as narrativisation, voyeurism and movement are recurring elements that are combined with his significant themes. His clothing is the result of the merging of these two concepts. According to Quinn, “he [Chalayan] sees all objects, structures and architecture as externalizations of the body” (Quinn 2002: 28). This corresponds to the approach to fashion films described in chapter two, where, for example, in 51 Lady Grey London, the grey Dior bag is depicted as an externalization of Marion Cotillard’s body. In these films clothes seem to merge with the objects and setting represented on the screen, and Chalayan does the same thing:

I think of modular systems, where clothes are like small parts of an interior, the interiors are part of architecture, which is then a part of an urban environment. I think of fluid space, where they are all part of each other, just in different scales and proportions (Chalayan quoted in Quinn 2002: 30).

Chalayan considers clothes, the interior and architecture as three uniting elements that interact with each other. Where Bruno uses Gottfried Semper’s concept that recognises the similarities between walls (wand) and the moving variant of this, clothing (gewand), Chalayan seems to take this to the next level by processing this idea into his designs. In his work, fashion and film are treated equally too; only the way in which this is expressed differs from the fashion films described in chapter two. His intellectual approach to fashion results in a meeting of fashion and film within his garments. The treatment of fashion and film as two equal discourses will become apparent in the work of Maison Margiela as well. Their usage of film varies from using cinematic techniques within their garments to the representation of new products in short, experimental fashion films.

MAISON MARGIELA Although he is not officially a part of the Antwerp Six group, Martin Margiela is often called the seventh member of this group as a result of his conceptual design. Margiela worked for the designer Jean-Paul Gaultier before starting his own house, Maison Martin Margiela, in 1988. His conceptual designs criticise the norms and conventions that surround fashion and the body, and he is well known for his use of recycled garments and objects. Martin Margiela left the house in 2009 and he was not replaced at first, as the creative team behind the brand continued the work. At the beginning of this year the designer John Galliano, who left the fashion world for three years, was appointed as the head designer of the house that was renamed Maison Margiela. In order to understand the house’s use of film within their creations, some features of Maison Margiela need to be mentioned. First of all, Martin Margiela’s persona always stayed unknown and anonymous. The house wants to emphasise that the creations are made by the whole team, and therefore they break with the popular notion that fashion is created by one famous designer only (Clark 70). By not showing the person or persons behind the brand, the maison shifts the focus to the clothing instead. This is also visible in their fashion shows: models are made anonymous being blindfolded, wearing sunglasses and veils, or extra-long bangs are used to cover their eyes. Just as with Chalayan, 52 the viewer is not able to gaze at the models and therefore is forced to focus on the clothes. Another characteristic of Margiela’s look is the colour white. It is used as the opponent of black, as a white canvas or as saturation of all colours. White paint can be found on their clothes, in their boutiques and at their headquarter. When it is put on clothes, it will crack and the original item garment that is situated underneath it will be revealed. All the employees of the maison wear white coats to create a certain unity between them, and also as a nod to haute couture design. All collections are numbered and the labels of the garments are not signed. Line 0, also called the “Artisanal” collection, represents the haute couture line of Maison Margiela. Rather than using luxurious and expensive fabrics to design these outfits, they use second-hand garments, fabrics and objects that they rework by hand (Glossary 360). An example is old army socks that were re-sewn to make sweaters. By reconstructing these garments, the clothing is offered a second life. According to Caroline Evans, Margiela’s recycling is a play with time, since every garment already has a history and a narrative. In his reconstructions, the past and present are placed in an ambiguous dialogue with each other (Evans 2003: 92). The designs are characterised by revealing traces of the production process. Shoulder pads, seams and linings are made visible by turning the clothes inside out. By doing so, Margiela conveys Marx’s critique of the “luxury label”, which presumes that “the consumer culture alienates us from our own labour through the strict separation of the process of production from that of consumption” (Verhelst). By explicitly showing the production process of their garments, Maison Margiela wants to make people more aware of the labour intensity and complexity of designing high fashion clothing. Maison Margiela discusses the conventions and norms that surround the depiction of the body through the deformation of the human figure and by changing the silhouette. Doll clothing that was reconstructed for human size inspired the Autumn/Winter collection of 1994, and the Spring/Summer collections of 1998 consisted of garments that fitted to the human body when they were laid down flat on the floor. Through the play with the human silhouette in his clothes, he criticizes the dominant discourse of the body within the contemporary fashion world. Just like Chalayan, Margiela’s shows are considered to be art installations or performances rather than spectacles. They are often held at odd locations, such as the metro station Saint-Martin in Paris, which has been out of use since 1939. The visitors’ at the fashion show are served cheap red wine from white plastic cups. Through the unconventional locations and rituals of their fashion shows, spectators are pulled out of their comfort zones.

Substituting the Fashion Show Maison Margiela’s experimental and conceptual approach to fashion is clearly reflected in 53 their use of film. Film and cinematic techniques are used in a wide range of ways, of which I will highlight some that reveal the versatile usage of this medium. First of all, the brand often substitutes parts of the fashion shows for film. In the Spring/Summer 1998 collection, models were replaced by fashion ‘technicians’, and the clothes were explained in texts, accompanied by videos showing models wearing the clothes. The fashion technicians in white coats walked through the crowd, explaining the clothes in detail (Evans 2003: 80). This representation mode shares many affinities with the cinema of attractions, in which the showmen exhibitors provided spoken comments to the images represented on the screen. This also resembles their show of the Spring/Summer collection of 2002, which was held at bar-tabac ‘le Corona’; the press was invited in every half hour, and the collection was showed on a simple TV and explained by the creative team of Maison Margiela. The MM6 line is often less conceptual and more focused on casual clothing. The emphasis on the more casual clothing suited to daily life was emphasised in a video that accompanied the Autumn/Winter collection of 2007. In this video the daily life of ordinary women is shown, wearing Margiela’s clothes during their morning rituals. An alarm goes off and we see a woman getting out of bed, already fully dressed in an outfit and shoes by Margiela. She switches on a small television that shows the number six through a hand gesture (referring to the MM6 collection). The camera is positioned in such a way that the eyes of the women are never revealed. We see women taking a shower, opening the mailbox with a label featuring the number six on it, having breakfast, doing grocery shopping and eventually they all meet at a dinner party in someone’s home. Throughout all their daily rituals, they are wearing Margiela’s creations, even in the shower. Through the depiction of women in their everyday lives it is emphasised that Margiela’s clothing is not only for a limited, wealthy group of people, but that everyone can wear it in their daily lives. The Autumn/Winter collection of 2013 was presented through video as well, and was called MM6 + Saks Fifth Avenue. Saks Fifth Avenue is an American department store where the collection could be purchased. In this two-minute film, we see one model wearing the clothing of that season's collection. Through the use of the cinematic techniques of slow motion, fast motion and stop motion, time is conceptualised. A model appears from the smoke wearing different outfits from Maison Margiela and she moves to the ticking rhythm of the music. By alternating images screened in slow motion and fast motion, the model puts on the clothes and, for example, closes the zipper of a jumper in time with the rhythm of the music. In the next shot the model wears a turtleneck sweater that moves upward through the use of stop motion, covering the model's face. Coats also put themselves on the model's body through the use of this technique. In the background we see small snowflakes made out of white paper that move upwards. Another cinematic technique that Maison Margiela uses in this film is morphing. Video images are screened on the clothing and depict organic forms, 54 such as leaves and snowflakes, which slowly turn into the brand's logo. The experimental play with time in this fashion film portrays the clothes as living organisms. By alternating the slow motion and fast motion techniques the viewer's attention is drawn towards the clothing. The stop motion technique enables the clothing to move on its own, while the model who wears them is depicted as a lifeless mannequin. The use of these cinematic techniques can therefore support Maison Margiela's focus on the clothing rather than the wearer or designer of the garments.

Figure 9. MM6 Autumn/Winter collection 2007. A woman takes a shower while wearing clothes of Maison Margiela. Her eyes are covered through the camera position and by hanging her hair in front of her face.

Communicating the Message Besides partly being a substitution for fashion shows by Maison Margiela, film is also used as a communication medium: it reveals and expresses the brand’s style and characteristics, and is used for product presentation and branding purposes. Since there is not one spokesperson for the brand, these short films are very important in order to get in contact with their potential customers. These films are characterised by the significant style of the maison as well. With the release of their first perfume called “(untitled)” in 2009, four French filmmakers were asked to make a film. This resulted in the films La Foule and Les Mots (Benjamin Seroussi and RYSWYCK), La Fiction (Camille Vivier) and Le Nez (Simon Eléphant). The opening credits are the same in every film: we see two hands that type the name of the film and director on a typewriter. In La Foule, we follow women walking through crowded streets as the camera is focused mainly on their backs through the use of close-ups, in which Margiela’s ‘label’ (consisting of four white stitches) is shown. Les Mots is a one-minute black and white film, in which people in white coats walk towards the camera carrying white signs with black words written on them, which respectively sum up the brand’s characteristics: no logo; universal; essential; avant gardist; new modesty;

55 unsigned; no identified spokesperson; iconoclast; white; product-focused brand; craftsmanship and luxury redefined. La Fiction focuses on the contrast between calmness, boredom and restlessness. Three women walk through an industrial setting wearing white coats and enter a kind of laboratory, where they lay their heads on the tables, as if they are bored. These images are alternated with images of smoke and a red haired lady. Only in Le Nez (the nose) is there made a specific reference to the perfume. Through the depiction of a Chinese shadow play13, we see people smelling a perfume bottle and talking about the scent. Images of nature, birds and flowers follow this scenery and thus the scents of nature can be related to the perfume. Although these short films were made for the release of the perfume (untitled), only one of them referred to it. By disseminating the characteristics of the brand, the viewer is reminded of the philosophy of Maison Margiela. This ensures that a clear ‘aura’ is created around the brand, and by alternating images of the perfume with those of more general images of the maison, the perfume becomes part of this self-created aura. The presentation of their eyewear collection (line 8) was also accomplished through the use of a short fashion film. For their new eyewear Spring/Summer collection of 2011, a forty-five-second short film was made, in which a slideshow introduces the new collection. We see a woman sitting in front of the slideshow in the dark, while an optician instructs her to read the sentences that are visible on the screen. The woman has a French accent and slowly reads the English words presented to her on the screen, as if the optician is checking her eyesight. Pictures of the glasses that have ironic names, such as "Anatomic" and "Wrong Size", are shown on the slides in different sizes. The ironic approach of their products is even more strongly emphasised in their short films made for their "product" collection named line 13. This collection was introduced in 1999 as a line featuring home objects, and in 2010 a furniture collection was added. The collection of 2013, New White Objects, seems to consist of randomly selected objects such as a cotton tape measure, a glass hourglass within a plexi sphere, a luminous light and fortune eggs. The presentation of these objects further confirms the sense of randomness. A female voice-over with an American accent recommends the products to the audience in a two-minute "commercial", as if the products are being sold on a teleshopping programme. The woman mentions that the tape measure was invented in the nineteenth century and comes in white cotton. The luminous night-light is praised for the fact that no wiring is needed, and the fortune eggs are "genuine empty hen's eggs" that are "inspired by fortune cookies. Once cracked, the egg reveals an unexpected message". The female voice-over ends the presentation by saying, "And that's all for today. Thank you for watching", and a white curtain is brought down, covering the screen. This ironic presentation of their products mocks the superficiality of television by parodying the over-the-top product

13 Chinese shadow play is an ancient way of storytelling that is often considered to be one of the precursors of modern cinema. 56 placement of home shopping programmes. The short film can also be considered as a critique on the fashion world, in which fashion brands lend their name to a wide range of consumer products that have little to do with fashion. An example is the 'Prada Phone' that was made in 2007 by LG, in collaboration with Prada. Maison Margiela's focus on the product and production process is addressed in this film in a humorous manner.

Figure 10. A optician tests the eyes of a woman by letting her read out loud the features of Maison Margiela's new eyewear Spring/Summer 2011 collection.

Depth and Motion Hussein Chalayan uses the cinematic concept of movement throughout his collections, sometimes literally depicting movement, as we have seen, for example in his “windblown” dresses. Maison Margiela also portrays movement with their garments through the use of trompe l’oeil effects. This technique, originating in painting, is an optical trick that creates the illusion of three-dimensionality. Maison Margiela uses this within their clothing throughout the collections, for example with boots, designed in two tones in order to suggest the illusion of shadows. The clothes, shoes and accessories simulate depth and movement through this trompe l’oeil effect. In their Spring/Summer 2011 menswear collection, Maison Margiela made use of the cinematic trompe l’oeil effect in the fashion show. A film showed models standing in front of a white cloth, presenting the clothes in a fashion shoot in several places in Paris. A voice instructed the models how to move, and as this happened, the same model walked onto the stage and followed the instructions of the voice, in accordance with his movements on the screen. By letting the exhibition space cooperate with the things represented on the screen, the spectator is entranced by the performance happening in front of him or her. 57 Certain liveliness in their garments is created through this trompe l’oeil effect. In an exhibition held at the Boijmans van Beuningen museum in Rotterdam in 1997, the creation of movement and liveliness in clothing was brought to the next level. Eighteen pieces from previous collections were reconstructed and, in collaboration with a microbiologist, the garments were treated with agar, and bacteria and moulds were sprayed onto the fabrics. These moulds and bacteria started growing, and changed colour and size, thereby evoking literal movement in the clothes. These clothes were exhibited on lifeless mannequins, which further emphasised the life within the clothing. Both Maison Margiela and Hussein Chalayan take an interdisciplinary approach to fashion, and therefore art and the medium of film become an important component of their creations. As mentioned before, their conceptual fashion design shares many affinities with the conceptual art movement, and this is demonstrated by the fact that their work is often exhibited in galleries and museums. Hussein Chalayan has had several solo exhibitions in galleries in London, in the Groninger Museum and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and, for example, his “Airplane” dress has been acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Besides the previously mentioned exhibition of Maison Margiela in Boijmans van Beuningen, the house also had a major exhibition in the MoMu in Antwerp in 2008, and in Somerset House in London in 2010. It becomes clear from the descriptions of their work that their creations are well suited to being exhibited in these kinds of spaces. In Clark’s article on conceptual fashion, she defines conceptual art as the “investigation of conventions of pictorial and sculptural representation and a critique of the traditional paradigms of visuality” (Clark 67). Chalayan and Maison Margiela both criticise traditional conventions of the fashion world, and the related representation of the human body. According to Clark, the traces of conceptual art investigations are often expressed by using videos or photographs (Clark 67). This reveals the close connection between film, conceptual art and, eventually, conceptual fashion design. Chalayan’s and Maison Margiela’s work touches upon important issues that surround the highly debated question of whether or not fashion can be considered an art form. Although this discussion remains open and active, Chalayan and Margiela are able to visualise in their creations how fashion and art work together.

Conclusion The designs of Hussein Chalayan and Maison Margiela show fashion’s close relation with the art world, and thereby reveal the importance of other arts, such as film, within their work. Concepts as narrative, colour and movement are interwoven in their designs. Their approach of utilising film within their fashion seems to differ much from the case studies analysed in chapter two, but their reliance on the cinematic techniques does correspond to the 'conventional' designers' approach. The films described both in chapter two and in this 58 chapter heavily rely upon significant cinematic techniques in order to let the viewer be attracted to the clothes, objects and setting represented on the screen. The fashion films analysed in this chapter reveal the conceptual approaches of Chalayan and Maison Margiela. Film plays an important role in their designs, as they support the underlying themes and assist their discussions on the norms and conventions present in both the fashion world and elsewhere. However, fashion is also important in the films they create. As we have seen in chapter two, a Dior bag was depicted as a main protagonist in Lady Grey London and Lady Blue Shanghai. While these films are also about the visualisation of clothing, this is performed differently and perhaps in a more discreet manner. Fashion films therefore characterise themselves not by the final outcome of the films, but focus largely on the process, the use of specific cinematic techniques and the achievement of an equal balance between fashion and film.

59 Conclusion: Dressing the Fashion Film The irrefutable connection between fashion and film has found its clearest manifestation in the fashion film. Within the cinematic context, fashion can serve as a prop that supports the narrative, develops characters and it can create certain moods within feature films. As previously mentioned, characters in the recent version of The Great Gatsby were dressed in Prada clothing. This was done to emphasise the spectacular, luxurious ambiance of the end of the 1920s that was recreated in this film. Fashion uses film as a medium to serve as a proper advertising and display mode. Boutiques of both exclusive and ready-made garments are filled with large screens that display short commercials, in which the latest trends and collections are shown. But within the fashion film, the relationship between fashion and film is taken to the next level. Both fashion and film make use of one another, without one making the other less important. This equal treatment of both film and fashion is a key point in the search for an adequate definition that covers the complexities of the fashion film. The close connection between fashion and film was confirmed for the first time in the fashion newsreels of the 1910s and 1920s. Shown among other news items, these short films stood out from the other items due to the use of significant cinematic techniques, such as colour and movement. A simple narrative was combined with a presentational mode in which the spectator was directly addressed. As the analyses of the contemporary fashion films have shown, these significant characteristics have hardly changed. In the fashion films made by known filmmakers for Dior and Prada, there is still a heavy reliance on cinematic concepts that form the basis of the cinema of attractions, such as colour and movement. These concepts reveal the style, colour palette and desired ‘aura’ of both the fashion house and the collaborating film director. Although the fashion films made by the conceptual designer Hussein Chalayan and the fashion house Maison Margiela significantly change in their appearance, the balanced treatment of both fashion and film in their work resembles that of the ‘conventional’ designers. Their fashion films reveal Chalayan's and Masion Margiela's style and processing of ideas; their play with norms and conventions that are present in society and, in particular, in the fashion world. In my investigation of the contemporary fashion film I have paid little attention to the digital climate in which the fashion film finds itself. Although through digitisation the accessibility of the fashion film has been enlarged for a mass audience, and the consumption of these films therefore changes, it seems to me that this has little effect on the actual content of these short films. The fashion film exists in digital environments, since this is obviously the space in which the fashion industry can represent itself while following the latest trends of contemporary society. In her article on the changed imagery of fashion through technological developments,

60 Vicki Karaminas mentions the notion of the “fashionscape”. Borrowing this concept from the social-cultural anthropologist Arjun Appadurai, a fashionscape “describes and situates the role of digital media in global cultural flows” (Karaminas 177). She states that digital media is able to “immerse the audience into the desired world of the luxury brand by evoking visual […] pleasure ” (180). Basing my argument on the analyses made in this thesis, I have to disagree with her on this point. Digital media is not the medium that produces this desire, since it is only the space in which it operates. This research has shown that it is precisely the medium of film and its techniques that can be considered as the generators of this desire. Our contemporary society can be seen as a culture of modernity. Caroline Evans used the term modernity to describe the rapid change and focus on progress that is present in our society. According to her, our contemporary society, which is often described as a postmodern one, is not so much a break with modernity, but rather can be considered as a continuation of modernity (Evans 2007: 304). Digitisation is part of the ever-present desire for progress that is visible in concepts such as speed, mobility and globalisation. Elizabeth Wilson has demonstrated that in a culture of modernity, nostalgic ideas are created about the loss of the magical in the world. This nostalgia is expressed in the fashion film as well, wherein a magical, ‘unreal’ fashion world is created and the viewer becomes a part of this. Films such as Castello Cavalcanti by Wes Anderson, and Place to Passage by Hussein Chalayan, explicitly elaborate on the theme of nostalgia, and visualise how the reliance on an imagined past can create an aura of authenticity (Smelik 79). These fashion films create fictionalised worlds that pull people out of their daily lives. Analyses of the contemporary fashion films demonstrate that the use of cinematic techniques, such as colour and movement, enable the screen to function as a living canvas. Both the film and the viewer have a skin, and through the creation of a (sometimes erotic) desire for the garments, objects and setting represented on the screen, both skins are able to touch each other. Through shared point-of-view shots with the main protagonists, or transitional shots in which the film gazes at the garments, objects and settings represented on the screen, a desire for the represented world is created. A haptic sensation arises from this as the viewer is not only immersed by, but becomes one with, the represented persons, objects and settings in the film. According to Karaminas, the fashion film is a hyperimage of fashion (182). She borrows this concept from Jean Baudrillard’s writings on hyperreality. Signifiers and codes present in our society feature in fashion as well, as the luxurious status with which fashion is surrounded is expressed and considered more important than, for example, its production value. The status of fashion can be considered as a hyperreal image. In fashion films, a world is created that represents the ‘aura’ of the fashion house, the designer, and optionally, the filmmaker. Some fashion designers, like Hussein Chalayan, criticise the existence of this 61 hyperreality in their work. But by subsequently processing this criticism into a fashion film, the hyperimage created through this film that represents the style and characteristics of the fashion designs of Chalayan, remains intact. The fashion film is a hyperimage, filled with desires that were once visible in the fashion shows and clothes themselves. Smelik suggests that our contemporary society is filled with spectacle and performance, and that therefore people develop the urge to seek for ‘the real’. But since the world is built upon simulacra, this ‘real’ can only be performed. The fashion film provides the viewer with a performed aura, that represents the ‘hyperreal’ fashion world of the brand or designer that it wants to communicate to the outside world. As I have demonstrated in this thesis, the fashion film visualises itself in many different forms as 'conventional' and conceptual designers express both their style and characteristics in it. The ever-changing appearance of the fashion film makes it a complex, and sometimes hard to grasp category. But by focusing less on the appearance and more on the basic concepts on which it relies, a concrete definition of the fashion film can be given. In order to define the fashion film, Market Uhlirova proposes that we must let go of our standard understanding of the genre and consider the genre more as a fluid, self-contradictory mode. Gary Needham’s division of the fashion film into subgenres is therefore ineffective: the fashion film exists in all of these different modes. Besides the classification of the fashion film as a genre, we also have to let go of the importance that is given to the digitisation of the fashion film. Although it characterises the space in which the fashion film is presented, it does not add value to the content of these films. Instead, because fashion and film have emerged simultaneously and have developed a symbiotic relationship with each other, they exchange significant concepts, motifs and features. A hyperimage of the represented designer, the brand and, optionally the filmmaker, is created. The spectator does not only develop a desire for the commodities represented on the screen, but he or she experiences the fashioned world as if it is his or her own. The fashion film presents itself in all kinds of different ways, and therefore it can be problematic to find unity between these films at first sight. To find the similarities between fashion films, a closer look at these films is needed in order to reveal their shared complex underlying concepts, features and motifs. Knowledge of both fashion and film is required to reveal the fashion film as a unified genre. This could partly explain why the fashion film is often misunderstood. It is a recent phenomenon that has developed itself at the beginning of this century, and is often compared to fashion commercials screened on television or in boutiques, which obstructs the actual meaning of the fashion film. The analyses in this thesis have demonstrated that the fashion film is capable of traversing the boundaries between fashion, film and art. It has influenced the fashion world by presenting itself as a new medium through which fashion can be expressed. Whether the fashion film's capability of 62 bringing life to the clothing eventually will lead to taking over from other fashion expressions like the fashion show, remains debatable. But the fashion film has acquired a dominant position within the fashion world and the number of fashion films continues to increase. Its influence is not just noticeable in the fashion world, but the fashion film leaves its marks in the film world too by its use of significant cinematic techniques that create a new, distinctive, reputable "genre" that is not fluid or self-contradictory per se, but is characterised by the process rather than the outcome of the film. The fashion film has proved to be a legitimate applied art form, that has enabled the debate on whether fashion can be considered art, and is therefore capable of turning the dominant discourse upside down. In the fashion film, where fashion and its surrounding 'aura' star as the main protagonist, the viewer is drawn into an enchanted fashion world full of fabrics, textures and sensations.

63 Bibliography Barker, Jennifer M. “Skin”. The Tactile Eye. Touch and the Cinematic Experience. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2009. 23-68. Baschiera, Stefano. “Nostalgically Man Dwells on this Earth: Objects and Domestic Space in The Royal Tenenbaums and The Darjeeling Ltd.” New Review of Film and Television Studies 10.1 (2012): 118-121. Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. 1981. Trans. Sheila F. Glaser. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994. Baudry, Jean-Louis. “Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus.” Film Quarterly 28.2 (1974-75): 39-47. Benjamin, Walter. “Theses on the Philosophy of History.” Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books Inc., 1955. 253-264. Blanks, Tim. “Fall 2009 Ready-to-Wear Gareth Pugh”. Style. 2009. 29 March 2015. . Blauvelt, Christian. "Is Wes Anderson's Short Film for Prada an Ad or Art?" BBC. 14 November 2013. 15 June 2015. . Bruno, Guiliana. “Surface, Fabric, Weave: The Fashioned World of Wong Kar-wai.” Fashion in Film. Ed. A. Munich. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011. 82-105. Calavita, Marco. ‘“MTV aesthetics at the Movies”: Interrogating a Film Criticism Fallacy”. Journal of Film and Video 59.3 (2007): 15-31. Chion, Michel. David Lynch. Trans. R. Julian. London: British Film Institute, 1995. Clark, Hazel. “Conceptual Fashion”. Fashion and Art. Eds. Adm Geczy and Vicki Karaminas. London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012. 67-75. “Dior New Look”. Dior. 1 May 2015. . “Dior Lady Dior Bag”. Dior. 1 May 2015. . Duggan, Ginger Gregg. “The Greatest Show on Earth: A Look at Contemporary Fashion Shows and Their Relationship to Performance Art”. Fashion Theory 5.3 (2001): 243- 270. English, Bonnie. A Cultural History of Fashion in the Twentieth Century. Oxford, New York: Berg Publishers, 2007. Evans, Caroline. “The Enchanted Spectacle.” Fashion Theory 5.3 (2001): 271-310. ---. Fashion at the Edge. Spectacle, Modernity and Deathliness. London: Yale University Press, 2003.

64 ---. “No Man’s Land”. Hussein Chalayan. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2005. 8-15. ---. “The Walkies: Early French Fashion Shows as a Cinema of Attractions.” Fashion in Film. Ed. Adrienne Munich. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011. 110-134. ---. The Mechanical Smile. Modernism and the First Fashion Shows in France and America, 1900-1929. London: Yale University Press, 2013. Frankel, Susannah. “The Birth, Death and Re-Birth of Conceptual Fashion”. Maison Martin Margiela. Eds. Luna Ian and Maison Martin Margiela. New York: Rizzoli, 2009. 40. “Glossary”. Maison Martin Margiela. Eds. Luna Ian and Maison Martin Margiela. New York: Rizzoli, 2009. 306. Gunning, Tom. “The Cinema of Attraction: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde.” Wide Angle 8.3-4. (1986): 63-70. Hanssen, Eirik Frisvold. “Symptoms of Desire: Colour, Costume, and Commodities in Fashion Newsreels of the 1910s and 1920s.” Film History 22 (2009): 107-121. Holgate, Mark. “Marion Cotillard Stars in John Cameron Mitchell’s Lady Grey.” Vogue. 2010. 1 May 2015. . “Interview Hussein Chalayan, Armand Limnander and Pamela Golbin.” Vimeo. 15 June 2014. 16 May 2015. . Kalmus, Natalie M. “Color Consciousness”. Color, The Film Reader. Eds. A. Dalle Vacche and B. Price. New York, London: Routledge, 2006. 24-29. Karaminas, Vicki. “Image: Fashionscapes – Notes Toward an Understanding of Media Technologies and Their Impact on Contemporary Fashion Imagery.” Fashion and Art. Eds. Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas. London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012. 177-187. Khan, Nathalie. “Cutting the Fashion Body: Why the Fashion Image is No Longer Still.” Fashion Theory 16.2 (2012): 235-250. Kipöz, Șölen and Deniz Güner. “Conceptual Resistance of Hussein Chalayan within the Ephermal World of Fashion”. Fashion Forward. Eds. A. de Witt-Paul and M. Crouch. Oxford: Interdisciplinary Press, 2011. 329-342. Ledeen, Michael A. “Amarcord” Society 12.2 (1975): 100-102. Leese, Elizabeth. Costume Design in the Movies. 1976. New York: Dover Publications, 1991. Menkes, Suzy. “Celebrating the Cerebral”. Hussein Chalayan. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2005. 154- 157. Morley, Jane. “Conceptual Fashion: Design, Practice and Progress.” Unpublished Diss. (MA Thesis). Queensland University of Technology, 2013. Mower, Sarah. Spring 2007 Ready-to-Wear Chalayan. Style. 2006. 24 May 2015. . 65 Needham, Gary. “The Digital Fashion Film.” Fashion Cultures Revisited: Theories, Explorations and Analysis. Eds. Stella Bruzzi and Pamela Church Gibson. London, New York: Routledge, 2013. 103-111. Polhemus, Ted. “The Postmodern Designer”. Hussein Chalayan. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2005. 106-111. Prada, Miuccia, Patrizio Bertelli. Prada. New York: Abrams, 2009. Quinn, Bradley. Techno Fashion. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2002. ---. “An Architect of Ideas.” Hussein Chalayan. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2005. 46-51. Røssaak, Eivind. “Figures of Sensation: Between Still and Moving Images.” Cinema of Attractions Reloaded. Ed. Wanda Strauven. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006. 321-336. Ryan, Nicky. “Prada and the Art of Patronage.” Fashion Theory 11.1 (2007): 7-23. Simmel, Georg. “Fashion”. The International Quaterly 10 (1904): 130-155. Smelik, Anneke. “The Performance of Authenticity”. Address. Journal for Fashion Writing and Criticism 1.1 (2011): 76-82. Taylor, Melissa. "Culture Transition: Fashion's Cultural Dialogue Between Commerce and Art". Fashion Theory 9.4 (2005): 445-460. Teunissen, José. Mode in beweging: van modeprint tot modejournaal. Amsterdam: Stichting Nederlands Filmmuseum, 1992. Uhlirova, Marketa. “100 Years of the Fashion Film: Frameworks and Histories.” Fashion Theory 17.2 (2013a): 137-57. Uhlirova, Marketa. “The Fashion Film Effect.” Fashion Media: Past and Present. Eds. D. Bartlett, S. Cole and A. Rocamora. London: Bloomsbury, 2013b. 118-129. Verhelst, Bob. Maison Martin Margiela ‘20’: the Exhibition. Ed. Kaat Debo. Antwerpen: MoMu, 2008. Wilson, Elizabeth. “Fashion and Modernity”. Fashion and Modernity. Eds. Caroline Evans and Christopher Breward. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2005. 9-14.

Film List Anaesthetics. Dir. Hussein Chalayan. Production Team of Turkey (PTT), 2004. A Therapy. Dir. Roman Polanski. R.P. Productions, Prada, 2011. Castello Cavalcanti. Dir. Wes Anderson. American Empirical Pictures, Prada, 2013. Echo Form. Dir. Marcus Tomlinson. Premiere Heure, 1999. Gareth Pugh A/W 15. Dir. Ruth Hogben. Gareth Pugh, 2015. Lady Blue Shanghai. Dir. David Lynch. Christian Dior Production, 2010. Lady Grey London. Dir. John Cameron Mitchell. Christian Dior Production, 2011.

66 La Fiction. Dir. Camille Vivier. Maison Margiela, 2009. La Foule. Dir. Benjamin Seroussi and RYSWYCK. Maison Margiela, 2009. Le Nez. Dir. Simon Eléphant. Maison Margiela, 2009. Les Mots. Dir. Benjamin Seroussi and RYSWYCK. Maison Margiela, 2009. Line 8 - New White Objects. Dir. Maison Margiela, 2013. Line 13 - New Eyewear Collection. Dir. Maison Margiela, 2011. L'Unico. Dir. Carlo Lavagna. Asmara Films, 2012. Menswear Fashion Show Spring-Summer 2011. Dir. Maison Margiela, 2011. MM6 Collection Video Autumn-Winter 2007. Dir. Maison Margiela, 2007. MM6 + Saks Fifth Avenue. Dir. Maison Margiela, Mr. GIF, 2013. Place to Passage. Dir. Hussein Chalayan. Tribal Art Commission, 2003.

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