From the Set to the Runway: Hepburn, Dunaway... Malick?

This week I had the pleasure of attending a lecture at the Morgan Library and Museum. I can't recall the last time I went to a lecture so I felt very Schlegel Sisters from Howard's End (1992). The things people used to do for entertainment!

The lecture was actually more of a threeway discussion. The museum paired influential fashion historian Valerie Steele with famed designer Anna Sui (who turns out to be a movie buff) and Oscar nominated costume designer Deborah Nadoolman (Coming to America) whose credits include 80s hits like Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Three Amigos! (remember that one?) and even the "Thriller" music video! So herewith the tidbits I felt you'd enjoy most from the event.

Some actresses are not just movie stars, but fashion icons.

Faye Dunaway & Audrey Hepburn
The general gist of the event was in delineating what separates fashion from costume design and how costume design can but doesn't necessarily become fashion. Nadoolman suggests that it's a matter of "transference" and what's required is usually both a popular film and a character within the film that people want to be like in some way. That combination creates icons and icons influence fashion. Whether or not that happens, she argued, has little to do with good costuming which is about creating characters. For instance, Nadoolman said that one could argue that Audrey Hepburn's wardrobe in Breakfast at Tiffany's is actually bad costume design even though they're sensational dresses. What kind of a down and out call girl can afford those looks? Audrey Hepburn's before and after Paris looks in Sabrina were also discussed and it was interesting to hear Nadoolman tsk-tsking over Edith Head's oft misleading but admittedly savvy way with self-promotion. She designed Audrey's poor girl looks but the post Parisian fashions were not hers though of course Head was glad to accept another Oscar on behalf of them.

And yes that recent Black Swan controversy (Rodarte vs. Amy Westcott) was cited when they were discussing this.

Terrence Malick Inspires Fasion. Come again?
Anna Sui told the audience that behind every one of her collections, there is a movie. Sometimes it's not the principle influence but there are always movie images that inspire her. She referenced many films that have directly inspired whole lines including, recently, Goya's Ghost and one that I wasn't familiar with at all called Beau Brummell (1954) -- has anyone seen that?

Days of Heaven inspired an Anna Sui collection

She also talked about Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978). Sui is a huge fan of the film but she finds it so tragic that when she was designing a particular collection and using the film as her chief inspiration, she watched it countless times but only with the sound off! She used material like rubberized wheat (?) and overdyed all the textiles to get that ethereal twilight Days of Heaven feel.

The Body. The Torso. The Face.
When asked to address the differences between designing for stage, film and television, Nadoolman explained that it's all a question of scale and volume. In theater you're designing for the body "you're painting with a large brush". In film you're concentrating on the waist up. For television it's all about the close-up.

Interestingly two women in the crowd who designed for theater took umbrage at the notion that they didn't have to worry about the fine detailing since their clothes are seen only from a distance.

Marie Antoinette
The three fashionistas on stage really got into the discussion of Sofia Coppola's misunderstood 2006 film. Nadoolman told a great story about three-time Oscar winning costume designer Milena Canonero calling her in a panic from France...

We're doing Marie Antoinette and Kirsten Dunst has refused to wear wigs. How do you do Marie Antoinette without wigs?!?

Most costume design, Nadoolman stated, is not truly period accurate even if it appears to be. There are usually conscious choices made to change up period fashions, usually to make the characters more beautiful to modern audiences or to please a specific star or because the director is going for a specific mood or palette. Real gowns from Marie Antoinette's day, for example, were made of heavier upholstery-like material but Sofia's instructions to Canonero were that she wanted the actresses to "float" so light tissue tafetta was used. As for the color and the floating effect, her instructions were as follows:

I would like them to be like a plate of meringues."

It worked. Yum yum.