30 November 2011

A serious portrait of a young female bourgeois masochist: Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour


 
Joseph Kessel’s novel Belle de jour, on which the film is based, “is very melodramatic, but very well constructed, and it offered me the chance to translate Séverine’s fantasies into pictorial images as well as to draw a serious portrait of a young female bourgeois masochist,” Luis Buñuel wrote in his autobiography, My Last Sigh. “My fascination with fetishism was already obvious in the first scene of El and the boot scene in Diary of a Chambermaid.”

In Belle de Jour, Cathrine Deneuve is Séverine, an upper-middle-class wife who spends her afternoons as a prostitute in a luxurious Parisian brothel. Belle de Jour is something very rare in the world of cinema. As Jean-Claude Carriere, the screenwriter, said, for the first time in the history of cinema Luis Buñuel dealt in a perfectly clear and obvious way with female erotic fantasies, something no one else had attempted before. But it was done in the most discreet possible way, nothing explicit is revealed in the movie, as Buñuel wanted to see Séverine covered with clothes. He does not care for her nakedness, but for the clothes that cover it, and for her perfectly polished appearance. The imagination defies reality.
 

The precision of those cuts! Two-tone red, slightly  A-line dress with button shoulder straps
and belt, worn with a short red, double-breasted Eisenhower jacket.

 
Here is a director who paid great attention to costumes. In Viridiana, for example, in order for the clothes to be authentic, they “scoured the outlying districts of Madrid for them, particularly under bridges, giving poor people new clothes in exchange for their rags, which were then disinfected but not washed. Dressed in these clothes, actors felt their poverty in a real way,” Buñuel explained.

The clothes in Belle de Jour are the opposite of poverty. Designed by Yves Saint Laurent, Catherine Deneuve’s costumes marked the beginning of a long-standing relationship between the actress and the fashion designer and fixed her image for many years to come as the epitome of chic bourgeoise. With Luis Buñuel’s help and under his direction, Saint Laurent, who would prove to be an astute film costume designer, the greatest cinephile among the fashion designers, as François Truffaut named him, managed to convince Deneuve not to wear too short skirts in the movie in a time when mini-skirts were ‘in fashion’, so that the film would never become outdated and grounded to a certain historical moment.

Despite a certain 1960’s sensibility, the style in this movie has survived through generations, a quality of all Yves Saint Laurent’s designs, noted for their ‘classic modernity’. Catherine Deneuve has always evoked an eternal femininity through the timelessness of her classic looks and clothes and the designer played a great role in this from that moment on.

Yves Saint Laurent worked very well with the director, understanding that garments must be sewn on the character – figure-hugging, tailored, minimalist and cut just above the knee, including an element of sexual display, but a controlled and class-coded one, which protected the heroine. Buñuel watched clothes very closely and knew exactly what he wanted to express through them. In their ultra-sophistication, the clothes brought an almost surrealist aspect to the film, a typical Buñuel element.
 

A very interesting shorter sweater sleeve length, above the wrist,
leaving room to show the white cuffs of the garment underneath.

 

The elegance of a monochromatic outfit.

 


The simplicity of the sleeveless dress underneath the glamorous leather coat is exceptional.

Classic tennis attire

 
Séverine’s clean, perfectly cut military coat is one of the most instantly recognisable film costumes of all time. Almost all of Séverine’s clothes are military inspired, referring to the rigorous way she lives her life as a bourgeoise. The grey wool coat she wears when she steps into the brothel for the first time is double-breasted, ventless, with wide-spread collar, epaulettes and just-above-the-wrist sleeves. Black wool high hat, black gloves and tote, black Roger Vivier shoes.
 

A close-up of the accessories and the impeccable tailoring of the coat.

In the sixties, Yves Saint Laurent marked a turning point in the safari style with his iconic jacket. In the film,
Séverine is wearing a safari dress. Sand tone, patch pockets, chain gold belt, fly front zip, epaulettes, and shirt cuffs.

 

She’s wearing a black patent trench coat when she goes back to the brothel, a sign that she wants to continue with her double life.


 
The last outfit in the movie is the little black dress with contrasting white silk French cuffs and collar, and black belt. Schoolgirl-like, incredibly suggestive for that reproachful last scene of the film.

Catherine Deneuve had all the qualities for the role: young, beautiful, with an aura of mystery emanating from her looks that she’s always managed to keep, and a kind of surface coldness. She could perfectly belong to that social class. And Belle de Jour is the most representative example of film as an art form.
 


The Roger Vivier buckled Pilgrim pumps may be legendary,
but these suede shoes with scalloped edge are the ones that truly stand the test of time.

 

Images: stills from Belle de jour, courtesy of Classiq Journal. Credit: Robert et Raymond Hakim / Paris Film Productions / Five Film

Editorial sources: My Last Sigh, by Luis Buñuel. Yves Saint Laurent, by Chenoune Farid. The special features on the ‘Belle de Jour’ dvd and the booklet “Catherine Deneuve: from ice maiden to living divinity” included in the Luis Buñuel Collection box art released by Optimum Home Releasing

Posted by classiq in Film costume | | 12 Comments
3 November 2011

Katharine Hepburn is Wearing a Tuxedo and Her Own Personality in ”Woman of the Year”

With Woman Of The Year (1942) Katharine Hepburn emerged as the archetype of the strong yet feminine woman, whose battle of the sexes was not really a threat to the status quo, but merely a search for love. The movie, directed by George Stevens, was a success when it was released and it was one of the films that reinvented Hepburn, along with The Philadelphia Story (1940). Katharine’s independent nature fit the patriotic vogue in the year the US entered the war, when women were increasingly keeping the country running as men headed off to the front lines.

But the movie did something else, it made her more appealing than any other film had succeeded before. Tess Harding, the brash, polyglot, internationally inclined political affairs newswoman, falls in love with Sam Craig (played by Spencer Tracy), the crusty sportswriter. She was thirty-six at the time and it was her first film with Tracy. Every time these two great actors played together, it was a feast of talent. And Katharine simply radiates on screen, being at her most beautiful, her natural self, fierce, and confident, and learning that it is okay to be vulnerable, too.
 

 
If you have seen the movie, you certainly noticed the chemistry between the two stars. It was very much the real thing. There is a moment on the stairwell in one of the opening scenes when the electricity between Hepburn and Tracy nearly crackles on the soundtrack. The glow in the stars’ eyes isn’t just the result of trained spotlights. In her autobiography, Me: Stories of My Life, Katharine recalled that, before making their first movie together, Spencer Tracy said: “How can I do a picture with a woman who has dirt under her fingernails and who is of ambiguous sexuality and always wears pants?”. He then saw The Philadelphia Story and changed his mind, she continued.

But there was something more to their rapport and battle on screen, something they would soon have to deal with in real life as well: living a great passion, without either one being completely tamed by the other, without either one being anything but their own true selves.
 

 
Stretching her shapely leg across the screen, Tess adjusts her nylon stockings with all the allure of an Ava Gardner. Katharine is a temptress here, a role she had never played before. The famed couturier Gilbert Adrian, known simply as Adrian, carefully veiled over the eccentric Hepburn of the past with gowns designed to flatter her small waist and long legs. The stylist Sydney Guilaroff spun Kate’s hair into gold thread. Her skin was burnished to its highest sheen by the makeup artist Jack Dawn. Thirty-four-year-old Katharine Hepburn emerged, for the first time really, as a classical movies star, something not even The Philadelphia Story had succeeded to do.
 

How do you like that for a baseball game? A white day clutch and checked coat with matching gloves and wide brimmed hat.

In a collarless, belted tailored jacket.


 
Tess is wearing all sorts of hats in almost every scene of the movie. This is such a beautiful coat, a clean and elegant line, again collarless, paired with a dotted hat and long gloves.
 
Her poise! So noble and composed.


 
Tess wearing a gorgeous tweed cloak, with side slits. Adrian had already designed a black velvet cloak for his first muse, Greta Garbo, for Mata Hari in 1931, foreseeing the trend that would emerge five years later of long cloaks, reworked by French designers.
 


 
Adrian put Katharine in a velvet smoking jacket with embroidery adorned fastening system, 20 years before the historic collection in which Yves Saint Laurent “invented” the women’s tuxedo. The designer was again ahead of the times, as velvet became very popular in the ’50s.

Katharine’s slacks had once caused consternation, but now the newspapers began to write that “every girl in her right mind” was wearing slacks. Hepburn’s empowering attitude and revolutionary style made masculine look elegant and prompted every woman to follow her example and every designer be inspired by her. “Hepburn’s presence is always more radical than her films” and “this suggests why she is so important: her presence forces her films to go in directions they cannot possibly follow, adopt strategies they cannot fully sustain, raise issues they cannot adequately resolve,” says Andrew Britton. And I believe that when Hepburn emerges in trousers and a velvet smoking jacket, she is more Katharine Hepburn than Tess Harding. Adrian was ahead of the times, and Katharine was too. They were a perfect fit.
 

A dressing gown made up of black macro polka dot trousers and blouse. In an image from the set, Katharine appears wearing this costume while she is sitting down on the floor, leopard print heels on, smoking a cigarette, and flanked by George Cukor, Joe Mankiewicz and George Stevens. She simply looks cool, and in her element.


 
When watching this movie, one should pay attention to the way Katharine moves across the room in this scene. A lesson in style. Why don’t they teach that in school? In Woman of the Year, the age-old conflict between men and women takes on quite profound implications. While the first half of the movie is fun and sexy, the second half often feels dated to audiences today, especially when Ellen Whitcomb (Fay Bainter), her aunt and a woman of career Tess has always looked up to, gets married and draws the conclusion that no woman should be “above marriage” and Tess realises that having a career and a happy marriage aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
 


 
Tess is wearing a pinafore dress, with side slits, and a white blouse with scalloped detailing front and back, starting from the neckline. She is wearing it while she is trying, unsuccessfully (a spectacle for the audience), to cook breakfast for her man whom she wants to surprise. Sam finally reassures her that he doesn’t want to domesticate her on every front. He must know she will do as she pleases – taming her passion in order to remain herself, but learning that “love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get – only with what you are expecting to give – which is everything,” as Katharine would confess about her relationship with Spencer long after he had passed away.
 


 

images: stills from “Woman of the Year”, captured by me; kindly link back to classiq if you use any of these images / production credits
sources for this article: the book “Kate: The Woman Who Was Katharine Hepburn”, by William J. Mann, and vogue.it; Might I add that Vogue Italia has one of the best websites in fashion?

Posted by classiq in Film costume | | 2 Comments
30 August 2011

Artist Kimia Kline

Today I have the pleasure of presenting artist Kimia Kline, whose beautiful paintings I’ve discovered only recently, but which immediatly captured my eye and interest and gave me the impulse to approach Kimia to share her insights on her wonderful work. Kimia’s paintings have been exhibited in the US and all over the world, they have been published in numerous art and literary magazines and have won international acclaim in various art competitions. Her portofolio includes oil, watercolour and ink paintings, as well as drawings: “I love them all because each medium has its own strengths and weaknesses.”

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, and currently living in Chennai, India, Kimia has travelled the world and lived in many countries like Israel, Japan, Ecuador and Costa Rica, each of them indelibly influencing her paintings in so many different ways: “Japan has definitely been the place that’s influenced my aesthetics the most. Living there was an incredible education in design, balance, and beauty.”

Kimia has an amazing sense of style and design, she sees the fashion world as one of the greatest inspirations for her work, towards it she feels “a simultaneous adoration and criticism”  that she tries to capture in her paintings:
My paintings are inspired by the beauty and ugliness that exist in the fashion world/media. In most fashion ads we see women that look the exact same in terms of skin color and body type, and we are taught that this is the “ideal” image of female beauty. 95% of the time we see models that represent only 5% of what humanity looks like, and this phenomenon is kind of insane when you think about it. What was most interesting to me about living in so many different countries is that in every single country, the women wanted to look like white, Caucasian models. In India there is a cream called “fair and lovely” that bleaches your skin to make it lighter. And in the States we see rampant rates of eating disorders affecting young girls as early as age 8 and 9. Women (and men) around the world are experiencing global brainwashing in regards to beauty, and as a Persian woman that does not fit into the “ideal”, I find this really disturbing and wish more people would wake up and notice what was going on. In many ways I guess you could say the frustration I feel towards popular notions of beauty inspires my work.

About the painters, artists, people who influence her work:
The artists that influence me are constantly changing, but currently I’m loving Dasha Shishkin, Natalie Frank, Marlene Dumas, Vanessa Beecroft, and Fairfield Porter.

Kimia is also a film maker. As the huge film lover that I am I had to ask her to tell me a little more about her film projects:
The film project I’m most proud of is a short documentary I did on my family’s escape from Iran in the early 1980s when the Revolution took place. We are members of the Baha’i Faith, which is the largest religious minority of Iran and is unfortunately heavily persecuted there. The piece I made recounts the events leading up to my grandfather’s execution in 1982. It was a really special project for me to undertake because it allowed me to sit down with members of my family and conduct interviews, as well as collaborate with other Iranian artists, musicians, and writers. You can watch it here.

Thank you, Kimia, for accepting my invitation. You can find out more about Kimia and her complete portfolio on her site, Kimia Kline, and blog, alkeemi.

images: courtesy of Kimia Kline

Posted by classiq in Art, Interviews | | 16 Comments
11 August 2011

Talking Film Costume: Rita Hayworth in “Gilda”

The song Put the Blame on Mame that Rita Hayworth sings twice in Gilda (1946) is a sarcastic apprehension of the way women are considered responsible for the disasters caused by the men who become obsessed with them. There are hardly a few takes in the entire film in which Gilda appears on her own, not close to a man. It’s one of the elements used by director Charles Vidor to build up her character. Another one if the voice-over of Johnny Farrell/Glenn Ford that informs us of Gilda, mainly from his negative point of view. And yet another one is the glamorous wardrobe she wears, which helps consolidate the image of femme fatale in this classic film noir.
 

 
The costumes were designed by Jean Louis, the famous head designer at Columbia Pictures, who collaborated with Rita on nine movies. His creations complemented Hayworth’s figure and he had an important contribution to her fashion trend-setting image. One of the most beautiful actresses of all time (and the wife of Orson Welles for a brief period of time), Rita Hayworth is enigmatic and radiant in Gilda, a role that fitted her like a glove. Gilda is casino owner Ballin Mundson’s newly wife. But she is also a woman with a past, a passionate and troubled past she shares with Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford), an itinerant gambler who has become Ballin’s right hand and whom she meets again after she marries. Rita and Glenn had an amazing chemistry on-screen and their characters’ love-hate relationship is responsible for a big part of the tension throughout the movie. There is also the way black and white filming captures a beautiful face and the depth of a scene that colour is simply impossible to do.

 


 
“Gilda, are you decent?”, her husband asks knocking at the door of her boudoir, accompanied by Johnny.
“Me?”, she answers in a feline and coquettish gesture, smiling and tossing with her hair.

For Gilda, Jean Louis created daring, sensual gowns in luxurious silk, satin, metallic and transparent fabrics, transforming Rita Hayworth into a screen goddess, but more importantly for the plot, into a femme fatale. From her diaphanous, light-weight, off-the-shoulders négligée, to the evening dress decorated with gold bead stripes, with beautifully contoured shoulders and pleated from the knee below, to the gorgeous halter-neck, draped grecian evening dress with a beaded midriff and matching bracelet, and another timeless grecian style dress, for day this time, with a studded belt and padded shoulders, Gilda projects an overt sexuality, not just through clothes, but through movement, too.
 

 


 

 

 

 

The Gaucho costume she wears at the carnival is exactly that, just a costume.

 

 
After Mundson’s supposed death, she marries Johnny in a black suit. It’s the typical fashion style of the ’40s, but a strange choice for the event yet very suggestive for the plot, and this was the idea. She wears another suit, a very formal, well-tailored pinstriped one paired with a crisp white blouse, further down the plot, and what is interesting about her clothes after her marriage to Johnny is that even her evening wear, although still glamorous, becomes less sensuous and more structured, less radiant and mysterious, and more femme fatale.
 

 

She is trying to escape her marriage with Johnny, but finds out that she can not.
Notice the irony: “libre” written inside the taxi cab, which means free” in Spanish (the story takes place in Argentina).


 


 
But it’s the black satin dress – strapless and side-slit down to the ground, with a huge bow at the hip, and paired with high above the elbow black satin gloves – worn in a memorable scene of the movie, in which Gilda is singing and improvises a quick striptease that has made film history. With a single-glove striptease, Rita Hayworth had the power to seduce every single man in the audience. On her, the black satin dress was irresistible, fiercely femme fatale, a fashion trend-setter and the image of a star being born, all at the same time.
 

 

images: film stills. Columbia Pictures

Posted by classiq in Film costume | | Comments Off on Talking Film Costume: Rita Hayworth in “Gilda”
3 August 2011

Romy Schneider: A Portrait

This portrait is one of my favourites of Romy Schneider. It’s by artist Andreas Reimann. It’s called Romy Classic and it’s part of his series Hommage to Romy Schneider: “This face, what I call the ‘Romy Classic’ never let go of me. Is it sad? Filled with pride or arrogance? Does she have a slight smile on her lips…?  Her mysterious face has often been compared with the look of Mona Lisa.”

photo: Pop art by Andreas Reimann

Posted by classiq in Art | | 20 Comments