Classiq - An online journal that celebrates cinema, culture, style and storytelling.

26 November 2018

It’s Cold Outside: The Style of Llewyn Davis

Oscar Isaac in “Inside Llewyn Davis”, 2013 (CBS Films/StudioCanal)

On the backdrop of a grey winter sky and blackening slush, a stiff and uncomfortable Bob Dylan is trudging down Jones Street of Greenwich Village astride his then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo. He is venturing out into the cold squinting against a harsh wind without hat or scarf, shrugging his shoulders and withdrawing his neck into a thin mustard suede jacket, with his hands thrust into the pockets of his blue jeans for warmth, while he and Rotolo are curving towards each other in search of the same much sought after warmth. This image, shot by Don Hunstein, is the cover of the musician’s “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” album, released in 1963, one of the most recognizable album covers of all time. Bob Dylan’s singularity of impact throughout the decades has to do not only with his music, but with his image, too. And his look on this album cover is part of that laid-back, unassuming, totally individual, with a thrift store quality image that helped define the visual tone of the music scene in downtown New York during the 1960s, a look that soon spread across America.

Oscar Isaac in “Inside Llewyn Davis”, 2013 (CBS Films/StudioCanal)

“Inside Llewyn Davis” (2013), written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, is set in the biting winter of 1961. Everything is grey, windswept and bleak. The story, which lasts no more than a few days, takes place in New York, with a brief excursion to Chicago, on the pre-Dylan Greenwich Village folk music scene. Bruno Delbonnel, the cinematographer, admits that that moody Bob Dylan album cover photo influenced the look and overall palette of the movie about the misadventures of a beatnik in the Greenwich Village of 1961. The film however, although not a biopic, drew on certain aspects of another folk singer, Dave Van Ronk, according to the Coen brothers in an interview with Terry Gross, “probably the biggest person on the scene in 1961 in the folk revival in Greenwich Village, the biggest person on the scene until Bob Dylan showed up”.

Oscar Isaac’s Llewyn Davis paces the frosty city streets in a caramel corduroy jacket, and, for want of a coat, a knitted scarf looped and knotted around his neck, tan chukka boots and grey trousers. He is a struggling folk singer who can not catch a break. He is very good, but not great. And his clothes, which he never changes, manage to convey the desperate nature of his character. It’s winter, but he doesn’t have a coat, his jacket has slouched pockets to make him look worn out – most of the character’s clothes were handmade by Mary Zophres, the costume designer, and her crew – and his weathered shoes were found in a box from an old ad.

Downtown New York of the period, where folk music was sneaking its way through the epicenter of New York’s 1960s counterculture movement, “was more about a certain authenticity, so we wanted a limited palette. Plus, the film takes place in the winter, and artists living downtown didn’t have as much to work with, especially in terms of clothes and money. We wanted to convey that it was a difficult time for Llewyn, a poor folk singer trying to make it,” Zophres said.

Oscar Isaac in “Inside Llewyn Davis”, 2013 (CBS Films/StudioCanal)

Just looking at Llewyn’s clothes you feel his vulnerability and despair, and that is the power of costume design, helping the actor get into character, for whomever still doubted it. And maybe you have never been that cold and miserable in the dead of winter, but that feeling of being just barely not good enough, that, I guess, is something we all can relate to or fear at one point or another in our lives. There is something universal about the character of Llewyn Davis and his style and that’s what has stuck with me.

Oscar Isaac in “Inside Llewyn Davis”, 2013 (CBS Films/StudioCanal)

But there is something else I appreciate about the style in “Inside Llewyn Davis”. That it feels current, decidedly 2010s. It is this exact element that I try to find in the movies of previous decades, fashion-wise: a look that can be easily replicated nowadays, maybe with only few changes. These are the classics.

Left: “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” album cover photographed by Don Hunstein
Right: “Inside Llewyn Davis” film poster (CBS Films/StudioCanal)

sources: interviews with costume designer Mary Zophres for Boston Globe, The Hollywood Reporter; Terry Gross’ Fresh Air podcast with the Coen Brothers

Posted by classiq in Film costume | | Comments Off

20 November 2018

Editorial: Every Day Is Opening Night

Gena Rowlands in ”Opening Night” (1977) | Faces Distribution

The Editorial: thoughts, short stories
or essays about the world of cinema

It is one of the best films about an actor’s life and work. There have been other great movies about the world of theater or film – All about Eve (1950), A Star Is Born (1954), Birdman (2014) – but John Cassavetes’ Opening Night (1977) lays bare the drama of an actor and the all-consuming act of acting like no other.

Myrtle Gordon (superbly played by Gena Rowlands) is a star actress in the prime of life, performing in out-of-town previews of a new play in which, for the first time, she will play an older woman. Ben Gazzara plays the director, Joan Blondell is the playwright, and Cassavetes himself plays the leading man. Myrtle wreaks psychodramatic improvisations upon the text, she gets drunk, chain-smokes, sows chaos among her colleagues because nobody knows why she acts this way. You, the viewer, do not easily identify with Myrtle either and that’s exactly what Cassavetes wanted to prevent. Cassavetes’ films are about life, emotions, feelings. But life is not simple. This is a harrowing and profound film that makes you think. “You have to fight knowing, because once you know something, it’s hard to be open and creative; it’s a form of passivity – something to guard against,” the director said.

The entire film has a loose, fluid shooting style, it’s like you can not really tell whether what you see is Cassavetes and the actors backstage rehearsing and improvising or the actual movie – this was a director who always took the risk of being an original. But in the last scene, when Myrtle comes in late, drunk, for the opening night of the play, Cassavetes and all his players appear to have genuinely improvised it (something the filmmaker often did), in front of a theatre full of extras playing the audience. It is a brilliant all-the-world’s-a-stage effect.

Myrtle is alone, she’s on her own, she has no family, no responsibility than her own, and is in desperate fear of losing the vulnerability she feels she needs as an actress. That’s her whole life, being an actress. “I have no family, no kids. This is my life. This is it for me,” she says desperately at one point. And she goes to extreme lengths to keep that vulnerability. And she hangs on to it, she hangs onto her ideas. She knows that the only measure of her success, and of her life, is what she can create and express on stage. And that if she can not do that, she’s lost. She’s very honest to herself, she doesn’t go along with the crowd, she doesn’t want to accept someone else’s point of view, she wants to find her own answers. And she goes after them unapologetically. That she succeeds in the end, that she redeems her role, is very moving and hopeful. “An actor is a very loyal person to life, a person who fights against all odds to make something work and doesn’t want to be fed a lot of lies,” said John Cassavetes. I think every person should apply this to their own life. The only measure of someone’s success is being authentic and true to oneself.

Posted by classiq in Editorial, Film | | Comments Off

16 November 2018

When Art Meets Fashion: Interview with Marguerite Bartherotte

Artist Marguerite Bartherotte, in her atelier in Cap Ferret

I believe in style. But I believe in style in a bigger context. Because style is something that permeates every aspect of our life. And I want to highlight originality and individuality and expressivity.

G.Kero, founded by brother and sister Phillipe and Marguerite Bartherotte, is the kind of brand that harnersses that singular beauty vibe that makes the difference between fashion and style. The kind of brand that creates clothes as to showcase unique beings (the wearers) in the world, who live life as a conscient choice. The kind of brand that likes to push boundaries, while embracing comfort and beauty. The kind of brand that keeps its artistic perspective and only makes limited edition collections.

In this world of mass consumption and impulse buying, G.Kero stands apart through its commitment to true style, mankind and the planet. It reminds us that we need to educate ourselves and redefine our concepts of need and desire. That we’d rather spend our time tending to happiness than chasing and replacing fast fashion.

Whilst searching for a fresh alternative to traditional gallery canvases, artist Marguerite Bartherotte turned her hands to fashion. She makes fashion that lasts (the fact that G.Kero carries a permanent collection says a lot in this regard), fashion that makes a statement not only through creativity but also through the message it seems to carry: follow your convictions and instinct, not the trends, be yourself – that woman who likes to wear an original drawing or painting on her shirt instead of a pattern.

I have recently talked to Marguerite about the brand, the artist, how she discovered art as a kid and her favourite film.

”The biggest challenge is also to refuse
to get rich as a goal in itself.”

Tell me a little bit about the story behind your brand. How did it come to be? How did you start merging art with fashion?
I was already a painter/drawer when I was young. I grew up doing that. When I was 21, I was studying cartoon at La Cambre in Brussels because I found out that movement in art was very attractive. I escaped school at 22 and started G.Kero. I had had enough with it. At that time, my brother Philippe was in Rio and asked me to do some drawings to print his own t-shirts. He spent months there and he was always wearing a simple t-shirt. He was frustrated because as it was his daily outfit, he couldn’t find one right for him. As for me, the idea was to escape from the virtual world and jump into the real one. My drawings will not be seen behind a screen but on people. It’s like a revenge for me.

If you could capture the essence of G.Kero in one sentence, how would you describe it?
G.Kero is an artistical reaction to the environment.

Who do you design for? Who is the G.Kero woman?
I design for everybody, cats and dogs. The G.Kero woman can be found in one of them, she looks free from what’s going on in the fashion world.

The book “Adieu l’Afrique” by Mirella Ricciardi was your first source of inspiration, at a very early age. Are there any other books/artists that have influenced you along the way? How did you continue to pursue your interest in art?
Of course there are lots of books or paintings or whatever, even if not consciously. I was a kid. Picasso, Matisse, Miro, Rembrandt, Walt Disney’s characters, such as Mowglie, Basquiat, my mother’s photographs of us, and my older brothers’ and sisters’ drawings. I was crazy about them. I have never reached a stronger emotion regarding art since discovering their drawings when I was 6, hahaha! When you are bitten as a kid, I guess you open the art channel for life so it goes on and on and on with every different artist you meet on your way.

You paint directly on fabric. How difficult was it to master this technique?
It was first easy when it was just black and white drawings, a line on a t-shirt with a pencil. I found more difficulties when it eventually became a painting with details and different layers, etc. Painting on fabrics needs lots of patience, but as I don’t like complicated things, I think I kept it simple enough. I simplify what I would do on paper. In time, I’ve developed a painting style which is done for clothes. But, you know, I mostly print my artwork, I paint or draw on paper and then it is printed all over the fabric. It is very interesting because I don’t know where it will actually end up. I try not to control to make magic happen.

The G.Kero clothes are made of cotton, cashmere or silk and are crafted in the best family workshops in Portugal. What’s the biggest challenge of a socially conscious fashion brand?
The biggest challenge would eventually be to still exist in a hundred years. When you spend more money than you win with a little brand, you can’t stay on forever. If you bring beauty into this world, you will have to fight; on the contrary, if you make business, there is always a place for you. We have to be able to make both art and business to make art exist. It would be to create clothes that last for years, too. It is to be the contrary of Zara or H&M. You can give your shirt to your daughter years after because the quality is good.

The biggest challenge is also to refuse to become rich as a goal in itself. I’d like success to let us go that way. It is bound to bring quality to this world.

”To me, beautiful living is to create …
or to be free to do what you want to do.
To be able to think. Lots of people are sheep
and seem to ignore it. It’s scary.”

The textile industry and its products have shaped the contemporary world more than anything else. The disposal of textile waste is one of the biggest preoccupations we have at the moment. How do you see the future of fashion? Do you think there is a significatly increased interest in the locally-made, in craftsmanship and mindful shopping or do you think it will take mass action to curb our addiction to mass-produced, cheap products? And what do you think is the first thing every individual should do in order to address this issue, any tip that may help someone else just starting out on their sustainable journey?
I think that the future of fashion will be paradoxal as the reflexion of our society. On one hand, you’ll see more and more shops of the kind of Zara opening, and they steal the original ideas of young creators like me, and, on the other hand, you will see new locally made or small production little brands like us. I think that, unfortunately, the bad education and this massive monster which is consummerism will lead us to the end. I think that people should only buy clothes that last and that are produced in factories where poor people are not exploited to increase rentability. That way, Zara, Topshop and H&M would close soon.

The clothes you design have a carefree, joyous, distinctive attitude, an attitude that’s transmitted through your campaigns as well. They remind me of the fashion of the late 80s-early 90s, when designers, models and people still had fun with fashion, when women wore the clothes, not the other way around, when individuality still mattered. Have women stopped having fun with fashion?
Of course not! I can see lots of women around me happy to meet G.Kero. Maybe they have a reaction to the boring propositions they are surrounded by. Sometimes there is a contre-pieds to the massive tendency. It’s enough for us to live on.

We live in a hectic world and more and more people are trying to go back to basics, to find a balance, to live mindfully. Your art and your clothes seem to carry this message of living simply and expressing yourself freely. What does beautiful living mean to you?
It’s a big question! To me, beautiful living is to create … or to be free to do what you want to do. To be able to think. Lots of people are sheep and seem to ignore it. It’s scary.
It can also be just to do things in a positive mood, whatever you do.
I think that your life is beautiful when what you do brings you lucky things.
We can see the whole life like a giant picture, and see if there is harmony and colours in it… I do this often. When you keep on exchanging with people, when you travel to see and hear and feel different cultures, you enlarge your world and make it flamboyant.

Speaking of a multicultural background, you grew up in Cap Ferret in France, went to school in Belgium and have lived in Paris. How has each place informed you creatively?
Very, very differently, but in a logical continuation. Cap Ferret was the most important one because it was simple: to draw in my room and to read were my only temptation. No cinéma, no Disneyland, no music, no football, no zoo, etc.

My mother had 7 children and we grew up quite free. If you got bored because you didn’t find any activity, no one was finding it for you. Once I came to my mother to tell her I had nothing to do, and she answered: “you can work in the garden… “. From that day I preferred to invent stories in my room. She sent me to Rome when I was 18 after the bacc and I was painting a lot. Afterwards I entered a school in Brussels for 2 years and it changed me a lot. I didn’t want to enter the gallery world anymore because it’s not fun. I needed my art to be more entertaining and more involved in the concrete life. It’s fun that my brother asked me to make some t-shirts at that moment. I was more than ready to create G.Kero… And he gave me the kick to do it.

What advice would you give someone with their own idea or dream?
Flow with your deeper energy. If you crash, it’s no big deal!

”The last good movie I’ve watched was The Kid
by Charlie Chaplin. It’s the most poetic and cutest thing
that’s happened to me at the cinema.”

What does style mean to you?
Style happens when the elegance in you looks like yours and it will never be boring to look at you. Fashion passes, style stays.

You feel your best dressed in:
Whatever… If I feel good when my body feels good. I like comfortable clothes. But I can’t go out if I have no style! Let’s do both.
I’m happy we don’t wear corsets anymore!
I usualy wear high-size pants and a long coat in winter, with a colourful silk scarf.
The best in summer would be something very light: short pants and a large blouse attached au dessus de la taille. Happy when the wind enters my shirt …
When I have the colours that match together…
Lots of possibilities, that’s why it’s very hard to answer briefly.

What is your one favourite thing to do in Cap Ferret/Paris and which you would miss if you lived anywhere else in the world?
If I left Cap Ferret, I would miss the direct communication with all G.Kero fans that come to my atelier. The beautiful place I got. If I left Paris, I would miss all those crazy healthy food places.

One thing you can not start the day without:
I need some light! When the sky is blue, it helps!

So where would we find you when not working?
Ooh, travelling everywhere, all the time! As much as possible. In the nature, of course, and as often as possible. I like Bidart (South-West coast, France), Portugal, Italy, Sicily …

I am a film lover and I have to ask: do you have a favourite movie? What about the latest good film you’ve watched?
Les enfants du Paradis. Because the French poet Jacques Prévert wrote the dialogue and it’s brilliant. The actors are something that doesn’t exist anymore. It’s very tasty and deep. It’s art.

The last good movie I’ve watched, and I’m happy you asked, was The Kid by Charlie Chaplin. It’s a masterpiece of cinema muet for me. The way Chaplin and the kid move in that film is so talented and amusing that it brings a sensation of fulfillment. It’s the most poetic and cutest thing that’s happened to me at the cinema. It made me happy for many days.

I completely agree with you, Marguerite, about Les enfants du Paradis, and about The Kid, too. The artistic part is something very rare in cinema today and that’s why I will probably always favour classic films over contemporary films. The values were different back then, too. In this time and age, what do you wish people appreciated more?
Elegance and taste. And expressivity!

What makes you happy at the end of the day?
To share something with a friend or somebody I like. For example, that movie!

gkero.fr | Instagram: @gkeroparis

photos: courtesy of G.Kero

Posted by classiq in Fashion, Interviews | | 2 Comments

12 November 2018

The Films that Made Me: Lost in Translation

“Lost in Translation” (2003) | Focus Features

Some of my favourite creatives and cinephiles share a favourite movie experience:
the film that left a mark on them, that changed them, that influenced them
personally, creatively or both.

Film: Lost in Translation (2003)
Written & Directed by Sofia Coppola
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Bill Murray and Giovanni Ribisi

Words by: Heidi Wellington

Watching Lost in Translation has always been comforting. There is something soothing about Sofia Coppola’s story of two lost souls in a foreign land, meeting as strangers and parting as friends. It has always tempted my curiosity for travelling alone and stepping outside my comfort zone in a far-off place. It is a film I turn to whenever I want to return to that feeling.

The friendship formed between the two lost souls, Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) and Bob (Bill Murray) is serendipitous, they are both searching for some kind of change in their lives but are not sure what that is. Both seem disappointed, even depressed with where they’re at, as if standing on the edge of a cliff and yet unable to jump.

Charlotte is a young American college graduate, travelling with her work-obsessed photographer husband John (Giovanni Ribisi), also an American. Charlotte and Bob, both struggling with insomnia, meet one night in the bar of the hotel they are both staying in. Bob too is American, a successful actor and is much older than Charlotte. He is in Tokyo to film a lucrative advertising commercial for Suntory Whiskey.

Lost in Translation is what I like to describe as “a quiet movie”. Coppola included scenes with no musical score, just the sounds of the scene, and we linger with Charlotte or Bob as if we are voyeurs, creating a deep sense of intimacy. Each time I watch it, I am left wanting more from my own life, and it leaves me with a sense of wanderlust. The film conveys a sense of reality, with both the acting and the writing, maybe because it doesn’t follow the lines of a typical story arc. This originality struck a chord with critics which led to Coppola’s Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (she was also nominated for Best Director).

People don’t often “get” this movie (in my experience), they say “there’s no point to it, nothing happens”. It’s true, it’s subtle and uncomplicated, even though sometimes we’re not really sure what’s going on in a scene because of the language barrier since Coppola has chosen not to use subtitles. The actors convey their frustration so well that we feel it too. Bob speaks no Japanese and his experience with both the Japanese director and the inept translator when he is filming the Suntory Whiskey commercial is perfect, it conveys everybody’s confusion with the language barrier and because there are no subtitles, we too wonder what was left unsaid by the translator. It’s awkward, but incredibly funny.

Charlotte is beautifully played by Scarlett Johansson. Her husky voice, her softness and vulnerable youth as she braves the Tokyo subway, exploring the city and finding her way to a temple, observing the locals living their day-to-day lives.

The soundtrack is typical Sofia Coppola, each song has been thoughtfully chosen and they remain with you long after the movie ends. In the final scene, Bob hugs Charlotte and whispers something to her before they part. We are not privy to the words he speaks, we are not meant to hear what is said. They part and go their separate ways. Are they changed from their brief Tokyo friendship? I think so, although we’ll never know what Bob whispered to Charlotte but whatever he said, I think it gave her hope.

Heidi Wellington is a mother, wife, yoga teacher and writer.
She is a coffee and chocolate lover, she likes reading memoirs and is a film enthusiast,
with an interest in Old Hollywood history. Her biggest goal in life is to travel often to
far-off places. At the moment, Heidi is working on a memoir of her year-long yoga
teacher training experience. She lives on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia,
with her husband and two teenage daughters. You can subscribe to Heidi’s newsletter,
When the Schnecken Beckons, here, and you can find her on Instagram here.

Posted by classiq in Film, The films that made me | | Comments Off

9 November 2018

Time for Tweed: Julie Christie in “Don’t Look Now”

Fashion and fiction intertwine.

Julie Christie in “Don’t Look Now | Casey Productions, Eldorado Films

“Eschewing the normal rules of commercial entertainment, Roeg’s films deal in raw emotion, shaking our preconceptions about civilisation and cinema. His aesthetic is founded on a masterly montage of time and space and elliptical narratives through which his character’s are cut adrift from their usual moral and physical surroundings,” writes Jason Wood in the introduction to his interview with director Nicolas Roeg, included in the book Talking Movies: Contemporary World Filmmakers in Interview. Here is a director who has never story-boarded anything, who likes the idea of chance, who likes to do things differently and who believes in the audience, in their coming to the movies with an open mind.

Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973) remains the template for using decaying Venice as metaphor for the psychological disintegration of its characters. Venice has never looked more melancholic and alienating. Often regarded as one of the best British films of all time, Nicolas Roeg’s tragedy, set in off-season Venice, works with grief just as acutely as it works with supernaturally charged thriller elements, to devastating effect.

Julie Christie in “Don’t Look Now | Casey Productions, Eldorado Films

In 1967, Times Magazine observed of Julie Christie, “what Julie Christie wears has more real impact on fashion than all the clothes of the ten best-dressed women combined.” I like to say the same thing about films: you can find more inspiration in movies than in what the best dressed women of the moment wear. Julie Christie’s style, on and off screen, has remained ingrained in the collective imagination just as much her memorable roles (“the most poetic of actresses,” is how Al Pacino called her). She made a first huge impact with a passing appearance in Billy Liar (1963) and was immediately catapulted to Vogue style status. She soon found stardom with her roles in Dr Zhivago (1965) and Far from the Madding Crowd (1967). Few films have had a comparable influence on fashion as David Lean’s Dr Zhivago. It was the 1960s, the heyday of the mini skirt and frilly, feminine shapes, and yet, the maxi coats, the longer hemlines and the sober, military tailoring were rushed into fashion as a result of Lara’s wardrobe in the film.

Julie Christie in “Don’t Look Now | Casey Productions, Eldorado Films

In Don’t Look Now, Julie Christie’s Laura Baxter wears so many timeless pieces and the film marks one of those rare moments when the female character’s clothes have dated so much better than her male counterpart’s (played by Donald Sutherland) and that is an accomplishment in itself. Naturally, Christie’s clothes, in dark tones and heavy fabrics worn one on top of another, are a reflection of her character, the surroundings and of what she is going through. It’s late autumn and everything is grey and misty and on the edge of frost, and Laura has suffered an unimaginable loss. Roeg uses dark earth tones entirely, but precisely introduces bright red splashes now and then throughout the plot, from a glass of red wine spilled on the table, to a shawl, a scarf, a poster on the wall or Julie’s red boots – colour becomes a link between past and future. It’s a startling visual effect accomplished entirely through a masterful use of colour. “I can’t think how anyone can become a director without learning the craft of cinematography,” the director says in the conversation with Jason Wood, and, watching Don’t Look Now, his words kept coming back to me. Being able to shoot their own film, that should be an intrinsic part of a director’s job.

Julie Christie in “Don’t Look Now | Casey Productions, Eldorado Films

The appeal of Julie Christie’s dress code however surpasses the film. The most timeless A-line skirts, knitted sweaters, cardigans, and especially the coats, from the trench to classic tweed blazers and outerwear pieces, whether in earthy plaid, black and white checks or herringbone, that she wears. But it is tweed that has never looked better in these late autumn days. Tweed coats have, in fact, never gone away. It’s an item you can wear over a blouse, rollerneck or knitted sweater, just as Laura does, over skirts, jeans or trouser suits. It’s elegant, but versatile and practical, too, it can be Ivy League-inspired, but I favour the British countryside-look. There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing, the saying goes. I agree. It’s time to embrace the cold season and layer upon layer of tweed, do up all the buttons, flip up the collar and brave the worst weather that nature can throw at you.

Posted by classiq in Film costume | | 1 Comment