The Hats of Barry Lyndon: A Style Supercut

We look under the brim to get inside the head of Stanley Kubrick's period masterpiece

By: wornette

When WORN held its redesign Indiegogo fundraiser last fall, the top perk for support was a style supercut of the bidder’s choosing. One of the supercuts was snapped up by Robert Everett-Green, writer at The Globe and Mail. His choice was a supercut of every hat from Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. Here, he explains why.

I was a bit disappointed with Barry Lyndon the first time I saw it. I couldn’t understand why Stanley Kubrick would busy himself with such a slow and stately period drama. But when I saw it again a few years later, I was amazed by its depth and beauty. Somehow I had overlooked every important thing about it the first time around.

Looking at the film on DVD, I kept playing and replaying scenes, trying to figure out what made them feel so saturated with life, sentiment, and meaning. Certain lines became magically evocative, haunting me later at odd moments. I would hear a voice in my mind saying, “Chevalier, though I cannot say how, I believe you have cheated me,” and the yellow light in the Chevalier’s sparse drawing room would come back to me, along with the sardonic tone of his royal victim, and the cheater’s puffed-up indignation. Or I would hear, “Mr. Lyndon, are you ready to receive Lord Bullingdon’s fire?”, and the brutal formality of the final dueling scene would return, and with it, the questioner’s flat civility, and the fluttering of birds under the roof of the out-building where the shooting took place.

I was also fascinated by long scenes in which faces engaged in silent dialogue at a gaming table, or troops waited in mute rows for the enemy to approach at walking pace. So much is said in this film without words, so much speaks that has no voice—which brings me to the costuming.

“Clothes called to clothes, cutting out words and greetings.” This wonderful line, from a memoir by the English historian Richard Cobb, could be an epigraph for Barry Lyndon. “Costume drama” is often a put-down, but in this film, the costumes do tell the story, and in an important sense are the drama. Barry Lyndon spends the entire film trying to push his way up through a society in which clothes transmitted everyone’s status at a glance. His story is that of a man struggling to assemble and maintain the right appearances. The aristocratic widow he manages to marry is so perfectly projected by her clothing that she hardly needs to do or say anything. What Lyndon doesn’t realize is that her inertia is proof she belongs, while his pushing creates an appearance that dooms all his efforts.

Daniel Reis’s supercut of the hats of Barry Lyndon charts the hero’s career through a single article of clothing, and for the most part, a single type: the tricorne, which was the dominant headgear for men for much of the eighteenth century. Lyndon’s rough country tricorne is succeeded by dashing military models (first English, then Prussian), then more aristocratic types with rich brocade. But the apex of his pretension is a baby’s bonnet, wide and flat and heaped with ribbons and plumes, worn by an infant son who is more aristocratic than he is. Barry’s round straw hat, worn at the boy’s lavish birthday party years later, shows that he has “made it” sufficiently to be able to play at dressing in rustic style. The women’s hats range from Mrs. Barry’s kerchief-like nightcap, to the almost crownless straws worn by the country women, to the plumed Gainsborough hats of Lady Lyndon, steeply perched on masses of curled hair.

Kubrick’s costume designers for Barry Lyndon were Milena Canonero and Ulla-Britt Söderlund, who won an Oscar for their work. (Amusingly, Canonero reused one of Lady Lyndon’s hats for Marie Antoinette (2006), for which she also won an Oscar.) But Kubrick told the French film critic Michel Ciment: “The costumes were all copied from paintings. None of the costumes were ‘designed.’” For him, apparently, churlishness in the defence of documentary realism was no vice. But the hats and costumes of Barry Lyndon are powerful not because they can be found in a museum, but because they’re in this film.

text // Robert Everett-Green
video // Daniel Reis

Birth of a Costume Designer

How Clare West revolutionized film fashions forever

By: Paulina Kulacz

There’s a mythical quality to the costumes worn in silent films. Maybe it’s the way the lighting hits them. Maybe it’s the Edwardian and flapper-esque cuts. Or maybe it’s just me, but the clothing always adds a special touch to the filmic experience. It’s surprising then that in the silent film era, costumes weren’t that important. Actors often wore their own clothing, a trend that continued well into the 1930s, and it was common for actors with better personal wardrobes to win better roles (a prime example: Lilian Gish had most of her costumes made by her mother). Things remained pretty much the same until Birth of a Nation, when director D.W. Griffith created Hollywood’s first costume department and hired film’s first-ever costume designer: Clare West.

Along with Birth of a Nation, Griffith later hired West to design for Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages. After making her name, she was hired by the great Cecil B. DeMille and created some of the most memorable costumes of the era. Despite working with the big names, West’s role as costume designer was less than glamorous. She received no credit for her work on Griffith’s films, and was left off the end credits in a few of Demille’s. Still, her costumes helped characters transcend the silent medium, allowing them to communicate through costume. Here are three of our favourite examples of her work:

1 // Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages, dir. D.W Griffith, 1916
An apologetic sequel to Birth of a Nation, Intolerance is a mighty long epic spanning four eras, each hundreds of years apart. It was West’s second and final film with Griffith, and while many of the ancient costumes West designed weren’t historically accurate, they left a lasting impression in both their evocative charm and complexity. Particularly striking were the scenes in ancient Babylon, where the Queen was decked out in ensembles that looked more Josephine Baker than anything ancient. The decadence worked perfectly with the over-the-top and complex scenery that Griffith employed, making everything appear larger than life.

My favourite character in Intolerance is the Mountain Girl. She is both jovial and brave, and takes shit from no one. She fights and dies for her city and doesn’t get plopped in to the role of helpless love interest (like most female characters of the era). West perfectly defines who Mountain Girl is through her spunky fruit head dress and leather armour, which is totally reminiscent of Xena: Warrior Princess—only 70-plus years ahead of Lucy Lawless’s time. Plus, she fights in a tin cone helmet. How can you not love her style?

2 // Male and Female, dir. Cecil B. DeMille, 1919
DeMille is famous for one quote: “Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.” True to form, his films never lacked outside-of-the-box flair. Many of his movies were popular because of their costumes, which were regularly designed by West. Male and Female was the first film they worked on, and West’s costumes were as over-the-top as the characters in the film. The outfits, particularly those of Gloria Swanson, epitomize the beginnings of the jazz age and the era’s obsession with luxury. The headpiece Swanson wears, and the beautiful silks she rocks, make you want to jump into this film and live like a 1920s aristocrat.

3 // The Affairs of Anatol, dir. Cecil B. DeMille, 1921
For this film, West created one of her most iconic costumes for actress Bebe Daniels: a dress in the shape of an octopus. The outfit’s whimsy flawlessly captures the unique visual creativity of Demille’s films. Daniels plays the cool Satan Synne, a high-class prostitute with a chilly demeanor, armed with a bat-shaped dressing table in her sensual boudoir. Despite not getting a lot of screen time, she is totally eligible for the title of “Grandmother of Goths.”

Fly Girls and Fresh Princes

A style supercut of the freshest early-'90s fashion

By: Daniel Reis

In the 14th episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air our hero Will Smith finds himself bored with his new private school uniform. He discovers that the lining of his blazer is far more interesting and, in my earliest childhood memory of watching the show, flips it inside out. Throughout the entire run of the show, Will never shies away from flamboyant clothing. It compliments his personality perfectly: his candor, his confidence, and his insistence on never entirely fitting into his new surroundings.

This supercut celebrates the vibrant colours and vivid patterns of the wardrobes seen in films and TV shows between 1989 and 1992: Do the Right Thing, White Men Can’t Jump, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and In Living Color. The influence of grunge had not yet taken hold of popular culture, and I’m sad that we couldn’t have staved it off for a little longer. I prefer Wesley Snipes’s low tanks and cycling hats in White Men Can’t Jump to muddy flannels and ripped jeans any day of the week.

Another reason to savour this era was the abundance of Rosie Perez. In White Men Can’t Jump she made hoop earrings work for any occasion, be it rollerblading in Venice Beach or fulfilling her dream of appearing on Jeopardy! She introduced boxing gloves as a fashion accessory in the opening credits of Do the Right Thing. Her style influence no doubt extended to the Fly Girls of In Living Color, where she was the choreographer for the first four seasons. It’s a Herculean task to pick just one favourite look, but the lime green scarf with the floral print dress holds a special place in my heart.

So travel back with me to a fresher, more fly era. A time of scrunchies, spandex, and suspenders. When people wore their personalities not just on their sleeves, but on their knuckle rings as well.

video and text // Daniel Reis
title design // Jackie Hudson

A Queen of Hearts in a House of Cards

The world's greatest collection of pencil skirts (and spoilers) ahead

By: Haley Mlotek

When Netflix decided they wanted to create an original television series, they had two things: buckets full of money and unprecedented access to the viewing patterns of all Netflix customers. They knew that Netflix watchers liked Kevin Spacey, they liked political dramas, they liked the original British series House of Cards—I like to imagine a Netflix executive listing all these elements in a board meeting, gesturing with his hands, and then putting his hands together. “Synergy, man,” he would say to the nods and raised eyebrows of his fellow business associates. And then maybe they would all laugh maniacally before getting David Fincher on the phone.

While I have no problem dismissively reducing the bare elements of House of Cards to metadata and previous viewing patterns, the truth is, I love the show. Kevin Spacey plays a malicious, vindictive politician (is there another kind?) hellbent on destroying the careers of the people between him and the presidency. The first episode begins with him killing a wounded dog. On a moral scale, the show only goes downhill from there.

But what can I say? I love a trashy soap, especially a beautifully lit and exceptionally well-acted highbrow trashy soap. There’s no convoluted political drama too outlandish for me. And there’s no character I love more than Claire Underwood.

Playing Kevin Spacey’s wife, Robin Wright is an absolute and perfect queen amongst mere mortals. Wright plays her like an iceberg: ostensibly cold and unyielding, her lines of dialogue are sparse, clipped, and contain miles of meaning below the surface. Her smiles are few and far between and seem reserved for business associates (or business-like transactions within her own marriage). I’m not even sure if I’m supposed to like Claire. The very first episode shows her pressuring her office manager to fire half the staff at her non-profit organization. The office manager resists every step of the way, but does it to please Claire. Once the office manager has completed her task, Claire fires her.

After repeated viewings with many pauses to consider Robin Wright’s complete and flawless beauty, I started to wonder: is Claire Underwood the only character on House of Cards with a symbolic wardrobe?

When you have a television show that seeks to expose the highest levels of modern American government, there’s no room for creative liberties. We all know what politicians look and dress like. Their clothes are conservative and boring as hell. The colour palette is black, navy, gray, and white, with tasteful hints of red. Accessories are flag pins for men, delicate Tiffany earrings for women. Shoes are leather loafers and sensible heels, always black. Even the journalists wear a kind of uniform on House of Cards—sweatshirts, jeans, simple tight dresses and fuck-me heels when the occasion calls for them.

Of course Claire has patterns. As befits the wife of a prominent politician, she does subscribe to the unofficial dress code. Her colour palette is almost exclusively black, white, navy, and grey. She likes crisp button down shirts, thick-rimmed black glasses, crewneck dresses with t-shirt sleeves, pencil skirts, blazers, and silk blouses. She likes all these things to be tight. Her shoes are black Louboutins. Nothing about her wardrobe seems out of the ordinary. But I work at WORN—I know there’s always more to an outfit than our first impressions.

If I had to guess what Claire Underwood thinks of herself, I would say she considers her body a temple. At multiple points during House of Cards we see her jogging; her arms are lean and muscular, evidence of some sort of trendy and rigorous workout regime. Her meticulously organized vanity points to regular applications of only the best skin care. She’s even the type of woman who wears a slip under dresses. Claire Underwood knows how to put herself first.

But her outfits give the impression that Claire Underwood is not a temple unto herself. Rather, the more I stare at her tight dresses and pencil skirts in neutral colours, the more I see a pillar in the most traditional sense of the word. A pillar like the classical order of pillars in ancient Greco-Roman architecture. In one of the few scenes where Claire shows real fury, she lays bare a laundry list of all the morally ambiguous compromises she’s made in order to help her husband, and we realize that Claire has been the centre of this entire drama. While Kevin Spacey schemes and manipulates in the strangest Southern accent I’ve ever heard, Claire has silently been paving the way for his success at great expense to her own. She has been propping up her husband, bearing the weight of his political machinations, carved not out of ice but of concrete and stone.

I’ve seen other reviews comparing Claire to Lady Macbeth. I find that to be a horribly reductive and cliché take on what is a rare complex female character. Unlike Lady Macbeth, Claire Underwood has complete agency over her own life—while she benefits from her husband’s political ties, she wants them for her own benefit. Her non-profit agency brings clean water to developing nations. Her goals hardly begin and end with the social status she gains from her husband. It’s worth noting that Lady Macbeth was often the go-to comparison for Hillary Clinton—a sad reminder that we have few female archetypes to compare and contrast in contemporary culture, fictional or otherwise.

Early in the series, Claire has a professionally triumphant fundraising event. She wears a stunning silver dress that appears to be fused to her flesh. Later, Zoe Barnes (another female character I could write another 1000 words on) tries on this same dress. “It feels like armour,” she says, letting us know what such a dress feels like on a normal human woman.

It did not surprise me at all that Claire would not want to wear a simple, breathable fabric. Of course she would cover herself in something hard, something impenetrable, something that would protect her from the outside world, something more suited to who she really is underneath. In her clothes, we can see how she really exists as a pillar of unparalleled support amidst a cast of flimsy humans. Her tragedy is that she is all strength, all concrete, yet she exists solely to prop up a mere house of cards.