Lady Snowblood: Queen of Kimono (and Death)

There's a whole lot of pretty hiding under all the blood

By: Megan Patterson

Lady Snowblood is a Japanese grindhouse flick from the ’70s, and is probably best known as being “that movie that inspired Kill Bill.” It’s based on the manga series Shurayukihime by Kazuo Koike and illustrated by Kazuo Kamimura, and it follows the story of a young woman named Yuki, who is conceived and born for the sole purpose of avenging the rape of her mother and the murder of her mother’s husband and son. It takes place in the Meiji era (1868-1912), right after Japan reopens itself to trade with the West, and the fall of the 250 year old Tokugawa Shogunate. The government was pretty much completely overhauled, the previously defunct emperor given back the reigns of power, and a parliament created. Needless to say, this was a period of unrest in Japan’s history, and what happens to Yuki’s mother is a result of that unrest.

Yuki performs her revenge in a dazzling array of gorgeous kimonos, but first I just want to lay out what that means exactly. There are technically two types of Japanese robes for women: the yukata and the kimono. The yukata is typically made of cotton, and meant for the hot, humid summer months. The yukata is also considered more casual. Kimonos, on the other hand, tend to be made of silk and have two visible collars (called eri). The second collar is usually detachable and attaches to the juban, or under robe. Kimonos are typically worn in the winter, or on more formal occasions. The obi is the topmost silk sash that is usually tied in an elaborate bow at the back. It has more layers than you can see, but I won’t really be talking about them. If you want to know more about kimono terminology, here is a pretty good resource.

CHAPTER 1

This is one of the first kimonos we see Yuki in, which is white with a blue flower motif along the bottom. The cerulean obi with gold detailing is probably one of the most beautiful ones she wears in the whole film. Kimono patterns are very seasonal, and the flowers on this one help to reinforce that this scene takes place in the spring/summer. Yuki wears a lot of white, which I think is to represent her innocence and youth, but often when she is wearing this colour, a whole lot of carnage goes down. However, white also ties her to her mother’s dead husband, who is essentially killed for wearing this colour, and white was the colour worn by samurai when committing ritual suicide, which she essentially is. Yuki knows she could die at any time committing her vengeance, and she dresses accordingly.

CHAPTER 2

This blue striped kimono with red obi is one of the most graphic costumes Yuki wears in the films. The colours and the stripes are quite nautical, aren’t they? And very appropriate for assassinating someone on the seashore. You’ll notice that there’s not a lot of white showing here, and this hit is probably the most bloodless. It should also be noted that her juban here (and pretty much in all the scenes where Yuki is out for murder), is red. You can catch flashes of it throughout the film, and I think it’s there to represent both her true murderous intent underneath her innocent beauty, as well as for a hint of sexyness, as red is also considered a very sexy colour in kimono patterns.

CHAPTER 3

As you can tell from the sword, Yuki is out to avenge her mother’s murderers. But the minimal amount of white here means no battle scene is about to go down, and, as it turns out, this target happens to be dead. Yuki also tends to wear purple during calm scenes, either on the kimono or her obi.

There is a lot of white going on in this outfit, and as you can see, the blood spatter gets pretty intense. Her juban during this fight scene is also red, and you catch flashes of it every time she slashes her sword.

CHAPTER 4

Again Yuki is in purple, and again no fighting happens in the scenes where she is wearing this headcovering. My theory is that main purpose of this headcovering is to help emphasize the shock on Yuki’s face when a certain ally reveals who his father truly is (film studies students, eat your heart out).

This is the “final countdown” kimono, and you can see here that her juban is again red, and this kimono is predominantly white. The butterflies also symbolize the souls of the living and the dead, which is why she’s wearing what might be considered a spring motif in the winter. If she was going to go down, she would go down fighting – while making a sartorial impact.

The Wornettes do TIFF

The best outfits at the 2012 Toronto International Film Fest happened on screen

By: Mai Nguyen, Jenna Danchuk, Sofie Mikhaylova, Anna Fitzpatrick, and Isabel Slone

Great Expectations Mike Newell
The world probably doesn’t need another adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, but it never hurts to see one of classic literature’s greatest (and most visually interesting) characters, Miss Havisham, re-imagined yet again. In Mike Newell’s version of the story, Helena Bonham Carter plays the jilted ghostly bride (naturally) who is grandly clad in a dusty, decaying dress. The dress was designed by Beatrix Aruna Pasztor who also crafted costumes for Vanity Fair and Aeon Flux. Pasztor drowns Miss Havisham in layers and layers of lace and taffeta silk, creating more of an artistic masterpiece than a simple costume.

Even more exquisite is Miss Havisham’s lovely disciple Estella (her young and adult versions are played by Helena Barlow and Holliday Grainger, respectively). Estella wears pleated travelling dresses adorned with cascading ribbons and feathered collars in hues of blues and purples. Paired with bejeweled neck chokers, Estella’s wardrobe is aesthetically refreshing against the movie’s muddy backdrops.

And then there’s Pip, the blacksmith turned gentleman whose wardrobe is overwhelmingly vital to his transition into the upper echelons of London society. Played by Jeremy Irvine, Pip ditches his thick boots, puts on tailored suits, and gets the girl, all while turning into an uppity snob in the process.

Does this new version of Great Expectations break any new ground? Doubtful. But do the costumes live up to its period piece glory? I think the taffeta speaks for itself.
// Mai Nguyen

Deflowering of Eva van End Michiel ten Horn
This blithely haunting Dutch film unfolds around Eva, your garden variety “dork.” A chubby, bespectacled late-bloomer lacking in social skills, she remains silent for almost the entire duration of the film. Eva is a sullen, awkward girl who seems more interested in spending time with her pet rabbit and listening to her favourite pan flautist than having sex, an activity doggedly pursued by her libidinous classmates. Eva’s shyness results in her isolation from the outside world, where her family and peers treat her like a piece of furniture. Her outsider status is highlighted by her wardrobe: Eva wears mostly t-shirts emblazoned with Louis Wain cats, Converse sneakers, and ill-fitting jeans; in stark contrast to her brand-conscious classmates who love Ed Hardy, leopard print jeans, and skintight dresses.

Eva’s life changes when she is assigned an attractive but irritatingly friendly German exchange student named Viet. Viet plays the part of a clean-cut hippie; a vegetarian who financially supports an African child and meditates as his preferred form of relaxation. Viet’s wardrobe is all-white, consisting of linen tunics and Birkenstock sandals, which are meant to symbolize the purity of his beliefs yet create an ironic tension when his presence begins to wreak havoc in the van End household. It’s clever and funny with a dark, disturbing undercurrent that rears its head near the end of the film.
// Isabel Slone
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I’ve Got Somethin’ To Say!

Jerri Blank is a fashion plate extraordinaire

By: wornette

“I was a user, loser and a boozer…” And so begins Strangers With Candy, the raunchy, satirical post-modern twist on after school specials. It’s like if Degrassi took place in The Twilight Zone; an anywhere-USA alternate universe where issues like teen pregnancy are dealt with in health class by students being given a real baby to care for for a week.

Inspired by a very real PSA from the ’60s called “The Trip Back,” creators Stephen Colbert, Paul Dinello, and Amy Sedaris crafted a brightly-hued psycho sitcom universe around the bawdy, incorrigible Jerri Blank. The show follows Jerri, who is just another 46 year old, ex-junkie whore trying to get through high school.

Let me explain.

Blank was a teenage runaway and is picking up right where she left off: Grade 9. The brilliance of the show is that everyone treats her like another high-school student despite the crows feet and love handles. The rest of the cast includes her revisionist history teacher Mr. Noblet (Stephen Colbert), her flaky-hack of an art teacher Mr. Jellineck (Paul Dinello), her megalomaniac principal Onyx Blackman (Gregory Holliman), her evil stepmother, her brutish half-brother, and the revolving denizens of Flatpoint High.

Flatpoint is like a twisted fun-house version of Archie Comics’ Riverdale. The highschool is cartoonishly bright with immersive set dressing that can only ber appreciated through multiple viewings. Every classroom is dressed to the nines with “student work,” hand-drawn club posters and the omnipresent image of Principal Blackman.

It’s Jerri’s closet, however, that steals the show. For those who know Sedaris as Carrie Bradshaw’s publisher on Sex in the City, or from her recent career turn into hospitality and crafting, it’s a little jarring to see the petite blonde who is usually decked out in vintage party-dresses transform into her junkie ex-con alter ego with such ease. With a seemingly endless supply of synthetic knits, turtlenecks, mom jeans, garish animal prints, spandex, rhinestones, and leather in all its possible iterations, veteran costumer Vicki Farrell crafted thrift shop nightmares for Jerri to wreak havoc in episode after episode. She even created sagging “bosoms” out of sweet potatoes for Sedaris to wear under a swim suit in one scene. Sedaris mentions in the DVD commentary that she [Vicki] was “always putting little things on me…she hid little animals and things that the audience couldn’t see. But it was so important for her,” and its this detailed work that makes Jerri’s world that much more grounded despite her ineptitude as a human being.

Squirrel print blouses, unseemly camel-toes, and occasional cult robes aside, Sedaris also wore a custom fat-suit she had made in real life (any fan of her brother’s work has likely heard the story). Her wigs add the final punch in Jerri’s ex-con chic, as they evolve over the three seasons to eventually “defy gravity” in the third, as noted by Colbert in the DVD commentary.

Strangers With Candy sometimes feels like it could be a companion piece to John Waters’s work; it’s brash, it’s campy, and it’s hilarious. But at the show’s heart, it’s about someone trying to do the right thing—just in the worst way possible.

text //Cayley James