Rebecca had it all. She was tall, thin and beautiful, had more money than she could spend, a dream stately home and the respect and admiration of her peers. In Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier created a woman who wouldn’t look out of place in the pages of Vogue.

The novel’s title character is only present via her clothes and the memories of her contemporaries. The nameless narrator, Mrs de Winter, spends most of the story scared of her husband’s deceased first wife, imagining what she must have been via the clothes she finds in her wardrobe. Rebecca’s ghost is never more present than in her room, which Maximilian de Winter consciously abandons but which his second wife can’t help creeping into. Everything, down to “a satin gown on a chair, and a pair of bedroom slippers beneath” is as Rebecca left it, the house ready to welcome back its mistress. Where Mrs de Winter wears “an ill-fitting coat and skirt and a jumper of [her] own creation,” Rebecca’s wardrobe is full of evening gowns in silver, gold brocade and soft, wine-coloured velvet.

When she first arrives at Manderley, fresh, naïve and totally unprepared for its grandeurs, Mrs de Winter is reduced to using Rebecca’s mackintosh for her first walk with Maximilian, a walk that, unbeknown to her, takes her to the place where Rebecca was murdered. It is “too big and too long,” just like the shoes she has to fill.

When Mrs De Winter decides to throw a ball at Manderley, she, on Rebecca’s housekeeper Mrs Danver’s suggestion, chooses to wear a white dress inspired by a family portrait hung in one of the house galleries. When she walks down the staircase, dressed in the same gown Rebecca wore to her last ball, Manderley and its ghost close down on her. It’s the wedding dress Du Maurier never described, the shroud we can only imagine. The dress is a materialised ghost, the ghost of Rebecca, elected queen of Manderley.

For Maximilian, keeping the memory of Rebecca away means keeping his bride in a child-like state, forbidding her to grow up because “it would not suit her.” From their first meetings, Maximilian lets her know that if she were “a woman of about thirty-six dressed in black satin with a string of pearls,” someone resembling Rebecca, he would have no interest in her. The opposition between the over-sexualised Rebecca, who had a husband and lovers and was quite likely bisexual and the very shy narrator is clear in the latter’s choice of undergarment. Mrs de Winter, a young woman in her early twenties, has child-like lingerie, in “plain material with a small edge of lace.” Her demeanour is as reassuring and wallpaper-like as Rebecca’s was threatening, her youth and inexperience constantly reaffirmed by her behaviour, her clothes and her choices. Maximilian’s first wife was a woman who went to the altar with her own fault, tastes and ideas, his second wife is a child for Maximilian to mould to the life he offers.

- Lucie Goulet

photos from Victoria and Albert Museum

Colours fascinated Elsa Schiaparelli. Her autobiography, Shocking Life, is paved by her colour discoveries, from the blue and red uniforms she designed during the First World War to the oranges and turquoises of Kremlin treasures.

In the first third of her book, however, the colour pink only comes up only to describe her new-born daughter, Gogo. Schiaparelli’s early career was, much like her contemporary Coco Chanel’s, defined by black and white. The first garment she created, in 1927, was a jumper with “a white bow against a white background.” Her first evening dress was, again, monochromatic.

The shocking-pink came thanks to Schiaparelli’s first foray into fragrances. In 1937, while struggling to name her upcoming perfume, she remembered a pink Tête de Bélier Cartier diamond owned by her friend, client and Paris editor for Harper’s Bazaar, Daisy Fellowes. In her autobiography, Schiap (as she nicknamed herself) describes the jewel colour as “bright, impossible, impudent, becoming, life-giving, like all the light and the birds and the fish in the world but together, a color of China and Peru but not of the West – a shocking colour, pure and undiluted.” She asked Surrealist designer Leonor Fini to create a perfume bottle imitating Mae West curves in that very shade. The perfume was named “Shocking”.


Though the colour wasn’t an immediate hit with her friends or business partners, customers loved the perfume’s colour as much as its smell. Thanks to its success, Schiap discovered how perfume sales can keep a fashion house afloat. The color was extended to blush and lipstick. A make-up advert dubbed the Place Vendôme, where Schiap had her flagship store, “la zone rose.” Schiap quickly adopted the shocking-pink as a house staple, using it in her Surrealist creations. Her first shoe-hat, designed for her autumn 1937 collection, had a shocking-pink heel. Dali loved the color so much he used it for one of his own oeuvres d’art, “an enormous stuffed bear with drawers in its stomach,” dyed in shocking-pink.

The RGB composition of shocking pink is generally seen as 252, 15, 192, a variation of magenta pink sitting somewhere between ultra pink and fuchsia. It has also been called neon pink, or hot pink in America.

Contrary to her couture house, Schiaparelli’s shocking-pink outlived her. Yves Saint Laurent described it as “the nerve of red… an aggressive, brawling, warrior pink” he used in many collections, including his F/W 1980 “Collection Shakespeare” tribute to the Surrealists. John Galliano used similar pinks in his last two Dior Haute Couture collections. Would the master have approved? Christian Dior’s definition of pink, “the sweetest of all colors”, “the color of happiness and of femininity” was more sweet than vibrant.

- Lucie Goulet

With Prêt-à-Porter, Robert Altman filmed a self-conscious, grotesque portrait of the fashion industry in an inaccurate, messy, but rather enjoyable manner.

In the first half of the movie, fashion is a playground for men. Olivier de la Fontaine (Jean-Pierre Cassel) runs the Chambre de la Mode. Designer Simone Lowenthal’s son (Rupert Everett) licenses the family brand to a Texan boot maker behind his mother back. Photographer Milo O’Brannigan (Stephen Rea) ascertains his power by blackmailing the holy trinity of fashion editors (ELLE, Vogue, Harper’s).

Women, however, quickly regain control. De la Fontaine dies and his statuesque wife Isabella (Sophia Loren) becomes the focal point of every front row. The editors put their publishing competition aside and team up against the golden boy of photography. Lowenthal shocks the industry by sending naked women down her runway.

(heads up for nudity under the cut)

Despite Thierry Mugler asserting early in the movie that his fashion “is all about getting a great fuck, darling”, eroticism is nothing more than a background to the story. When Isabella undresses for Sergio (Marcello Mastroiani), the man she married in her teens who then dumped her for communism, her demeanor is exaggerated, and he falls asleep before she’s undone her garter’s last clasp. It lacks the sexual tension of a Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.

The year Tom Ford became creative director of Gucci with his soft porn vision, Altman imagined a runway made entirely of naked models. Described by journalist Kitty Potter (Kim Basinger) as “so old, it’s true, so true, it’s new, the oldest new look the newest old look: the bare look”, the scene is anything but sexual. The models might’ve be naked, but I was only shocked by how alike they looked and how interchangeable they seemed. Noteworthy as well is the number of black models present compared to how many are on the runway today. In addition to Naomi Campbell’s cameo, Altman cast more black women than there have been in any contemporary fashion week

Potter’s explanation of the “bare look” is, of course, largely bullshit. Her scripted character is a mere cinematographic device linking scenes, highlighting how shallow the industry is. A decade before The Devil Wears Prada’s publication, magazine editors were not a point of fascination as they are now. They were, however, already portrayed as bitchy divas. Vogue editor Nina Scant (Tracey Ullman) has something of an Isabella Blow vibe, especially because of her love of Philip Treacy hats. This is the only “fashion forward” element of her clothing. Everyone at the defiles is wearing suits, more businesswear than the looks that streetstyle bloggers have accustomed us to. More still, they wear flats.

Altman’s film is a bit of a mess. Fictional designers are mirrored by cameos from Thierry Mugler, Jean Paul Gaultier and Sonia Rykiel. A character portrayed by Ute Lemper, plus two fictional Simpson sisters, are Altman-created supermodels, measuring themselves to real-life supers Linda, Helena and Carla. Made up catwalks, in a bourgeois salon or in an abandoned Metro station echo real, raw footage from the fall 1994 Lacroix, Rykiel and Gaultier shows. The overtly staged transition from one scene to another, via Potter’s commentary, means that the viewer, despite being highly aware of watching a movie, can easily get lost between reality and fiction.

- Lucie Goulet

Diana Christensen, the fictional head of programming for the also fictional Union Broadcasting System (UBS) in Network is one of the strongest lead female characters in 1970s cinema. As the neurotic, power-hungry Christensen, Faye Dunaway won an Academy Award for best actress in a leading role.

In retrospect, Christensen’s satirical obsession with ratings, reality TV, and angry shows was prophetic. The first show we see her sell is based on a lefty revolutionary group. Her argument? People are angry, and we need to mirror their anger on TV: “I want counterculture, I want anti-establishment.”

The story takes place a decade after Mad Men, and women have moved from being secretaries to running the place. Even though no other woman has reached her level of responsibility at UBS, Christensen is not apologetic for her gender, neither does she consider it an impediment. In her own words: “I seem to be inept at everything, except my work. I’m good at my work.” As a manager, Christensen doesn’t hesitate to ruthlessly play all the cards at her disposal. She can be harsh when necessary, never hesitating to threaten to fire people who don’t share her vision, or sweet if it’s the best strategy. Time and time over, she is compared, either inadvertently, or by herself, to men, even when it comes to her sexual encounters. Her idea of romanticism and foreplay includes telling her lover, former news director Max Schumacher, about network numbers and legal issues.

Christensen sees her personal life the way she approaches her work: “which sort of script can we make out of this?” From the beginning of her affair with Schumacher to her ending it by a now mythical “I don’t like the way this script of ours has turned out. It’s turning into a seedy little drama,” she’s the heroine of her own life. The break-up scene is the only moment where Christensen shows some vulnerability: for once, she looks like she’d rather not follow the script, though she doesn’t consider it an option.

From her first appearance in the movie, Christensen only wears neutral, honey-like colours. Beiges, browns, and whites make up most of her wardrobe palette. Christensen’s outfits are a lesson in corporate chic, before women started to dress “like a woman thinks a man would dress if he was a woman.” She mostly wears separates, below-the-knee skirts and trousers, and often has a lavallière or scarf around her neck. Her only dress is a rather striking, asymmetrical, backless, white number worn to announce to shareholders, “next year we’ll be number one”. A comment on how married to her job she is? The dress might be virginal, but it is the tipping point where Christensen really becomes ready to do anything in the name of her job, even becoming a psychopath. The closer she gets to ordering murder, the whiter her clothes become, in a display of irony from costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge.

- Lucie Goulet