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

I first read about Ben Barry when Teen People named him “one of twenty teens who will change the world.” I felt proud because Barry was a Canadian high school student, just a year older than me. He was on a mission to transform the fashion industry’s narrow standard of beauty by running a modeling agency that represented models of all ages, sizes, and ethnicities.

Reading Barry’s memoir Fashioning Reality, I felt like it had been written for my teenaged self. As he outlines his successes and struggles, Barry offers advice for young would-be entrepreneurs on how they too can use business to create social change.

Barry started his agency when he was 14 to represent a friend who had been told by a magazine editor that she was “too big” to model. At first he was motivated by a concern that images of unhealthy models were detrimental to the health and self-worth of his friends, but he soon realized that using “real” models was also a successful business model, since companies that used his models almost always saw increased profits as a result.

Like we do at WORN, Barry believes that consumers want and deserve to see a diversity of ages, sizes, and ethnic backgrounds represented in the media. I’m a firm believer that we should never put people down to elevate others, and so I admire that he never criticizes thin women as not being “real,” instead stressing that thin, white, and tall is overdone, and argues that there’s a desperate need for greater diversity.

“We aim to change the face of fashion by representing models of all ages, sizes, cultures, and abilities. Fashion belongs to all of us.” Ben Barry Agency

The book follows the Ben Barry Agency’s professional highs (such as playing a major role in the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty) and its lows (frustrating meetings with designers and editors who refuse to see the merit of diverse models). As we follow the agency’s humble start in the basement of Barry’s family home in Ottawa through to its opening international offices in New York and London, we also see Barry’s personal growth as he moves from high school student to Women’s Studies major to Cambridge University MBA holder.

His views about unrealistic beauty representation are nothing we haven’t heard before, but a scan of any newsstand shows that while we’ve been talking about these issues for years, we’ve yet to see any big changes. Diverse models are still a novelty – if you’re not 5’10”, white, and a size zero, you’re probably not smiling at me from the cover of any mainstream fashion magazine. I’m glad people like Barry are there to remind us that the fight for diverse representations of beauty in models is nowhere near complete.

The book is most interesting when Barry brings us behind closed doors to hear firsthand how reluctant advertisers, editors and designers are to change. I would expect more from an industry so reliant on always-changing trends.

However, I did take issue with Barry’s argument that the business world is the best arena to achieve social change, and that other methods are outdated. Having worked in the non-profit sector and volunteered with grassroots movements, I know that change doesn’t have to be profit-motivated.

More than anything, I think this book could serve as a valuable motivational tool for teenagers looking to make a difference. The 25-year-old me is impressed with everything Barry has achieved (he can now add “published author” to his resume before his 30th birthday), but I think I think my 15-year-old self would have felt empowered to read how a high school student was able to make money, gain recognition, and yes, change the world.

Fashioning Reality: A New Generation of Entrepreneurship, Ben Barry, Key Porter Books, 2007
review by Jaclyn Irvine

You are flawed - just like everyone else. You’re never going to be pretty all the time. That’s life. But you’re also a total stunner. By some happy accident of genetics, no matter what you’re wearing or doing, you’re about twelve times prettier (oh, subjective Beauty!) than anyone within a hundred feet of you. You could be three inches shorter or twenty-five pounds heavier and it would still be the case. These are The Facts; accept them and forget them.

The pictures they take aren’t really about you. You are a vehicle for an idea - but it is not your idea, so you don’t get to decide how it plays out. Whoever is directing you has put all kinds of thought into what they want. Take direction, even if you think it will make you Not Pretty (did I already mention this is impossible?). Good fashion is rarely about being attractive in the conventional sense. Editorials are meant to create an aesthetic, convey a mood, and show off some clothes. Again - no matter how impersonal it seems - it’s not about you. Not yet, anyway.

Listen to your photographer and your stylist. They have a lot riding on what comes out of a photo shoot. They probably already have careers and reputations and are even more invested in what goes to print than you are. Besides, the photographer is going to take ten times as many pictures as anyone can ever use, so you have lots of room for error. The reason for all this excess is to capture something unique, enigmatic.

I know you’ve seen a thousand pictures of models with scowls and pouty lips. It may seem counterintuitive, but (and I can’t stress this enough) DON’T MAKE THIS YOUR DEFAULT FACE. It’s not very interesting and, unless you’re really good, it’s going to look amateur and campy. The best thing is to try not to have a Default Face at all. Forget what you see in the mirror, forget your Best Angle. The magic pictures are going to happen in between your “modeling”.

And finally, remember that this is not everything you are. You might be really lucky and make a career out of this, but you probably won’t. Your success or failure here does not define you. You are a living, breathing, three dimensional human who is of infinitely more value than a two dimensional image. Try not to ignore the former: sooner or later it will be your backup plan.
And just please, try to relax.
I promise it’s going to be fine.

c.b.

Photography by Mario Sorrenti