When Unzipped, Douglas Keeve’s documentary about designer Isaac Mizrahi, came out in 1995, audiences had never been given such a personalized peek into the world of fashion. Before films like The Devil Wears Prada, documentaries like The September Issue, and a slew of reality TV shows like Project Runway and America’s Next Top Model, designers were seen as aloof and unknowable, the industry a walled garden. Sure, many designers displayed themselves as the personifications of their lines, allowing their likenesses to grace magazine articles and ads, but no one had opened themselves up to the cameras the way Mizrahi did.

The film, which follows the creation of his fall 1994 collection, is bursting with Mizrahi’s talk, from his style maxims (“It’s really impossible to be chic without the right dogs”), to his reciting campy quotes from old movies, to his moaning about the stresses of staging a runway show. Most upsetting is the discovery that Jean-Paul Gaultier had also mined Inuit culture (what Mizrahi problematically calls ‘Eskimo-chic’) for his collection and, as his assistant reminds him, “they show before us!” Canadian supermodel Shalom Harlow informs Mizrahi that ‘eskimo’ is a slur meaning ‘raw fish eater,’ to which Mizrahi shoots back, “If there’s a word for gefilte fish eater, that’d be me!”

Despite the drama along the way, the runway show goes off without a hitch and the collection, an eclectic mix of vibrantly coloured fun-fur chubbies, corsets, ball skirts and American sportswear by way of Mary Tyler Moore, is critically acclaimed. The film itself, helped by a supermodel-heavy ad campaign, was a minor hit and Mizrahi became the go-to celebrity designer, appearing in his own talk show, cameos in TV and film, and performing respectively on celebrity Jeopardy.

But his fame could not save his financially-troubled company and, after backer Chanel pulled funding in 1997, he closed shop.

Keeve’s second documentary about fashion, Seamless (2005), directly addresses the trouble designers have staying afloat. In the film’s first few minutes, model Karen Elson explains that many who work in high fashion lead lives that are anything but luxurious, working for free and sleeping on the floors of one-room apartments. Vogue’s editor-in-chief of Anna Wintour explains that a way of nurturing start-up designers was needed, so the magazine teamed up with the Council of Fashion Designers of America to start a fund. Seamless follows three of the ten finalists for the sponsorship, each of whom represents a different aspect of the American experience: men’s wear designer Alexandre Plokhov, a Russian expat; daughter of Korean immigrants Doo.Ri Chung, who makes all her clothes in the basement of her parents’ laundromat; and twenty-something gay couple Lazaro Hernadez and Jack McCollough of Proenza Schouler, boy prodigies whose entire senior collection at Parson’s was bought by Barney’s department store.

Smack dab in the middle of the reality TV decade, the designers in Seamless have little doubt that their public personas and their brands are one and the same. “They asked, ‘Could I handle fame?’” Doo.Ri tells her family after the council representatives visit her workroom. “I just said that my generation understands that this is part of the whole business.”

In a cameo appearance, designer turned film director Tom Ford explains this phenomenon: “If you stay in fashion long enough, you become a creature. You start to depend on your sunglasses and all the sort of idiosyncrasies that you can indulge yourself in because you are, in a sense, a performer… All of us have our personas that we cultivate, that are part of our brand, that represent something about what we want to say. The Prozena Schouler boys [he stumbles over the pronunciation]… They’re these cute, attractive, appealing guys. Not to say they’re not good designers, but it’s part of it, it makes you want to buy into that.”

Each of the designers present their creations and business plans to a panel of judges, fashion insiders like designer Narcisco Rodriguez and Anna Wintour, bringing to mind the nerve-wracking evaluations of reality TV. The idea that the appearance and personality of the designers is important is mentioned again and again by the panel, as they repeatedly refer to the applicants they like as “so charming.” Ultimately, the council rewards the designer who best presented the whole package for a successful brand: talent, originality, business acumen and an engaging personality. The process that started with Mizrahi has been completed: designers are the product as much as their designs.

- Max Mosher

It all started with beige. Beige in the grandiose dining room of the Recchi villa, beige in Emma’s knit sweater and khakis as she prepares for her father-in-law’s birthday dinner. When the guests arrive, Emma changes into a conservative rich purple dress of a 1940s silhouette, her hair down a la Grace Kelly. She is silent as the men are talking business and speaks only to play the part of supportive mother. The wardrobe that follows is a range of light gray-blues and whites, worn as Emma performs her daily errands.

I have adored Tilda Swinton ever since I saw Orlando (Sally Potter, 1992) – mainly because of the film’s total dependence on costumes to denote its narrative progression. In Io Sono L’amore (Luca Guadagnino, 2009), costume plays a similar role and Swinton succeeds in wearing them to enhance, not distract, her character development.

Clad exclusively in Jil Sander, Swinton plays Emma Recchi, a porcelain-clean trophy wife of an Italian textile tycoon and a loving mother of two. She spends her days picking up laundry and visiting her husband at his office. Io Sono L’amore speaks of the repression of individuality within the shackles of rituals and order.

The dialogue is minimal and the acting style is bare, but these are compensated by a rich compilation of stylistic elements. John Adams’s operatic score voices the feelings of anger and betrayal that are never properly expressed. The cinematography fluctuates between blurry and bleached out (symbolizing ecstasy) and detailed and revealing (truth). The colours are sometimes muted, sometimes incredibly vibrant. These changes highlight the stages of Swinton’s character development.

This motif is even more obvious in the mise-en-scene, revealing Emma’s true colours. Raf Simons’s sleek, minimalist silhouettes and the emptiness of the setting around her at first echo the quietness of the film. But it is unsettling how Emma’s elegant wardrobe and pale skin set her apart from the rest of the cleavage-bearing and tanned upper-crust Italians. Over the course of the film, this incongruity hints at how Emma’s lifestyle has never been an appropriate fit for her identity or character.

One afternoon Emma, dressed in a vivid blue dress, finds Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini) – her son’s friend and a talented chef – in her kitchen. (It is similar to her dinner party ensemble, the night of her first encounter with Antonio.) Their interaction reaches a higher level as they share a love for cooking. Emma’s wardrobe and character are growing bolder.

Their third encounter occurs when Emma lunches at Antonio’s family restaurant. The food arrives; a spotlight is fixed on Emma. She is distinguished from her companions, and appears to experience a deliciously orgasmic experience induced by Antonio’s dish. For this scene, Simons has coloured his grey F/W ’08 dress into a rich, vibrant red.

Emma’s desires and impulses progressively dictate her actions, paralleled by a bolder change of colours and scenery. She drives away to Sanremo in a bright orange dress and in her second visit she wears a pair of orange pants. This major palette change is extreme at first and even out of character – but it soon reveals that being a wealthy trophy wife is not part of her identity after all.

Io sono l’amore (I am Love)
Dir: Luca Guadagnino, 2009
Review by Marsya Maharini

The feeling of anticipation in a darkening movie theatre is generally universal. On this occasion I was more eager than usual. A few weeks prior I had seen a superbly edited trailer featuring a rapid succession of beautiful shots from the upcoming film, A Single Man. Being a self-proclaimed cinephile, my pulse quickened with the emotional reminders of great cinematic experiences past. Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed, but not for the reasons you’d think….

A Single Man takes place in Los Angeles at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Adapted (from a Christopher Isherwood novel of the same name), directed, and produced by legendary fashion lord and first time filmmaker Tom Ford, it is a solemn tale of a man coming to grips with the painful loss of the love of his life. Colin Firth’s heart-breaking performance is touching and the stuff the best dramas are made of (and just as an aside, it was nice to see Firth challenged by a role that was not a type-cast of Jane Austen’s impenetrable Mr. Darcy).

However, the driving force of the film is the cinematography and the overall vision of Ford as auteur. Every shot from beginning to end is, without question, absolutely beautiful. It is specifically Ford’s background in fashion as a designer, photographer, and creative director that shines through; after all, he mastered the creation of perfect images in an industry where image is everything. He brings this same attention to detail to all the visual elements in the film.

From the shock of a woman’s red lipstick, and the sweat beading on men playing tennis, to the profound ugliness of make-up plastered on a woman of a certain age, this film revels in the details. I cannot help but remember one scene in particular that occurs towards the end of the film: A shot is taken from above of Firth lying on the floor. For a few seconds a pair of shiny black shoes breaches the frame. Those shoes function as a subtle emotional signifier that I am sure, in another director’s hands, would not have existed.

But by now you must be wondering, if this movie was such a thing of beauty, why was I disappointed? Well it turns out too much beauty is not a good thing; after a while, the steady march of gorgeous images just became a distraction, competing with the narrative, rather than complementing it. As one critic put it, “[It] is overbearingly aesthetic…. [You] are not able to enter the story emotionally because of the level of the aesthetic care in each scene.” In some instances that aesthetic care feels pretentious and contrived. This is also apparent in the casting of minor characters, who are so over-the-top good looking they could only be models.

As a viewer, I want to be able to relate to the people on screen. They shouldn’t be the glossy super-humans found in magazine spreads, blank canvases to be idealized and desired. Yes, this is film and, on some level, fantasy, but Ford’s perfect specimens are more akin to waxed dolls than humans. No longer simply a better looking version of real life, their aesthetic demands so much focus, the story these characters ought to be telling gets lost.

It is imperfection and spontaneity that can make a work of beauty go from good to great; too much flawlessness is boring. But if my problem with Tom Ford’s first outing as a filmmaker is that, in his naivety, he filled it to the brim with too much pretty, well, I can’t wait for his next project.

Then we’ll see if he can learn to edit his fashion mega-lord tendencies…

- Anisha Seth

Hair India presents what can arguably be called the uglier side of the beauty industry. Directed by Raffaele Brunetti and Marco Leopardi, the film shows the extreme differences between India’s richest and poorest, and the roles both play in the obtaining and selling of one of the most popular recent accessories: hair extensions.

The film follows a young girl named Gita and her family living in West Bengal. Having no other material possessions to donate to their temple, they plan on collectively shaving their heads and sacrificing their hair, a common ritual where they live. In a culture where a woman’s beauty is so highly regarded, the act of giving up one’s hair is not a simple decision. Meanwhile in Bombay we meet Sangeeta (pictured above), the editor of a gossip magazine who busies herself with such tasks like finding a professional palm reader to dish on the personal lives of major Indian celebrities. While looking for a new hairstyle before a huge party, Sangeeta turns to hair extensions.

Between following the lives of these two women, the documentary observes how the temple sells the hair to a company in Italy called Great Lengths, who then bleaches, colours, and sorts the hair and turns them into extensions, sold around the world. They are a hot commodity coveted by the rich, from celebrities in Hollywood to Sangeeta and her peers.

The film does suggest that there is an injustice being committed, but it is hard to pinpoint who exactly the culprit is. There are the temples who sell the hair without the consent of the donating parties, but if all the money goes back to charitable events, can it really be inferred that the temples have dishonourable intentions? It seemed clear that Sangeeta, the glamorous magazine editor with an obsession for celebrity culture and makeup, was seen as silly and shallow – after all, the audience at the screening I went to laughed when she said she hoped her new extensions would make her look like Shakira. Shots of Gita and her family living in near poverty accompanied by melancholic music are interspersed with scenes of Sangeeta at high profile events wearing designer dresses, yet I still find it hard to vilify her as a bad guy of Disney proportions – after all, she is a woman trying to find success in a society that, although different from our own, still places great significance on a woman’s physical beauty (as emphasized by the great pains it took for Gita to eventually donate her hair). Could it be possible that Sangeeta herself is just a different sort of victim, falling prey to a sexist and shallow culture and merely ignorant to the conditions under which the hair extensions were made?

In a post-screening interview with the filmmakers, they explained that their job in creating this documentary was not to give all the answers, but rather to ask the relevant questions. In that respect, their film was successful. Hair India does a good job of displaying the relevant information so that, even if the film doesn’t solve any problems itself, it certainly raises awareness of the issue.
- Anna Fitz