Where does fashion come from? What mysterious dreams, shards of memory, unconscious desires inform the way we want to look? Deep thoughts for mid-summer, perhaps, and there is no single answer, though at least some of our dark—and light—fantasies surely derive from the movies, those hours we spend sitting in silence in the company of people we don’t know.
Which brings us to our latest enthusiasm—the films of the director Otto Preminger, whose creative efforts from the second half of the last century, in addition to being sometimes amusing, sometimes downright incredible, sometimes even oddly edifying, manage to encapsulate fashion ideas that are bubbling to the surface even (maybe especially?) now.
As a special end-of-July treat, this week we take a critical (but still fun!) look at three Preminger classics—the Francophile fantasia Bonjour Tristesse (1958), starring the redoubtable Jean Seberg, the admittedly bonkers Such Good Friends (1971), featuring the bouncy Dyan Cannon, and lastly, Carmen Jones (1954), showcasing the astonishing Dorothy Dandridge.
We begin this adventure with Bonjour Tristesse, in which the lovely Seberg—here named Cecile—is so in love with her dad (the sexy David Niven, but still . . . ) she hatches an evil plot to thwart his romance with Deborah Kerr, who plays a dress designer and swans around saying things like “I wish I could have found some material the color of this water.”
Most of the action takes place in and around a gloriously Technicolor Côte d’Azur and, in a conceit last employed by The Wizard of Oz, the scenes of Paris are black and white, which completely suits the gamine Seberg, in a singular black full-skirted cocktail dress with a halter neck and scant accessories but a pair of archaic little white gloves. (Lose the whities and this robe could attend a benefit in the Hamptons—tonight.) The black-and-white scenes also feature a musical number by the bohemian chanteuse Juliette Gréco, in a high-necked, long-sleeved affair, pale of face and with masses of ebony hair.
But it is at the super-saturated seashore that these ladies really shine, traipsing around in wardrobes that provoke the most intense envy, fifty-odd years on: tight-bodiced, wide-skirted, off–the-shoulder, sundresses; boat-necked, trapeze-shaped cover-ups with huge pockets; printed pants; sailor tops; and a series of maillots in delicious hues, sometimes accompanied by a denim work shirt tied high. (Seberg even looks good in this getup when she has a hot water bottle perched atop her head like a beanie, to treat a hangover.)
When Seberg’s character Cécile draws a chart on a chalkboard to rate her attributes against Kerr’s Anne, comparing the two of them in categories that include Fun and Intelligence, she gives herself 53½ for Chic, and allots Anne 100. But in truth, even a half century later, viewers will find that the score is dead even.
http://www.kissyprom.co.uk/purple-prom-dresses-online
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