Everything can inspire a fashion collection: it's not rare for designers to mention in interviews how a visit to a museum, a specific work of art, a trip to a faraway land or a childhood memory turned into the starting point for their creations.
In many different posts in this blog, I have analysed the connections between cinema and fashion and proved that films are one of the strongest influence on fashion designers.
There are actually specific films and costume designers who seem to be among the favourite ones of many people working in the fashion industry, from designers to stylists and photographers.
Among such films there is definitely George Cukor’s The Women (1939).
This often forgotten romantic comedy with an all female cast, including among the others Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford, is indeed an absolute feast for the eyes from a costume point of view.
All the actresses starring in this film wear throughout it the most amazing creations by Hollywood designer Adrian, including avant-garde hats, Schiaparelli-inspired suits, glamorous sequinned numbers and luxurious furs.
Though the film was shot in black and white, it includes a ten minute long fashion show in Technicolour featuring Adrian's most extravagant and fantastic designs and it's undeniable that some of the best creations from many different contemporary collections were directly borrowed from these scenes.
The movie is based on the 1936 play by Clare Boothe Luce that opened on 7th September 1937 and had almost 700 performances at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York, and follows the vicissitudes of a group of wealthy women.
Everything starts when Mary Haines (Norma Shearer)’s friend Sylvia (Rosalind Russell) learns at a beauty salon (while a manicurist is painting her nails with a new polish shade called "Jungle Red"...) that Mary’s husband is having an affair with a perfume counter girl, Crystal (Joan Crawford).
The rumours are true and lead Mary to divorce her husband. Her divorce is followed by other separations among her friends, but, after two years, things take a new and unexpected turn for Mary and Crystal as well.
One of the most amazing things about this film is that there are over 130 roles in it, all played by perfectly dressed and styled actresses.
The film has quite a few connections with fashion.
There was actually also one former model in the cast, Judith Allen, who played a girl in a corset walking around the changing rooms at the end of the catwalk show. Allen had previously worked as a model in New York under the name Mari Colman.
Even as the film opens there is a strong connection with fashion: the name of Sydney’s beauty salon we see in the opening scenes is a tribute to Sydney Guilaroff, MGM chief hairstylist from 1934 to the late 1970s (brought to MGM from New York at Joan Crawford’s request), while its sets were based on Elizabeth Arden's New York parlour.
The most important connection the film entertains with fashion is represented by Adrian's gowns.
The Women can actually be considered as one of the most perfect films to study the relationship between character and costume since it perfectly shows how costumes can help shaping a character's behaviour, movements and moods.
Indeed each woman starring in the film has a different role that is somehow emphasised by the costumes and accessories she wears.
Mary represents for example the romantic wife who, even after her divorce, keeps on hoping her husband will go back to her, and she favours stylishly elegant suits.
Sylvia is a chronic gossiper with a penchant for headdresses and a touch of surrealism in her clothes that often reflect her insolence (the top with three eyes - second image in this post - is undoubtedly a Schiaparelli-like reference to the fact that she keeps an alert eye on everything that goes on around her to make sure she can turn it into the next gossip...); Crystal is instead a femme fatale often clad in glamorous Lurex gowns or sequinned numbers.
For decades the film has been used by different designers as the main inspiration for different fashion collections.
In fact if you're a passionate - or maybe an obsessive - fashionista you will probably easily start spotting references to contemporary designs two minutes into the film.
Some fashion designers may not want to admit such connections, but it turns difficult to deny echoes of Sylvia’s bizarre headdress that featured a rigid ribbon perched on her head (third image in this post) in the rather silly satin “bunny ears” designed by Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton’s Autumn/Winter 2009/2010 collection.
Turned into a popular look by Madonna at the Met Gala in May 2009, the "bunny ears" became for months a constant obsession for many young bloggers who never saw Cukor's film.
But let's move to the film's catwalk show to spot further connections with other fashion designs.
There is one specific design in the catwalk show that often reappeared on our runways in its more modern incarnations.
I'm referring to the ensemble that opens the catwalk show, a bathing suit with a painted hand holding a rose worn with a matching cape with a rather surreal detail à la Schiaparelli, a wooden hand holding a rose, that acted as a rather extravagant button (fourth and fifth image in this post).
The wooden hand is echoed in Iris Apfel’s necklace made with wood rosary beads and articulated wood and metal hands, a piece showcased a while back during the "Rare Bird of Fashion" exhibition (check it out at the following link
View this photo).
Hands re-appeared in different fashion collection on countless times in the last few years.
In Comme des Garçons’s Autumn 2007 collection, 3D hands grasped the hips of a skirt or delicately closed a shirt; trompe l’oeil hands were incorporated into Catherine Malandrino’s designs from her Autumn 2009 collection, but also in her accessories, such as belts (check out an example by clicking on the following link
View this photo).
Hussein Chalayan used the "hand trick" again in his Spring/Summer 2010 collection that featured long white vestal-like dresses with mysterious phantom-like hands clutching the dress on one shoulder or around the neckline (you can read more about this collection in this post or see another example of Chalayan's "hand dress" by clicking on the following link
View this photo).
The second Adrian ensemble from the catwalk show, an ivory bathing suit matched with a hooded cape that integrated a plastic visor, is instead echoed in Chalayan’s plastic visors attached to straw hats from the same collection.
The strong shoulder shape of the white and red evening gown in the film catwalk show (seventh image in this post) reminds instead of the silhouette and the colours (white and fuchsia/white and lime/etc) of the designs from Martin Margiela's Autumn 2007 collection, while the sensual green dress in the film (eighth image in this post) recalls Jean Paul Gaultier’s Spring/Summer 2009 green silk dresses.
It's also undeniable to spot a derivation from Adrian's designs in the sequinned looks that appear every now and then on modern runyways.
One of my favourite looks from the film remains Sylvia's "third eye" top, while my favourite piece of jewellery is a studded bangle worn by Sylvia that recalls a lot Givenchy's spiked jewellery and in particular the brass cuffs (View this photo) from the fashion house's Autumn 2009 Haute Couture collection.
Among the most bizarre accessories in the film (apart from the various avant-garde hats worn by the different actresses...), a very honourable mention goes to the gloves matched with the silk evening gown that closes the catwalk show.
The gloves incorporate a sort of glass and metal door knob and I don't think we have seen anything like this in any contemporary fashion collections so far.
Yet you can bet that, sooner or later, the bizarre gloves with reappear on a runway near you, just give fashion houses and designers the time to rediscover them and reinvent them a bit.
I'm indeed sure that, even after 70 years since it was shot, The Women can still offer us further amazing inspirations.
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