[Original] - MARFA LIGHTS (2015)

marfa lights: an imaginary short film

Last weekend my friends and I went on a road trip to a magical city in the middle of the west Texan desert. We do not live inside of a movie, but if we did, this is what it would look like.

I AM LOVE (2009)

You know that feeling when you randomly stumble on a film and you watch it and you’re just like “THIS IS PERFECT WHERE HAS THIS BEEN FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE.” Because I watched Luca Guadagnino‘s I Am Love this weekend and was blown away by it’s elegant & deceptively simple costumes (and story, but we’re all about the clothes here). I Am Love features my androgynous alien queen Tilda Swinton as Emma, a Russian émigrée turned matriarch of a wealthy Italian family, who spends the film navigating some intense family melodrama while wearing a series of increasingly fierce Jil Sander dresses. (In yet another tragedy, costume design Antonella Cannarozzi was nominated for an Academy Award but lost to Colleen Atwood for Alice in Wonderland.)

I love the subtle progression of colors and textures in Emma’s wardrobe as it reflects her emotional state throughout the film. I think the costume choices speak for themselves:

[Original] - Style Icons: Wes Anderson Heroine Edition

Anyone who’s followed my blog is probably well aware of my deep & undying love for Wes Anderson and the magical, meticulously crafted universes he creates in each of his films. Visual aesthetics can make or break a film for me (I can be unapologetically shallow but like, life is too short for non-stop gritty realism).

Wes Anderson’s films get a lot of criticism for being all style & no substance. While understandable, I feel like they’re overlooking a key component of his artistic POV. For Anderson, style IS the substance – which is exactly why his aesthetic is so instantly recognizable, and why he’s been able to create such enduringly iconic characters.

Uniforms both literal and otherwise are a central part of this aesthetic. Characters, with few exceptions, have a single costume throughout the entire film. There’s a sense that a person’s exterior (clothes, hairstyle, the objects they surround themselves with) are a manifestation of their interior. This is actually a core concept in production design. Ideally, a character’s design should contain elements that are distinguishable and act as shorthand for their characterization BUT no one else manages to pull this off as organically as Wes Anderson (with a little help from costume designers Karen Patch & Milena Canonero of course.)

MARGOT TENENBAUM

The Essentials

• Ennui
• Dark eyeliner
• Blonde bob, hair barrette (red)
• Lacoste tennis dresses (striped)
• Chekhov's "The Seagull"
• Mink coat 
• Birkin, T. Anthony suitcases (red)
• Pink gloves (cashmere, minus ring finger on left hand)
• Illicet feelings for your adopted brother

SUZY BISHOP

The Essentials

Wanderlust ☻

Scooter dresses with Peter Pan collar (pink, yellow) ☻

Françoise Hardy record, battery operated record player ☻

Lace knee socks ☻

Sunday School shoes ☻

Binoculars ☻

Knit beret (red) ☻

Beetle earrings (green, fishhooks optional) ☻

Young adult novels (various, stolen from school library) ☻

AGATHA MOUSTAFA*

The Essentials

• Milkmaid braids (sprig of wheat optional)
• Smock dress with Peter Pan collar
• Porcelain pendant with crossed keys insignia
• Birthmark the shape of Mexico, right cheek
• Camel overcoat
• Blue scarf
• Confectioners sugar
• Romantic Poetry, Vol. 1 (From Z to A)

*I know this is super heteronormative to assume she took Zero’s last name but Wes apparently didn’t think it was important to give her a last name. ): Plus it was the 1930s so, you know. 

MASTER POST

Here's the most up-to-date list of every film I've capped on my tumblr, fashion&film. (Posted here for the sake of my sanity. While I love tumblr dearly it lacks some pretty significant organizational elements.)

Listed in alphabetical order. **Please let me know if any of the links aren't working!!**

LEGALLY BLONDE (2001)

When you grow up loving a film, it's easy to take it for granted and begin to overlook the qualities that made you love it in the first place. One of the best things about my Blogging Adventures is forcing myself to sit down and actually WATCH some of my old favorites, which allows me to rediscover them with a fresh perspective.

Legally Blonde (sleepover staple and perennial road trip fave) definitely falls into that category - I've loved it on principal for soooooo long that I actually forget that Legally Blonde is a really fucking good movie. I'm 100% here for Elle Woods: Secret Feminist Icon and her commitment to fighting injustice with kindness and fluffy pink accessories, and I'm glad her story has taken on a life of its own beyond the late 90s Girl Power wave.

W/e, w/e - onto the clothes. Hands down, Elle has one of the best wardrobes of any cinematic fashionista. Reese Witherspoon actually kept all of her costumes after filming. I lost count of her costume changes, but (according to IMDB) Elle sports 40 different hairstyles throughout the film.

25 out of 40 - who knew there were so many variations on The Ponytail?

My favorite films are always the ones where it's clear that they're having fun with the production design. Who wants dark gritty realism when you can have a brightly sequined spectacle?? I want an endless stream of costume changes. I want montages set to 80s techno where characters model-dance in a series of increasingly ridiculous outfits. FUN.

ELLE & WARNER 4EVER. Actually not sure why they went through the trouble of showing Elle shopping for a new dress when she definitely wore the same pink/white stripy design one that she had on in the first scene (besides introducing the importance of Elle's signature color??) Also I know this is Movie College but how inappropriately old do her sorority sisters look?

SUCH GOOD PRODUCTION DESIGN. Everything from the lighting to her adorable butterfly clips sets her at odds with her surroundings. They actually echo this exact shot several times throughout the film but I didn't edit them, so...

Malibu Barbie chic

Pink fur (faux, duh!) and sequined bikini top is a great and criminally underused Studying on the Quad look. Also I'm kicking myself for not paying more attention to Bruiser's wardrobe - how many pink sweaters did I miss??

Again - obsessed with the contrast between Elle and the dark, mostly neutral color palette of everyone else.   

The coordinating shades of pinks solidifies this as the Ultimate Power Suit. (Also - Elle vs. bland neutrals - see??? see?? It's all over this fucking movie) 

I just love Chutney's hair. And that the climactic moment of the film hinged on her ridiculous perm. And that her name was Chutney. 

Also Elle's hair. So many solid hair moments in the finale. 

THE VIRGIN SUICIDES (1999)

As someone who spends a substantially above-average amount of time looking at costumes, it’s always fun to look back on movies made 10-20 years ago and see how the clothes hold up. It’s  surprising how quickly things start to look dated (and I don’t necessarily mean in a “I can’t believe a human thought this clearly hideous outfit looked good enough to photograph” way). Think of Mean Girls or Gossip Girl, both fairly recent examples of costume design that are still fashionable but immediately recognizable as mid-2000s. So it’s remarkable when a film manages to achieve a sense of true timelessness, the way The Virgin Suicides has.

Even more impressive when you consider that The Virgin Suicides is a period piece, set in 1970s Michigan. However, it doesn’t really look overtly 70’s or 90’s. Costume designer Nancy Steiner managed to create a distinct universe, inhabited by the Lisbon girls and their hand-me-down chic wardrobe.

A common criticism of Sofia Coppola’s work is that her films are all about style over substance – but I would argue that to some extent, the style IS the substance in her films. The emotional resonance of The Virgin Suicides comes from the dreamlike atmosphere as much as from the actual events of the story, which unfold more like a series of loosely connected memories than a traditionally structured narrative.

The soft, ethereal colors and fabrics give the Lisbon girls a sense of other-worldliness – most obviously Cecilia’s wedding dress, the only costume we see her in. Her sisters’ clothes bear a striking similarity, particularly as the film progresses and the girls become more and more isolated from reality.