More Falbalas looks

In yesterday’s post I mentioned Jacques Becker's 1945 movie Falbalas, a drama set in the fashion world during the German occupation.

It was actually this film and in particular the actress who starred in it, Micheline Presle, who inspired Jean-Paul Gaultier to become a fashion designer.

Director Tonie Marshall, Presle’s daughter and the author of Les falbalas de Jean-Paul Gaultier (2004) a documentary that features interviews with the designer and starts with some shots taken from Becker's film, was also at Gaultier’s recent haute couture A/W 09 show.

I had the chance of watching the film again a while back and I was struck by some of the looks sported by Presle. The costumes for this film were designed by Marcel Rochas.

I find the jacket with vulture-like feathers applied around the shoulders (see clip at the end of this post, after 4:48) particularly trendy even nowadays (with all the revival of Schiaparelli-inspired fake monkey fur jackets…), but I also think the hats were inspiring.

In the following clip you will see two different headdresses: a bonnet-like hat and an almost egg-shaped piece (6:35) that vaguely reminds me of Stephen Jones's hats for Basso & Brooke'A/W 08 collection (see pic on the right). I find them both extravagantly superb, though my favourite hat remains the egg-shaped one.