In yesterday's post we looked at a modern and humble version of Haute Couture inspired by the techniques developed by Madame Grès.
Let's continue the Madame Grès thread today with a different story and look at her work as costume designer for the Italian film Ulysses.
Directed by Mario Camerini (cinematographer Mario Bava, even though uncredited, co-directed the cyclops segment) and released in 1954, this is a pre-peplum (the film was very successful and generated an interest for "peplum" movies, that is stories inspired by Greco-Roman mythology such as Hercules, released in 1957) adaptation of the story of Homer's second epic, the Odyssey, and recounts the vicissitudes of Ulysses trying to return home to Ithaca after a ten-year voyage that followed the war against Troy.
Kirk Douglas starred in the film as Ulysses, while Silvana Mangano had two roles, appearing as his wife Penelope and as the sorceress Circe, Anthony Quinn played Antinous, one of Penelope's suitors; Rossana Podestà was Nausicaa and Franco Interlenghi was Telemachus, son of Penelope and Ulysses.
Ulysses has lost is memory after ending up stranded in the land of Alkinoos, father of Nausicaa. While he starts remembering his extraordinary adventures, Penelope is waiting at home for her husband, holding off her suitors who are squandering the wealth and land of Ulysses.
Penelope has told the suitors she will pick one of them after she finishes her tapestry, but she unweaves it every night to be able to keep on waiting for Ulysses.
Italian artist, illustrator and costume designer Giulio Coltellacci designed the costumes for this film: after World War II Coltellacci worked as a cover designer for French Vogue, he then returned to Italy where he became famous for his work for the stage and the big screen (as you may remember from previous posts he designed the costumes for Elio Petri's The Tenth Victim).
Being an artist, Coltellacci based his costumes on the elements, drawings and motifs depicted on Greek vases (see the decorative elements on the suitors' tunics).
For the attire of Nausicaa he also borrowed ideas from the looks donned by the dancing girls frescoes from the Queen's Megaron and from the procession frescoes of the South Propylaeum from the Knossos Palace in Crete; but in her wardrobe and in the dresses of her maidservants, there are also elements of the frescoes showing the Mycenaean women bearing gifts and of the wall painting "Lady of Mycenae" (in some cases recombined with styles from the 1800s, for that anachronistic touch).
Madame Grès designed instead the wardrobe for Mangano: while faithful Penelope awaits for her husband, Mangano is clad in dark veils that go from soft browns to olive green and wears a brown dress or a draped dress half in a brown fabric, half in a printed fabric that seems to perfectly match with the colours of her Palace and of the frescoes decorating it.
Her attire radically changes for the day she must finally choose her new husband when she is dressed in a white pleated dress that calls to mind the attire of a goddess or of the static and architectural beauty of the caryatids.
Circe is a seductive and voluptuous woman and Madame Grès devised instead for her two dresses: the first is an embellished pale green gown covered in beads and matched with a diaphanous veil; the second gown is instead a red pleated dress in classic Madame Grès style.
Circe accessorises her green hair with flamboyant headpieces inspired by the sea, such as pearls, while Penelope's veils are anchored to less grand and more minimalist tiaras (all the jewels and weapons in the films were copied from models in Rome's Capitol Museum).
The wardrobe created by Madame Grès perfectly contributed to make Mangano's duplicity more credible: as the wife waiting patiently at home, Mangano wears her veils in a modest way, mainly to protect herself from her suitors.
Circe the dangerous witch ready to steal another woman's husband uses her veils instead to wrap her body in a mysterious and seductive way.
Mangano's duplicity in this film continued throughout her career: while in Riso Amaro (1949) she had appeared as the rice worker Silvana, iconically portrayed as a pin up rising from the flooded rice field in a seductive pose with shabby shorts and torn black stockings, in this film she looked more slender and refined; in the films in which she starred later on in her career, her looks radically changed again, going from futuristic comic book vamp to bored middle-class wife.
Though some may dismiss Ulysses as a '50s costume drama, by reading the credits of the film, fashion fans may discover this movie had more than just the Madame Grès connection to link it to the world of Haute Couture.
The costumes were indeed created in collaboration with famous tailoring houses Madame Karinska, Werther, Carosa and Salvini, while the shoes and sandals for all the characters were produced by famous bespoked shoemaker Tito Petrocchi. In a nutshell, there were probably more high fashion designs on the set of this film than on today's Haute Couture runways.