I perfectly understand that, after yesterday’s post about Io sono l’amore that featured my thoughts about film, fashion and money, this post about film necklaces is going to sound rather incoherent.
In my defence I can say that the following idea was developed for four main reasons: as a tribute to two of my favourite films; to be able to wear something a little bit unique and not so conspicuous that may also provide a great distraction for my bored audiences when I have to speak in public about fashion and films; as an updated version of my first film necklace, and, last but not least, to placate my insatiable thirst for surreal necklaces that make people smile.
I do think that wearing something that makes me and other people smile is one of the main motifs that pushes me to experiment with bizarre materials and ideas.
I usually test the final results asking the opinion of random family members, neighbours and friends. Believe it or not, my best critics remain the shuttle drivers who work for Florence’s Pitti trade show.
Despite detecting a little bit of eccentricity in my designs, they were always encouraging and in some cases, they told me I should patent this or that design. In fact we came up with an agreement: if I'll ever make any money out of my designs I will have to take them all out to dinner, a promise I hope I'll manage to keep one day.
Anyway, here’s what this project is about: I developed two film necklaces, one inspired by Elio Petri’s La decima vittima (The Tenth Victim), the other by Mario Bava’s Diabolik (Danger: Diabolik).
I’ve also tried to develop another project involving the latter, mainly using vintage comic books, but that’s proving trickier at the moment.
The most difficult thing about the two necklaces - pictured in this post in a domestic photo shoot styled by myself (that involved ripping a Diabolik comic book, wasting lots of aluminium paper and stealing toys from my nephews...) - was getting the images I wanted printed on magnetic elements.
The plates you see in the images are in fact completely magnetic and there is a reason behind this choice: both the films have got something futuristic about them, Petri’s takes place in a dystopian pop arty future while Bava’s features Diabolik’s advanced weapons.
Both the films were shot in the 60s when there was a great interest in technological developments, so the magnets represent a sort of basic, cheap and slightly trashy form of technology.
The rectangular shape of the plates is intentional: it's indeed a reference to architectural designs and film frames.
There is another metaphor behind the necklaces: on the back of each magnetic element there is another magnetic element with a different image (see first image in this post - many thanks to my brother Nicola for wasting his time with me to take this pic), so the necklace is completely reversible, to symbolise the duplicity of some characters in these films, from Diabolik, who has a double identity, to the female characters Caroline Meredith (Ursula Andress) in The Tenth Victim and Eva Kant (Marisa Mell) who look beautiful and fragile, but are actually strong and dangerous.
As an added bonus, the Diabolik necklace contains a funny reference since one of the images is taken from the scene in which Diabolik puts the necklace he’s stolen around Eva Kant’s neck .
I got the images printed on the magnetic elements, but then assembled the necklaces myself, piercing each element, threading through the holes a suede string in black for the Diabolik necklace, as a reference to the main character’s costume, and in dark brown for The Tenth Victim, to create a contrast with Andress’ nude coloured dress by the Fontana Sisters.
Connecting in this way the elements allows to retain a certain film frame edginess about the necklace, but there is also another reason why I chose strings rather than metallic rings to connect the “frames” one to the other.
Indeed, the strings allow you to disassemble the necklaces, mix magnetic plates from one film with plates from another and then reassemble the necklace.
This can therefore lead to endless possibilities: you could have double face necklaces with up to 12 images taken from 12 different films from a specific decade or mix in the same necklace films with a similar atmosphere or belonging to the same genre or shot by the same director.
So far I’ve only developed these two necklaces, but, hopefully, I’ll come up with more “magnetic” ideas.
In the meantime, random family members and friends have been stealing my magnetic elements to put them on their fridges. Well, what can I say, guess that’s a good idea to recycle your necklace once you get bored with it and don’t want to wear it anymore.
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