When you start looking at a collection that displays some cinematic connection, it’s often easy to wonder if maybe some costume designers, directors and directors of photography could actually reveal themselves as talented designers if they ever tried their hand at fashion. The question sprung to my mind once again after Rodarte’s catwalk show.
The Mulleavy sisters always showed interest for films, but for the next season they left behind their apocalyptic Amazons and horror inspirations to focus on a different time, the early 20th century and a different story set in the American prairie à la Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven.
While Malick’s film features a rather thin screenplay, it also display an interesting use of natural light, inspired by painters such as Johannes Vermeer, Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth.
The visual effects employed in a film always prove more inspiring from a fashion designer point of view and the Mulleavy sisters tried to take the best out of them, filtering images and inspirations through their own style.
Shots of the wheat fields must have provided the colours for most of the collection, including the high-waisted trousers, tops and dresses in creamy nuances, while the long shots of lilac and blue clouds and violet skies contrasting with the yellow wheat fields, provided the sisters with the inspiration for their blue, acid yellow and grey silk evening gowns featuring prints of ears of wheat moving in the wind along the hems.
Quite a few of the shapes and silhouettes called back to mind the previous collection: ankle-length coats proved a step forward, but tops with intersecting and criss-crossing panels and cut out motifs echoed previous designs by the Rodarte duo while frock dresses and A-line apron skirts in period colours such as brown and mahogany seemed to be more elaborate versions including appliquéd flowers, embroideries, lace and quilted inserts of Linda’s costumes in the film (though there didn’t seem to be too many cinematic echoes in the Nicholas Kirkwood for Rodarte pony hair boots with beads).
Interestingly enough the collection also seemed to follow the rhythm of the film: the plot becomes more tragic as the story progresses and, from bucolic American plains and prairies, the collection moved instead towards darker inspirations with long evening dresses with grey clouds, see-through gowns covered in sparkling crystals and ruby red designs.
Were the latter references to the wonderful Wizard of Oz and Adrian’s iconic shoes or to the threshing machine, the motorcycle or the airplanes of the flying circus in Malick’s film? We will probably manage to decipher all this in the next few months.
According to most fashion critics this countrified urban collection is enough to move Kate and Laura Mulleavy forward in the fashion industry and to make us believe this is pure craft at its best (though, is it craft overcomplicating a pair of pants with cut out motifs/criss-crossing panels or is it a trick to hide the fact you can't come up with a well cut basic and flattering pair of trousers? The doubt remains).
Will the sisters find one day that perfect balance they need between post-apocalyptic Amazons and bucolic Holly Hobbies? Guess we will have to stay tuned and see what will happen next. The bets are open in the meantime to see which film they will pilfer - pardon, take inspiration from, as we say nowadays - for the next season.
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