Elio Petri’s film The 10th Victim (La decima vittima, 1965), an underrated pop art masterpiece with a sci-fi plot, already appeared in different posts on this blog.
The film was based on a story by Robert Sheckley and adapted for the screen by Petri, Tonino Guerra, Giorgio Salvioni and Ennio Flaiano.
Set in the future, The 10th Victim introduces the viewer to a dystopic world that has turned the human race’s hunger for violence into a game called “The Big Hunt”.
Hunters and preys compete against each other for cash prizes, but only the tenth victim entitles the murderer to a fabulous prize and global fame.
A while back I did an in-depth research on The 10th Victim and its connection with fashion, but I have recently found a new connection in a rather unlikely place, an issue of Italian erotic magazine Playmen.
Founded in 1967 by controversial editor Adelina Tattilo, a sort of Italian Maurice Girodias (of Olympia Press fame – in 1968, Tattilo’s magazine even published a feature by Henry Miller), the magazine became in Italy even more famous and popular than Playboy.
For today’s standards the early issues of Playmen look rather tamed and some of its covers could easily be mistaken for contemporary fashion magazine covers.
Playmen didn’t only feature softcore photos, but also included articles about literature, culture, sports and fashion.
The images featured in this post are for example taken from a photo shoot included in an issue from 1967 (borrowed from the Kutmusic archive).
The photo shoot, featuring images by Augusto Sanchez Queirolo, is entitled “La bionda preda” (The Blonde Prey) and the pictures are actually accompanied by a text that starts with the words “Hunting between velvets and damasks (...) the blonde prey runs (...) in a labyrinth of mirrors...”.
The hunting theme is not the only element that connects the photo shoot to Petri’s film: the protagonists of the shoot, Marco Guglielmi and Katiuska Lanvin (the former appeared in minor parts in various action, spy, horror and western films from the '60s, including Giorgio Ferroni's New York Calling Superdragon and Sergio Sollima's Run, Man, Run; the latter also appeared in a minor part in Roger Vadim's Barbarella), move in a typical late-'60s environment with furniture and paintings in Optical Art style (I'm not featuring in this post the entire photo shoot), pose as if they were fighting like Caroline Meredith (Ursula Andress) and Marcello Poletti (Marcello Mastroianni) in The 10th Victim, and the garments they wear - Nehru jackets, black and white dresses in André Courrèges style, damasked jackets and tuxedos à la James Bond - call back to mind the costumes used for Petri's film.
There is actually a connection between some of the costumes in The 10th Victim and the garments in this photo shoot, and that's Italian tailor Bruno Piattelli.
In the masking game of The 10th Victim, the costumes worn by the characters are a manifestation of the sociological and political climate in which they live: outfits are indeed used to make a fashion statement, but also to serve the criminal purposes of the hunters and victims.
The costumes for this film were designed by Giulio Coltellacci and made by the Sorelle Fontana fashion house (Andress’s costumes) and the tailor Bruno Piattelli (Mastroianni’s).
Italian menswear tailors of the early 1960s summarised the key characteristics of the perfect suit in three words: softness, lightness and suppleness.
Marcello’s glamorous victim style is based on these three qualities: his black suit is a masterpiece of minimalist tailoring and is the only weapon – a weapon of seduction – he is left with to fight against Caroline.
His suit is impeccable and has a futuristic twist: the trousers are fitted and have two front slit pockets, the collarless Nehru jacket (that suits his needs perfectly thanks to a high armhole carefully designed not only to allow him to move freely, but also to shoot comfortably) is slender and not darted inward to the waist, so that the entire look is one of comfort, although slightly square in shape.
The shoulders of this silhouette are gently sloping and Velcro is used instead of buttons.
The tailor-made creations sported by Marcello are tempered by a sartorial and conceptual softness, making him look like a bored futuristic dandy (Marcello only abandons his black clothes to disguise as the high priest of the Tramontisti or Sunset-worshippers, in a white kimono-like robe, orange cummerbund and yellowish organza kaftan).
All the garments used for the Playmen shoot were designed and made by tailor Bruno Piattelli and, interestingly enough, the shoot also featured a woman’s wear version of Piattelli’s iconic reversible tweed paletot with raincoat lining (that first appeared in Petri’s The Assassin - L’assassino, 1961 - worn by Mastroianni).
This specific model was called “Alaska” and came in light brown with a brown/beige check lining (last image in this post).
I'm somehow amazed by the standards of this photo shoot: there was a narrative behind it linked with a film from those years and it cleverly reused some of the most subtle connections with this film. If this was the main idea behind a pornographic magazine from those years, maybe the current Vogue editors could learn a couple of lessons from Adelina Tattilo.
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Posted by: nj windshield | September 19, 2012 at 05:16 PM