In a previous post about Poiret I mentioned a picture of actress Madeleine Rodrigue wearing a design by the French couturier in early horror film Le Fantôme du Moulin Rouge (1925).
Directed by René Clair, the film is a delightful magic horror revolving around the vicissitudes of a young and successful man, Julien Boissel (Georges Vaultier) who, thinking his girlfriend doesn't love him anymore, accepts to take part in an experiment carried out by a mysterious doctor he meets at the Moulin Rouge.
The doctor liberates Julien's soul from his body, but, happy about his new condition and refusing to go back in Julien's body, the spirit goes around Paris causing mayhem and other assorted comical accidents like driving away parked cars and burning newspapers in the hands of innocent readers.
Even if you didn't know the year when the film was shot, you could still guess it from the costumes and the script: all the dresses women wear in the film are characterised by relaxed sillhouettes, while Julien's cousin Jacqueline (Madeleine Rodrigue - the woman on the phone in the screenshots accompanying this post and taken from an old copy of the film from Kutmusic's archives; the other actress is Sandra Milovanoff starring as Yvonne) is the perfect Poiret woman, glamorous, bohemian, with just a touch of Orientalism in her clothes and very much into the favourite entertainment of those times, the Ballets Russes. Bored while watching a Moulin Rouge show she indeed states: "It is dull here. Lets us go and see the Russian Dancers at the Annexe."
Modern films often spawn fashion trends or are unfortunately used to place specific products and prompt audiences to go and buy them afterwards (the same this is happening with music videos...).
It's interesting instead to see how, in this case, the trends and moods from those times entered the film, contributing to give individuality to the characters and depth to the script.
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