As you know, the Venice Film Festival is currently on, so to celebrate it let's pay homage to an old film with a strong link with Venice and with fashion as well, Summertime (1955) by David Lean (costumes by Rosi Gori).
Starring Katharine Hepburn in the role of Jane, this is a romantic comedy filed by some critics when it first came out under the Roman Holiday category.
The plot is thin since it revolves around Jane, a middle aged secretary from Ohio, hoping to find passion in Venice, yet the film is interesting as the main character makes her dream come true and falls in love with local antique dealer Renato when she regains the joy of living, a process achieved also through a wardrobe transformation.
Jane's wardrobe seems to be full of dresses in pastel or neutral shades that contrast with the more refined looks of many other characters around her such as the refined Signora Fiorini (Isa Miranda), owner of the pensione where Jane is staying.
Falling in love brings in a style revolution in Jane's wardrobe: to go out on a date with Renato she buys a sensual black dress and a white scarf decorated with a simple red satin ribbon.
The key item in Jane's transformation is the footwear, a pair of red mules designed by Pompei in 1955 and repoduced in more recent years by Giuseppe Zanotti.
The red mules (the colour also evokes an antique Murano glass piece that Jane buys at Renato's shop) become the protagonists of a seduction scene as well: the director doesn't indeed follow Jane and Renato on their date through Venice, but he frames their feet as they walk, dance and finally stand on the balcony of Renato's house, where one abandoned mule hints at the fact Jane will spend the night with him.
Guess such details should qualify a movie as a "fashion film", rather than a series of houses, brands and designers lending clothes and accessories to a movie, as it happened in the last few weeks when it was announced that Salvatore Ferragamo designed outfits for David Brühl as Niki Lauda, and for Alexandra Maria Lara as Marlene Knaus, in Rush by Ron Howard, and Gucci dressed in the same film James Hunt, played by Chris Hemsworth, and his first wife Suzy Miller, portrayed by Olivia Wilde; Tod’s Gommino moccasins and D-bag tote (named after the late princess) appear in Diana by Oliver Hirschbiegel, while Armani dressed Jodie Foster in Neill Blomkamp's Elysium and Armani Casa provided the interior design pieces for Paranoia by Robert Luketic.
It would be interesting from now on to see directors focusing more on the meaning of specific costumes/accessories in their films rather than engaging in product placement exercises or looking for sponsorship opportunities, don't you think so?
PS Movie Trivia: the hairstyles in "Summertime" were created by Italian hairdresser Grazia De Rossi who worked on lots of films in Italy and created quite a few hairstyles for Audrey Hepburn as well. De Rossi even followed Audrey Hepburn in 1957 to New York to shoot the TV version of "Mayerling".
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