Federico Fellini's La strada (The Road) celebrates this year its 60th anniversary. The film was indeed presented at the Venice Film Festival on 6th September 1954. Though critics received it rather negatively at the time, the movie won Fellini the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1956.
The film follows the vicissitudes of brutal strongman Zampanò (Anthony Quinn) and naïve Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina). Sold by her own mother to the street performer, Gelsomina joins him in his shows, but, while Zampanò is always rude and in a bad mood, Gelsomina is eager to learn to play the drum and trumpet, or dance and jump around to please her audience.
The film ends in tragedy, but Masina's talent in portraying Gelsomina the sweet, naïve and melancholic clownesse, earned her the nickname "the female Chaplin", and helped turning the movie into a very inspiring story for quite a few fashion shoots and fashion collections. Some of you may remember for example Douglas Kirkland who celebrated Italian film in a cinematic shoot for the Italian edition of Vanity Fair in October 2008, or Scarlett Johansson portrayed as Gelsomina and shot by Tim Walker in the June 2011 issue of W Magazine.
In past menswear collections, Dolce & Gabbana referenced instead Zampanò's torn and dirty vests and jackets; Gelsomina's stripy sleeveless shirt, battered coat and bowler hat also proved key references, but it is her natural vocation for clownery that was quite often referred to in different collections.
An exhibition about Fellini that took place in 1994 featured two pieces by Moschino that borrowed from Gelsomina's character: the "Harlequin" (A/W 1993-94 collection), a coat composed of hundreds of different swatches of fabrics that formed a multi-coloured costume, but also called to mind the casual look of Gelsomina the clown; and "Ballerina?" (A/W 1991-92), a dress that could be considered as a tribute to the awkward, but fun, sweet and angelic Gelsomina. The evening gown with a tight bodice featured indeed a trompe l'oeil motif of a dancing ballerina on the skirt and a short tulle ruffle around the waist, so that, under certain lights, the wearer looked like a ballerina standing en pointe. Looking for further inspirations? Just re-watch the film!
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