There's nothing better than relaxing on a Sunday watching an old film and, if you're looking for something mixing a modern plot, with some fashion references and a bit of architecture as well, don't look further than Michelangelo Antonioni's La signora senza camelie (The Lady Without Camelias, 1953).
Actress Lucia Bosé starred in the film as Clara Manni, a young shop assistant working in a Milan-based textile shop. Discovered by producer, Gianni (Andrea Checchi), Clara moves to Rome and becomes an actress.
The success of Clara's first film doesn't change her and grants the young woman a contract for another movie, a classic "seduced and abandoned" story spiced up with sensual scenes with Clara as protagonist. In the meantime, Gianni proposes to her and Clara reluctantly agrees to the marriage.
The marriage marks the end of her rise to success as, turning into a jealous husband, Gianni interrupts the film she is shooting to look for more serious and credible parts for Clara.
The couple eventually shoot a new version of the Joan of Arc story that reveals a flop. As her personal life and career falls apart, Clara realises she may not be the actress she dreamt of becoming and accepts to go with the flow, carried by other people's suggestions and choices for her.
Though this is an early film by Antonioni, the composition of the frames is impeccable, with the backgrounds playing key roles in some of the scenes. Clara and Nando (Ivan Desny), who briefly becomes her lover, have a key meeting in a desolate road with the EUR district in the background, almost to highlight the desolation of this relationship, while the villa where Clara and Gianni live becomes a symbol of their wealth, but also an oppressive presence in Clara's life. Despite its glass walls and open staircases, Clara feels indeed stifled and depressed in the villa.
The costumes for Lucia Bosé and for Monica Clay who plays Clara's friend Simonetta were created by the prestigious Sartoria Battilocchi, an Italian Haute Couture fashion house founded in the 1920s in Rome by Aurora Battilocchi. The dresses produced by Battilocchi were famous for their precise cut, precious fabrics and refined details and were perfect to highlight Clara's transformation from rags to riches.
Exquisite and lavish fabrics such as satin and silk were chosen for the evening dresses Bosé wore, complemented by accessories such as scarves, leather gloves, belts and bags, while plush leopard furs by the Venice-based Riele were used as a symbol of the status Clara reaches at the climax of her career (at the beginning of the film Clara only wears simple jackets and long skirts, but her style radically changes when she marries Gianni; the first fur appears on the screen when the two unhappy lovers come back from their honeymoon for example...).
Yet this film is worth rewatching not just for such connections with fashion, but also for some extremely modern themes, such as the lack of communication between men and women (a key Antonioni topic) and women being manipulated by men who exploit their insecurities and weaknesses.
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