Fashion has always been obsessed with red shoes: in their Spring/Summer 2004 collection, titled "The Red Shoes," Viktor & Rolf paired each ensemble with distinct red shoes, ranging from stilettos to slingbacks. The red shoes and the catwalk soundtrack, featuring hits such as "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", reminded of the iconic ruby slippers designed by Gilbert Adrian and made by Salvatore Ferragamo for Judy Garland in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.
The fascination with red shoes transcended runways and found its way into cinema, often taking on eerie undertones, as seen in Kim Yong-gyun's 2005 film "Bunhongsin" (The Red Shoes), where a pair of initially beautiful pink shoes (rather than red) transforms from desired to cursed objects. However, the origin of the fascination with red shoes lies in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1948 Technicolor masterpiece.
Regarded by many as one of the finest British films, "The Red Shoes" adapts Hans Christian Andersen's 1845 fairy tale.
The film revolves around Victoria Page, portrayed by ballerina Moira Shearer, who joins the prestigious ballet company directed by impresario Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), a sort of vampiric monster who thinks art is more important than life, and faces a dilemma between her career and her love for conductor and composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring). Vicky's struggle mirrors the tragic choices faced by the protagonist in Andersen's original fairy tale.
A cinematic gem, the film has left a lasting impact on directors like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. Released in 1948, it not only served as a metaphor for art but often influenced fashion collections, with ballet-inspired themes - from leotards and leggings to leg warmers, tutus and ballerinas modelled on en pointe shoes.
Hein Heckroth designed the costumes and set for the film; Carven designed the costumes for Ludmilla Tchérina while Jacques Fath and Malli of London created Moira Shearer's non-ballet wardrobe.
Fath continued to be inspired by the film in the years that followed it: in 1950 he designed a sumptuous rich red silky satin dress with a strapless neckline embellished with a bow, matched with a sculptural stole (View this photo). The attire, modelled by Bettina, was aptly named "The Red Shoes" (the dress also served as the inspiration for an eponymous fragrance).
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the film, celebrated by London's British Film Institute (BFI) Southbank with a Powell and Pressburger season. For the occasion, the BFI has also launched a free exhibition.
Entitled "The Red Shoes: Beyond the Mirror," curated by Claire Smith and Sue Prichard and designed by Simon Costin, the event (running until January 7th) showcases around 100 unseen costume and production designs by Hein Heckroth and Ivor Beddoes (who is actually uncredited on the film, but worked as a design storyboard collaborator together with Heckroth), scripts, behind-the-scenes photographs, personal items owned by Moira Shearer and a dress she donned around the time of the European publicity tour.
Obviously the event includes Moira Shearer's red pointe shoes, loaned to the BFI by the Martin Scorsese Collection and The Film and TV Charity, though some visitors may have already spotted a pair of blood-red ballet slippers worn by Moira Shearer in other exhibitions (such as London's "Shoes: Pleasure and Pain" at the V&A in 2016).
In this exhibition there seems to be a double narrative, one about Shearer's rise to fame (she was just 22 in 1948, and when she went to America with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in 1949, she was far more famous than Margot Fonteyn) and another about Hekroth's artworks.
According to the BFI researchers, Heckroth and Beddoes produced approximately 2,000 storyboard sketches, drawings, and paintings for the entire film, with the BFI recently acquiring additional drawings by Heckroth.
Heckroth, trained at the Bauhaus but drawing on the surrealist tradition, created a strikingly visual world for this ballet that Powell used to define "Freudian".
For this fantasy-tinged film in which pastel tones created nightmarishly dreamy effects when combined with more vibrant shades, Heckroth came up with pure works of art: to create the set for the 17-minute fantasy ballet sequence, he made 130 oil paintings.
The works were turned into an animated film that was then used as the inspiration for the choreography by Robert Helpmann that was reminiscent of the exotic grandeur of Diaghilev's iconic ballet company, and the score by Brian Easdale. Choreography, music, art, dance, storytelling all came together in Heckroth's illustrations.
The exhibition also introduces the film's legacy with Kate Bush's eponymous album (noteworthy additions include a letter from Michael Powell to Kate Bush in 1989) and costumes and props from Matthew Bourne's 2016 ballet adaptation. But the influence of Powell extends into the works of Margaret Atwood and films by Tilda Swinton to Greta Gerwig.
It would have been nice to expand the legacy of the film with references to fashion and beauty as well: did you ever notice how Vicky's iconic makeup style is evoked by Corinne's red eyeliner in 1982's cult classic "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains"? This could potentially inspire a makeup collaboration with a cosmetics brand.
However, despite red shoes being a consistent obsession in fashion, drawing inspiration from the film requires a deeper exploration of its core message.
"The Red Shoes" is indeed a narrative about the mystery of the obsession of creativity, it is almost an analysis of the compulsion to create. Lermontov asks indeed to Vicky, "Why do you want to dance?" She replies with unwavering composure, "Why do you want to live?" encapsulating in her answer the film's essence. So ponder along these themes and, if you're a creative mind, think about the driving force that compels you to persist in your practice - for in these reflections, you may uncover the true essence of your creative journey.
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