Fashion designers in film
IWILL have to read my copy of The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour and Greed (2001) by Sara Gay Forden before its movie version, House of Gucci, gets its theatrical release. And I will have to watch The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story—i’ve read Vulgar Favors: The Assassination of Gianni Versace (1999) by Maureen Orth—now that murder is in fashion. It’s ECQ Season 3, so I might get to doing both.
The Internet went agog when Lady Gaga dropped the posters for House of Gucci, where she plays Patrizia Reggiani, the Italian socialite who orchestrated the March 1995 murder of her ex-husband Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver, the face of the Burberry Hero scent), the grandson of Gucci founder Guccio Gucci. She served 18 years in jail, out of a reduced 26-year sentence.
The Oscar-bait film, which coincides with the centennial of the luxury brand, also features Oscar winners Jeremy Irons as Rodolfo Gucci, Maurizio’s father; Aldo Gucci, his uncle; and Jared Leto as Paolo Gucci, his bankrupt cousin; and nominee Salma Hayek as Giuseppina “Pina” Auriemma, the clairvoyant who conspired with Patrizia.
Reggiani (“I would rather weep in a Rolls-royce than be happy on a bicycle.”) is unimpressed. “I am rather annoyed at the fact that Lady Gaga is playing me in the new Ridley Scott film without having had the consideration and sensibility to come and meet me,” she told Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata.
Angelina Jolie and Leonardo Dicaprio were previously attached to the film, but I think they’re too beautiful to play Patrizia and Maurizio. The cast don’t resemble their characters but at least Gaga and Al Pacino (as Aldo Gucci) have Italian heritage. Leto, whose stunning transformation might win the film a hair and makeup Oscar, has Cajun ancestry. Perhaps Paul Giammati wasn’t asked and Raoul Bova is too pretty?
Robert De Niro (Italian stock) was cast as Rodolfo before the British Jeremy Irons took over. The Italian Monica Bellucci was eyed for the Auriemma role, which went to the Mexican Hayek (who’s married to current Gucci owner François-henri Pinault). Would it have pleased the Guccis if the cast was all-italian?
Tom Ford, one-time Gucci designer, is portrayed by Reeves Carney. Since there’s no photo release yet, we don’t know if there’s any resemblance between the two. The most uncanny likeness is of Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramirez and Gianni Versace in the bio series. Not so much Donatella and the Spanish Penelope Cruz. The Italian fashion powerhouse was also unhappy with their cinematic treatment, which dwelt more on Gianni’s Filipino-american serial killer Andrew Cunanan (Fil-am Darren Criss).
The French seem to have the flair for casting their own. Ingenue Audrey Tatou, in the 2009 biographical drama film Coco Before Chanel (Coco avant Chanel), was captivating as Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel before she was the byword in French fashion. In 2014, Gaspard Ulliel (Saint Laurent) and Pierre Niney (Yves Saint Laurent, where Karl Lagerfeld was played by Nikolai Kinski) both portrayed the legendary haute couturier. Ulliel became the face of the fragrance Bleu de Chanel while Niney won the César Award for best actor.
The Scottish Ewan Mcgregor is nominated in the 2021 Emmys for playing the first superstar fashion designer, the American Roy Halston Frowick in the miniseries Halston. Halston defined the 1970s with his shirtdress, kaftan and ultrasuede designs. He democratized fashion by catering to the masses, fatally so as he lost the rights to his name in the process.
While real fashion designers appear as themselves in seminal fashion films, fictionalized versions are also featured prominently. In Robert Altman’s satirical comedy-drama film Prêt-à-porter (1994), Forest Whitaker is Cy Bianco and Richard E. Grant is Cort Romney. In Ben Stiller’s comedy, Zoolander (2001), Will Ferrell is the murderous Jacobim Mugatu, John Vargas as an Italian designer, Jennifer Coolidge as an American designer, and Tony Kanal as a French designer. In the book-to-film The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Daniel Sunjata plays James Holt.
My most favorite fictional fashion mogul, however, is the incomparable Edna Mode (The Incredibles, 2004 and 2018), who makes clothes for the superheroes. Fans speculate that her pint-size frame is based on Oscar winner Linda Hunt and her blunt bangs and bold, circular-framed glasses are from eight-time
Oscar winner, costume designer Edith Head.
Director Brad Bird said he imagined Edna as halfGerman and half-japanese. Bryn Imagire of the film’s art department shared that she referenced the work of Japanese designers Rei Kawakubo, Eiko Ishioka and Sacai’s Chitose Abe for Edna’s outfits in the sequel. Imagire told Nypost.com: “Rei Kawakubo has a quote...‘for something to be beautiful, it doesn’t have to be pretty.’ So I took that and started to think about Edna’s costumes not as pieces of clothing, but more as abstract sculpture.”
Finally, there’s the Oscar-nominated Phantom Thread (2017), the final film of the great Daniel Daylewis. The historical and fictional drama is about Reynolds Woodcock, a rigid, fading designer in 1950s London. Day-lewis, a Method actor, studied midcentury fashion shows, learned to sew and recreated sheath dress from scratch (as per Mental Floss).
In an Entertainment Weekly interview, writer/ director Paul Thomas Anderson said, “I generally didn’t have that much knowledge or interest in the fashion world until I started finding out a little bit about a guy named Cristóbal Balenciaga.”