Dress Up and Play

Coco Avant Chanel costumes part.2 The Rise

Part 1

‘She was the first good-looking couturier and because of her own strong look, everybody wanted to copy her. She was an artist who intellectualised couture for the first time,' explains Catherine Leterrier, costume designer of the exquisitely costumed film Coco Avant Chanel.

 

Legend has it Coco was preparing for a party and suddenly was inspired to cast off the traditional frou frou girly look for some male dominated pants. Myth has swelled to a point that she is now known as the first woman ever to wear pants.

 

"The fashion of that period was lovely, so it was difficult to show that Coco looked better than all these elegant women." - Catherine Leterrier

 

Coco Chanel's major influences were the introduction of menswear inspired pieces for women and the innovative use of jersey fabrics.

"she was her own muse", says Leterrier. 

Part 3 of Coco Avant Chanel costumes coming soon.....

Coco Avant Chanel part.1 The Beginning

Audrey Tautou plays Coco Chanel in the upcoming biopic Coco Avant Chanel. 

Costume Designer Catherine Leterrier was brought on for the challenging task of recreating the most influential couturier to ever grace the earth. As the film follows Chanel's life - mostly her early years- you will almost never see the tradition Chanel looks we know today.

 

Coco Chanel was abandoned by her parents early in life - having to find her own way by working as a seamstress and then as a milliner.

 

The movie follows Coco in her early years, concentrating on her rise and the early elements that would influence her design choices.

 

 

 

 

‘Of course there is pressure because Coco was the greatest. It is like, for an actor, when you play Shakespeare. But then I just approached it like any other film,' Catherine Leterrier

Lady Gaga on Idol

I lurved this outfit.

Carrie

A. I'm not a very Up-To-The-Minute Blogger.... I've had my head buried in the sand every one has seen this (days ago) but me.

B. I said I wouldn't devote any time or energy on the whole Sex and the City stuff but this hat is deffinately costume worthy I had to do something about it so here are my favorite guys' take on the outfit (even though I don't entirely agree with them.)

Then and Now:Valentino and the Golddiggers of 1933

This is the first in what will hopefully be many posts illustrating the evolution of trends and design details and silhouettes. This is one of my favorite things to see- when something from the past pops right into the present with a seemingly fresh take.
Below is a sleeve that I could not take my eyes off of. I took about ten still frames of this suit:

This is from the Busby Berkely movie Golddiggers of 1933. This is the lovely Miss Ginger Rogers modeling this lovely suit that I'm going to imagine is a shade of pink. The designer of this movie is credited as being Orry-Kelly but only specifically "gowns." So I'm not quite sure that this goes under that heading. I would imagine this is from the Production Company's costume warehouse where a full-time wardrobe staff member picked this out somewhere one day with the pleasure of going home and saying he or she dressed the world-famous Miss Rogers but getting absolutely no credit for it whatsoever. So I will take this moment to personally thank this person- whoever you are, wherever you are! Your efforts have not gone unnoticed!

...a few months later I came across this great picture of Reese Witherspoon in Australia Harper's Bazaar:

It's so pretty! It's a Valentino Dress and Jacket. I'm sure this sleeve came up at least a few points during the 80s on Dallas on either Alexis or Krystal or both- but I dont have any pictures of those. (I'm looking)

The Atonement

Who doesn't love a pretty dress? Well, here's one for the day: Keira Knightly in a stunning kelly green dress for the movie The Atonement, which is suppossed to come out soon. The costume designer is Jacqueline Durran, who also did Pride and Prejudice. It seems as if she is just getting started, but is having some great beginners luck being chosen for quite a few great projects!

It looks like in this last picture there's some cutwork around the neckline and armholes but it's really tough to make out. I love this dress.

Sex and the City... the Movie

So... um... I'm sorry to say this for all the SatC fans out there but I am B-O-R-E-D of this show. Don't get me wrong there was a couple of years there where I was all about it. We had a mini-Finale party and everything... but I'm just plain over it. It had it's moment... and that moment is being beaten to death on My9 and TBS every night. However I couldn't help but wonder....

I saw this pic of the wedding dress today and thought in the interest of Creative Scholarship it's worth noting. And this sort of bright green/turquoise color of the feathers is a color I'm just in love with these days... Okay okay okay- yeah, I'm just a sucker for a Big Fat Dress so here it is.

And some other Pat Fields extravaganza:

This is pretty much all I'm devoting to this movie. (To be fair, I don't doubt the genius that is Pat Fields. Some of my annoyance is coming from the over-hype that's going to kill any fun out of this project. And that she's the only costume designer any non-costume interested person has ever heard of, except she's really just a stylist- a FANTASTIC stylist- but still a stylist. I would be enjoying this alot more if every 9 year old wasn't wearing feathers in her hair right now. But one does have to admit that alot of today's style will - in time- be seen as a direct influence of her work on this show. And for that history making artistry I salute her.)

October Couture

So, I don't just love eye candy...I love eye CAKE. This is a gorgeous spread from this month's Vogue mag... photographed by David Sims with an article by Sally Singer. How's this for a paragraph?:

Karl Lagerfeld offered a full wardrobe-suits, coats, dresses, and evening- united by a slim, dramatically linear silhouette, where volume, instead of being on the front[...] or at the back[...] was subtly on the sides. Encrusted in stones, dotted with pearls, stripped in leather, distrubed by gores and gussets and other dimensional tricks, the side seams most of all drew out those verticals in a woman's body that are so often obscured. There was a slither of black silk with shimmering silver racing stripes; a monastic tweed tunic with matching hood edged in wild avian fronds; a long sequined sheath with a floor length feathered tabard, lined in a splatter of black and white sequins. But the most important and inspiring idea of all was a tiny, corseted jacket shape with a three-quarter sleeve and a stiff peplum. It looked so modern, and, from a house synonymous with the boxy jacket, so fresh. It illuminated Lagerfeld's genius for translating something historical- in this case, a water-resistant early-eighteenth-century riding jacket that he found at auction- into a fully modern idiom. The riding jacket hung in the Chanel atelier on Rue Cambom in the weeks before the show. Too miniature to be worn by anyone- size 0 must have struck Bourbons as positively enormous- it served as an example of exactly what good design can achieve: beauty and utility that retain their relevance for centuries.

the Karl jacket mentioned above; Chanel Haute Couture

John Galliano for Dior; Christian Lacroix

Chanel Haute Couture; Galliano for Dior

Giorgio Armani; Christian Lacroix

Galliano for Dior; Christian Lacroix

Chanel Haute Couture; Jean Paul Gaultier

Elizabeth : The Golden Age

This image is from this month's Vogue magazine. Cate Blanchett, pictured as her character Elizabeth from the new movie Elizabeth: The Golden Age. The dress she wears in this picture is an 'inspired' dress by Givenchy. The photo is a nice teaser, but the costumes in the movie by Alexandra Byrne show much more promise.

(Go here to watch a larger trailer.)