Cinematic Style

Also by Jess Berry and also by Bloomsbury

House of Fashion: Haute Couture and the Modern Interior
 Cinematic Style

Fashion, Architecture and Interior

Design on Film

Jess Berry
 BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS
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 Contents

Illustrations vi
Acknowledgements x

Introduction: Cinematic style – fashion, architecture and

interior design on film 1

1 Bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms: Modern women,

seductive spaces and spectacular silhouettes 13
2 Evil lairs and bachelor dandies: Modernist architecture,
spies and the suit 41
3 Luxurious longings: Queer heterotopias in décor and dress 63
4 Grand entrances: Staircases, stages and fashion parades 85
5 Windows and screens: Cinema, department stores
and boutique display 107
6 Dream spaces: Film sets as fashion flagships and
experiential retail environments 129

Conclusion 151

Notes 158
Filmography 180
Bibliography 188
Index 203
 Illustrations

1.1 Greta Garbo as Arden in The Single Standard (1929). Credits:

John S. Robertson (Director), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
(Film Production). Photo: ullstein bild via Getty Images. 17
1.2 Laure Maresco as Nathalie Lissenko in Le Double Amour (1925).
Credits: Jean Epstein (Director). Films Albatros (Film Production).
Screen still. 19
1.3 Doris Day as Jan Morrow and Thelma Ritter as Alma in Pillow Talk
(1959). Credits: Michael Gordon (Director). Photo: Silver Screen
Collection/Getty Images. 23
1.4 Maggie Cheung as Su Lizhen In the Mood for Love (2000).
Credits: Wong Kar-Wai (Director), Jet Tone Productions and
Paradise Films (Film Production), Screen still. 26
1.5 Jean Harlow as Kitty Packard in Dinner at Eight (1933).
Credits: George Cukor (Director) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
(MGM) (Film Production). Photo Credit: John Springer Collection/
CORBIS via Getty Images. 29
1.6 Rita Hayworth as Gilda and George Macredy as Ballian Mudson in
Gilda (1946). Credits: Charles Vidor (Director), Columbia Pictures
(Film Production). Photo Credits: Columbia/Getty Images. 31
1.7 Joan Crawford as Crystal Allen in the bath and Rosalind Rusell as
Sylvia in The Women (1939). Credits: George Cukor (Director),
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (Film Production).
Photo Credits: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Getty Images. 35
1.8 Julia Roberts as Vivian Ward and Richard Gere as Edward Lewis
in Pretty Woman (1990). Credits: Garry Marshall (Director),
Touchstone Pictures (Film Production). Screen still. 38
2.1 Vandamm House in North By Northwest (1959). Credits: Alfred
Hitchcock (Director), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (Film
Production). Screen still. 45
2.2 Interior of Vandamm House, North by Northwest (1959).
Credits: Alfred Hitchcock (Director), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
(MGM) (Film Production). Screen still. 46
 Illustrations vii

2.3 Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill in North by Northwest (1959).

Credits: Alfred Hitchcock (Director), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
(MGM) (Film Production). Photo Credit: Sunset Boulevard/
Corbis via Getty Images. 49
2.4 Sean Connery as James Bond and Jack Lord as Felix Leiter in
Dr. No (1962). Credits: Terrance Young (Director), Eon Productions
(Film Production). Photo Credit: United Artist/Getty Images. 51
2.5 Daniel Craig as James Bond wearing Tom Ford in Spectre
(2015). Credits: Sam Mendes (Director), Eon Productions (Film
Production). Screen still. 52
2.6 Adolf Loos interior design for the gentleman’s outfitters Knize,
Vienna (1910–1913). Photography by Photo Studio Gerlach.
Photo Credit: Imagno/Getty Images. 56
2.7 Lola Larson as Bambi, Elrod House interior, Diamonds Are Forever
(1971). Credits: Guy Hamilton (Director), Eon Productions
(Film Production). Screen still. 59
3.1 Contrasting textures. Rooney Mara as Therese and Cate Blanchett as
Carol in Carol (2015). Credits: Todd Haynes (Director), Number 9
Films, Film 4, Killer Films (Film Production). Screen still. 66
3.2 Attention to fabric. Rooney Mara as Therese and Cate Blanchett as
Carol in Carol (2015). Credits: Todd Haynes (Director), Number 9
Films, Film 4, Killer Films (Film Production). Screen still. 67
3.3 Surface style. Colin Firth as George and Julianne Moore as Charlie
in A Single Man (2009). Credits: Tom Ford (Director), Artina Films,
Depth of Field and Fade to Black (Film Production). Screen still. 69
3.4 John Lautner Schaffer Residence. Colin Firth as George in A Single
Man (2009). Credits: Tom Ford (Director), Artina Films, Depth of
Field and Fade to Black (Film Production). Screen still. 70
3.5 The intimate interior. Colin Firth as George and Nicolaus
Hoult as Kenny in A Single Man (2009). Credits: Tom Ford
(Director), Artina Films, Depth of Field and Fade to Black
(Film Production). Screen still. 71
3.6 The Presidential Suite. Rooney Mara as Therese and Cate Blanchett
as Carol in Carol (2015). Credits: Todd Haynes (Director),
Number 9 Films, Film 4, Killer Films (Film Production). Screen still. 73
3.7 Mirror as queer heterotopia. Rooney Mara as Therese and Cate
Blanchett as Carol in Carol (2015). Credits: Todd Haynes (Director),
Number 9 Films, Film 4, Killer Films (Film Production). Screen still. 74
viii Illustrations

3.8 Melvin Poupaud as Laurence Alia in Laurence Anyways (2012).

Credits: Xavier Dolan (Director), Layla Films and MK2
(Film Production). Screen still. 77
3.9 The Five Roses in Laurence Anyways (2012). Credits: Xavier Dolan
(Director), Layla Films and MK2 (Film Production). Screen still. 78
4.1 Fashion designer Gabrielle Coco Chanel sitting on the stairs in her
atelier. Photo Credit: Photo by Photo 12/UIG/Getty Images. 90
4.2 Model standing on staircase wearing a white organdie dress by Dior,
Paris, March 1956. Publication: Picture Post. Photo Credit: Savitry/
Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images. 93
4.3 Ziegfeld Follies performers dressed by Lucile (Lady Duff Gordon)
(1917). Photo Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images. 95
4.4 Hedy Lamarr, Judy Garland and Lana Turner as chorus girls wearing
Adrian designed gowns in Ziegfeld Girl (1941). Credits: Busby
Berkeley and Robert Z. Leonard (Director) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
(Film Production). Photo Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images. 97
4.5 Audrey Hepburn descends the Daru Staircase at the Louvre in
Paris, in a scene from Funny Face (1957). Credits: Stanely Donen
(Director), Paramount Pictures (Film Production). Photo Credit:
Archive Photos/Getty Images. 98
4.6 Tilda Swinton as Emma Recchi in I Am Love (Io sonno l’amore)
(2009). Credits: Luca Guadagnino (Director), First Sun
(Film Production). Screen still. 100
4.7 Oki Sato, Nendo Studio Ame Nochi Hana-Rain Flowers
at Le Bon Marche department store (2020). Photo Credit:
Chesnot/Getty Images. 102
4.8 Prada Epicentre staircase designed by architect Rem Koolhaas
(2001). Photo credit: David LEFRANC/Gamma-Rapho via
Getty Images. 104
5.1 Selfridges windows lit up at night (1935). Photo Credit: David
Savill/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images. 110
5.2 Recreation of Sonia Delaunay’s Boutique Simultanée at the Museum
of Modern Art, Paris, 2014. The original shopfront was first presented
at the 1924 Salon d’Automne. Photo Credit: Chesnot/Getty Images. 113
5.3 Robert Mallet-Stevens’ set design for L’Inhumaine (1924). Marcel
L’Herbier (Director). Credit: Art et Decoration July 1926: 134. 115
5.4 Robert Mallet-Stevens’ residence at rue Mallet-Stevens Paris (1927).
Photo Credit: Jess Berry. 116
 Illustrations ix

5.5 Interior design by Robert Mallet-Stevens and Sonia Delaunay,

Le P’tit Parigot (1926). Credits: René Le Somptier (Director),
Luminor (Film Production) Photo Credit: ullstein bild/ullstein
bild via Getty Images. 118
5.6 René Herbst, Hall of Windows, Studio Siegel. Art et Decoration
1927: 199. 120
5.7 Sam Hood, Ziegfeld Girl display window using MGM promotional
material (1941). Photo Credit: State Library of New South Wales. 123
5.8 Baz Luhrmann (Director) and Catherine Martin (Production
Designer) at the unveiling of Tiffany’s Fifth Avenue windows
inspired by their adaptation of The Great Gatsby (2013).
Photo Credit: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for Tiffany & Co 124
6.1 Cinema da Camera, Gucci Gardens, Florence. Photo Credit:
Jess Berry (2019). 133
6.2 Italy in Hollywood exhibition Museum Salvatore Ferragamo
(2018). Photo Credit: Jess Berry. 135
6.3 Bedroom decorated by Ralph Lauren as part of his new Home
Collection New York. LIFE 1986. Photo Credit: Dirck Halstead/The
LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images. 138
6.4 Catherine Martin and Miuccia Prada Dress Gatsby at Prada
Epicentre, New York (2013). Photo Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/
Getty Images for Prada. 140
6.5 Wes Anderson, Bar Luce at Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo
Credit: Jess Berry (2018). 141
6.6 Anita Eckberg on the set of Boccaccio ’70 segment ‘Le tentazioni
del dottor Antonio’(1961) against the backdrop of Palazzo Civiltà
Italiana, directed by Fedrico Fellini. Photo Credit: Vittoriano
Rastelli/Corbis via Getty Images. 145
6.7 Fendi New York Flagship Boutique, Madison Aveue (2015).
Photo Credit: Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Images via Getty Images. 147
6.8 India Mahdavi interior for RED Valentino London Flagship store,
2016. Photo Credit: David M. Benett/Getty Images for Red Valentino. 149
 Acknowledgements

Much of this book was written while I was on study leave during a year of great
upheaval in the Australian university sector as a result of the global pandemic.
The significant opportunity to dedicate time to research and writing was made
possible due to the support of my colleagues at Monash University. Dean of Art,
Design and Architecture, Professor Shane Murray and Associate Dean Research,
Professor Melissa Miles deserve my deep gratitude for their support of this
project. My sincere appreciation also goes to Associate Professor Gene Bawden,
Associate Professor Nicole Kalms, Professor Lisa Grocott and Sarah Stratton
who all provided stimulating discussion, guidance, mentorship and friendship
in one way or another that has not only sustained me through the challenging
year that was 2020, but throughout my time at Monash. The entire XYX Gender
+ Place research lab team similarly deserve my grateful thanks as a dedicated,
ambitious, inspiring and supportive group of people to work with on projects
at the intersection of gender, identity and spatial practice. Thank you also to
the intelligent women of the Orbital reading group – Dr Alex Brown, Charity
Edwards, Dr Helen Hughs and Dr Anna Parlane – who provided insightful
discussion and thoughtful feedback on elements of the manuscript.
I owe an ongoing debt to Professor Susan Best. Her encouragement and
mentorship over many years, along with generous reading of the manuscript
and insightful critique, have been invaluable. Sue is also a dear friend; her
patience and humour for problem solving Zoom calls is a further kindness that
I much appreciate. Stimulating conversations and opportunities emerging from
conferences helped hone many of the ideas in this book. I am grateful to Sarah
Gillan for the opportunity to share my work at Fashion, Costume and Visual
Cultures with colleagues in Zagreb. I would especially like to thank Professor
Pamela Church Gibson who encouraged me to write this book at a conference
organized by Professor Vicki Karaminas in New Zealand, her assurance that
there was something in it was the catalyst for this project.
My deep gratitude to my brilliant editor at Bloomsbury, Frances Arnold, this
is my second book with her, and her interest and enthusiasm for my work are
much appreciated. Rebecca Hamilton and the rest of the team at Bloomsbury
are incredibly helpful and make the publishing process a pleasure. I also thank
 Acknowledgements xi

the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the proposal and
manuscript.
Lastly, thank you and love to my friends and family, especially Ruth and
Wolfgang, Dale and Gary, Andrea, and Tori who have always been there when I
needed them. Taco and The Dude Lebowski also deserve my thanks as borrowed
fur friends who were great company while writing this book.
xii
 Introduction: Cinematic style – fashion,
architecture and interior design on film

From cinema’s silent beginnings the spectacular visual pleasures of fashion,

interior design and architecture have enthralled audiences. Take for example
Cecil B. DeMille’s productions from the 1920s, in which ‘sex, sets and costumes’
were the secret to the director’s success.1 DeMille was amongst early pioneers
who brought architects, designers, artists and costumers to screen-production
paving the way for cinematic style to penetrate the imagination of a receptive
cinema-going public. The extravagant and ornate mise-en-scène of films such
as The Affairs of Anatol (1921) introduced audiences to the Art Nouveau designs
of the celebrated French fashion illustrator, Paul Iribe.2 It is clear that from very
early on, cinema cultivated consumer culture through fashions and furnishings,
where Theatre magazine claimed that: ‘more women see DeMille’s pictures than
read fashion magazines … and then there are the tips on interior decoration and
house furnishing … [educating] the taste of the masses.’3 Iribe’s visually arresting
patterned fabrics for evening dresses and coats coupled with the alluring
curvilinear décor of boudoirs and bedrooms were certainly glamorous images
that portrayed an alignment between style, sexuality, luxury and pleasure. Yet,
they conveyed more than just a glimmer of sexual impropriety. Just as design
discourse of the time designated decorative coherence between fashion and the
interior as an extension of women’s psychological interiority, sets and costumes
on screen revealed a character’s personality, desires and arc of transformation.
Through the aesthetics of Art Nouveau in The Affairs of Anatol – as well
as in the Natacha Rambova designed films Camille (1921) and Salomé (1923)
– audiences soon became acquainted with a prevailing cinematic trope that
saw sexually liberated, femme fatale figures represented by the glamorous
clothes they wore, and the luxurious rooms they inhabited. Women were cast
in a decorative mode, confirming links between interior, dress and lifestyle.
As Louise Wallenberg summarizes in Fashion and Modernity, film’s growing
2 Cinematic Style

popularity as a medium in the 1920s coincided with women’s increased sexual,

social and economic emancipation leading to archetypal representations that
circumscribed coherence between the ‘sexual woman’ and consumption.4 These
themes resurfaced continually in design and cinema discourses throughout
the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and herein lies a problem that has
long-lasting effects.
The gendered perception of glamorous and fashionable design modes
marks them as lacking in substance. The film theorist Rosalind Galt describes
how these types of screen surfaces trouble cinematic value by complying with
qualities that are: ‘carefully composed … richly textured … ornamental …
[comprised of] detailed mise-en-scène, and an emphasis on [a self-evidently
designed] cinematographic surface’.5 She reminds us that: ‘the rhetoric of cinema
has consistently denigrated surface decoration, finding the attractive skin of
the screen to be false, shallow, feminine or apolitical.’6 In other words, while
audiences may well be enamoured with the surfaces of cinematic style, fashion
and the interior share a long association with social, cultural and psychological
aspects of feminine and queer identities, resulting in their neglect within the
broader histories of design and cinema.
Despite the spectacular technological advancements of twenty-first century
cinema, stunning silhouettes and striking spaces still have the ability to dazzle
to dramatic affect. Yet, the correlation between these modes of aesthetic
production and consumption continues to be largely overlooked. That is not
to say that significant scholarship regarding the relationship between fashion
and film or spatial design and film does not exist. However, there is to date, no
existing comprehensive academic volume that is solely dedicated to surveying
the relationship between fashion, interior design and architecture as mediated
through film that takes into account developments from the silent era to the
present moment, as is the focus of this book.
Cinematic Style proposes fashion, spatial design and cinema as a triumvirate
system of symbolic narrative production that enables the translation of
glamorous lifestyles from the screen to real-life consumer culture. Specifically,
I argue that two central concerns can be discerned from this triangulation.
Firstly, the representation of gender and sexuality on screen is closely related
to the aesthetic alignment of silhouettes, styles, and spaces to visually convey
complex identity performances based in concepts of masquerade and interiority.
Secondly, cinematic style is calibrated to the fantasies of consumer desire, where
self-actualization is represented as realized through alluring surfaces and spaces.
This results in a mutually reinforcing dialogue between fashion, spatial design
 Introduction: Cinematic style 3

and film, which privileges narratives of transformation as the answer to self-

fulfilment and is articulated through fashion spaces beyond the screen.
Recognizing that there is an intersection between fashion, interior design and
architecture is not new. As I have previously outlined in House of Fashion: Haute
Couture and the Modern Interior these seemingly disparate areas of design share
much in common.7 Since haute couture’s inception, luxury fashion has sought to
leverage architecture and interior spaces as a way of enhancing value. It is worth
restating some of these confluences here to make clear my premise that fashion
and spatial design can be understood in tandem with each other. This approach
underpins the structure of the book. By considering body and space together
rather than as separate entities, a holistic understanding of how mise-en-scène
functions to produce narrative meaning is elucidated.
Fashion, interior design and architecture operate as both material and
conceptual manifestation. That is, they act as physical space inhabited by
bodies, but also appear as images and in the cultural imaginary aided by their
representation in illustrations, photographs and significantly to this book – on
film. It is my contention that film mediates the representation of interior design
and architecture in ways that are fashionable, aligning them with the purposes of
the fashion system. That is, the symbolic production of value that shifts clothing
to fashion relies on the representation of fashion as image and cultural object
associated with the social construction of identity, status and aesthetic tastes.
These apparatuses of myth making can equally be applied to the consumption of
the interior and architecture.
The aforementioned integration of fashion and spatial design through
aesthetic form in the case of Art Nouveau is just one example of this relationship
throughout the history of design that was reiterated in cinematic contexts. For
instance, Art Deco saw confluences between the slick polished surfaces of steam
liners and sumptuous hotels and the glamorous, silhouettes of streamlined
evening gowns. Hollywood art directors and costumers including Cedric Gibbons
and Adrian, as well as Van Nest Polglase and Bernard Newman, worked together
on complementary interiors and fashions, orchestrating a cogent approach to
shades of white styling in films such as Grand Hotel (1932) and Top Hat (1932).8
In the post-Second World War era, Christian Dior’s New Look (1947) and Tulip-
Line (1953) silhouettes dominated fashion. This exaggeration of form was also
carried out in mid-century modern home furnishings such as Arne Jacobsen’s
Series 7 chair (1955) and Eero Saarien’s Tulip Chair (1956) heralding a shift in
modernism towards organic forms.9 This type of correlation can be seen in
costumer Edith Head and set decorator Sam Comer’s approach in films such
4 Cinematic Style

as Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958).10 Similarly, Pop
materializations manifest in futuristic fashion looks by Paco Rabanne coupled
with Op Art and Verner Panton style interiors such as those in Who Are You Polly
Maggoo? (1966), and Barbarella (1968), demonstrate stylistic synergies across
design modes. This set of examples, while by no means exhaustive, gives weight
to John Potvin’s claim that ‘both fashion and furniture might be conceptualised
as two dialects emerging from the language of design’.11 Here, I extend this idea
to interiors more broadly, along with architecture, to elaborate on how these
dialects converge in film to convey narrative meaning.
Significantly, fashion and interior design not only share a common aesthetic
history, they also play an important role in modern identity formation – their
significance is underlined by their ability to act as sociocultural form linked with
human individuality and self-hood.12 The concept of architectural ‘interiority’ –
the emergence of individual persona and its relationship to the decorated room
as a marker of the inhabitant’s personality or state of mind – also resonates with
the way we understand fashion as an extension of one’s distinctiveness, status,
and taste linked to the performance of gender and sexuality.13 In this way both
fashion and the interior can be understood as a visible surface that conveys the
‘interiority’ of wearer or inhabitant. This position is somewhat complicated by
the concept of masquerade. First identified by the psychoanalyst Joan Riviere,
in ‘Womanliness as a Masquerade’, she proposes femininity as a surface or mask
to conceal traits that go against the grain of the cultural requirements of being
a woman.14 Through this concept, with the help of Mary Ann Doane and Judith
Butler, we can assume that the accoutrements that aid women’s performance
of femininity – such as the fashion and the interior – might not represent
the ‘interiority’ of a character on screen, but instead a mask assisting in the
performativity of gender.15 As such, masquerade can be held in tension with
interiority – an outside in relation to an inside, surface to depth, performance
to authenticity. The playing out of these complexities is not just pertinent to
representations of femininity, but also masculinity, as well as gender and sexually
diverse identities.
Fashion and the interior also come together in the physical spaces of consumer
culture, such as department stores, boutiques and flagship stores. They are
similarly conjoined in the representational spaces of fashion and design – in
magazines, new media forms and cinema. Significantly, glamorous architecture has
increasingly come to operate with this system also – where spectacular buildings
by celebrity architects are a further manifestation of fashion’s cultural capital. In
the early twentieth century this commercial context contributed to circumstances
 Introduction: Cinematic style 5

where couturiers and ensembliers were professionally aligned. Fashion

designers recognized how the interior might contribute to fashion’s spectacular
reception. They also used these sites to enhance their own branded identities as
entrepreneurs of lifestyle. Similarly, interior designers emulated the commercial
strategies and workings of the fashion system in developing their own branded
identities and by promoting change in redecorating the home to suit inhabitants’
evolving tastes. The design historian Penny Sparke draws our attention to these
developments and outlines how theatre also played a significant mediating role
in this relationship, where couturiers and interior designers both recognized the
stage as an important commercial strategy to display their wares.16 As this book
will show, this relationship also carried over to the screen, where the integration
of luxury fashion and the interior reached new mass audiences throughout the
twentieth century. These alliances continue in the current millennium.
Designer fashions have often played a starring role in film. For instance, Paul
Poiret’s exotic confections appeared in eighteen silent films between 1912 and
1932; Gabrielle Chanel’s elegant gowns featured in a number of films including
La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game, 1939) and Tonight or Never (1931); and
Yves Saint Laurent designed wardrobes for Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour
(1967) and La Sirène du Mississippi (1969).17 In these examples couture fashion
creates visual spectacle, while complimenting film narrative and conveying
character traits. Within the contemporary mediascape, as fashion and film
scholar Pamela Church Gibson claims: ‘Fashion has become omnipotent, moving
now from walk-on parts of the past to claim not only its own narrative strand,
but its complete mastery over mise-en-scène.’18 Her book Fashion and Celebrity
Culture provides convincing arguments regarding the ways that film intersects
with the fashion system. Celebrities on and off screen have been integral to the
promotion of designer fashions, fashion designers have appeared as stars in
fashion films, and the glamour attributed to the stylish wardrobes of cinematic
fantasies have fuelled consumer desire.19 Fashion as it relates to cinema then,
can be understood as a complex set of representations, embodiments, social
relations and consumer culture products and images. It is for this reason I use
the term ‘fashion’ throughout this book, rather than costume – as it implies the
ways that dress circulates beyond the screen.
My interpretation of the ‘fashion film’ is similarly broad. Here, designated
as films in which fashion is a significant component of the mise-en-scène, that
also operates within commercial contexts either through magazine editorial,
advertising, branding or retail strategies. This definition differs to how the
term is primarily understood in the fashion industry, where the production
6 Cinematic Style

of digital content by designer labels has laid claim to the format as an integral
branded media strategy in the new millennium. Nick Rees-Roberts’ insightful
book Fashion Film: Art and Advertising in the Digital Age, provides a thorough
analysis of the fashion film in relation to these new media forms of branded
entertainment, as well as recent interest in the lives of designers in documentaries
and dramatized biopics.20 These contemporary forms of fashion film also have
their place in the context of this book. However, in taking a broader view to
primarily focus on narrative cinema, I consider the long history of the fashion
film – from the silent era to the contemporary moment – as a representational
system that intersects with architecture and interior design, both on screen
and in everyday consumer culture. It is worth noting here, that I also use the
terms interior design, architecture and spatial design to describe what would be
termed as set design or production design in film studies.21 This not only allows
for an engagement with rich interdisciplinary discourses, to further situate the
significance of these cinematic examples within broader design histories; it also
recognizes that audiences often associate the manifestation of space on screen in
terms of these familiar, everyday designations.
Cinematic Style builds on perspectives that have focused on the role of
fashion in film, as well as the appreciation of architecture and the interior as
components of film production. The relationship between fashion and film has
been examined by a range of scholars whose perspectives have foregrounded the
symbolic role of costume in narrative construction and the ways that fashion
on screen has intersected with consumer culture.22 Edited collections such as
Adrienne Munich’s Fashion in Film, Rachel Moseley’s Fashioning Film Stars and
Jane Gains’ and Charlotte Herzog’s Fabrications: Costume and the Female Body
contain many excellent essays that elucidate the relationship between fashion,
gender, identity, and film.23 This rich and diverse scholarship has spanned a range
of genres, eras and styles, from the elaborate costumes of period films such as
Marie Antoinette (2006) to the influence of designer Italian suiting in American
Gigolo (1980), and much in between. Stella Bruzzi’s important book Undressing
Cinema, regarding the representation of dress and gendered and sexual identities
on screen is fundamental to my approach here; where I am keen to extend the
analysis of dress and unpick some of the complications that arise when fashioned
identities also come into contact with architecture and the interior.24
Some of this analysis has been previously undertaken by Merrill Schleier
in her book Skyscraper Cinema: Architecture and Gender in American Film.25
Presenting the case for tall buildings as characters in films such as The
Fountainhead (1949), and the ways that these structures mediate representations
 Introduction: Cinematic style 7

of masculinity and femininity, Schleier’s approach augments other texts that

focus on cities in cinema.26 Edited books such as David Clarke’s The Cinematic
City and Mark Lamster’s Architecture and Film look to celebrated examples such
as the buildings of Metropolis (1923), Blade Runner (1982) and Jacques Tati’s
Playtime (1967) to examine utopian and dystopian dichotomies of architectural
modernism.27 Particularly instructive to my purposes here is Pamela Robertson
Wojcik’s The Apartment Plot which offers an insightful model for the analysis of
gender and sexual identity in relation to domestic spaces on film.28
Just as haute couturiers-cum-costumers have made their mark on cinema,
interior designers and architects have also contributed to film narrative and
character development. For example, the Art Deco ensemblier Francis Jourdain
designed simple pared back furniture for Louis Delluc’s La Femme de Nulle (1922)
and Jean Vigo’s L’Atalante (1934) in his role as production designer; Charles and
Ray Eames were consultants on The Moon is Blue (1953) which featured design
classics such as the Vitra wire chair; and interior designer Violante Visconti di
Modrone created a ‘lived in quality’ through a selection of eclectic furnishings
for the Perlman family in Call Me by Your Name (2017).29 These contributions to
cinematic style can be understood more broadly in relation to the profession of
set design, production design and art direction, where there has been significant
scholarship on individual practitioners such as Cedric Gibbons and Ken Adam.30
Within this context, interior design histories have found an emerging
scholarship that has sought to understand intersections with screen style. For
example, Donald Albrecht’s Designing Dreams, and Lucy Fischer’s Cinema by
Design and Designing Women are amongst the few monographs that recognize
the multifaceted nature of design on film. Focusing primarily on interiors of the
early twentieth century – the International Style, Art Nouveau and Art Deco –
these important studies provide period-focused histories of design in cinema.31
These design styles are significant to this book also. However, in thematically
examining a broad range of films, I am interested in the reoccurrence of modes
of representation across time, and their continuing influence on consumer
cultures. Pat Kirkham and Sarah A. Lichtman’s edited book Screen Interiors
provides much needed further insight as to how interior décor conveys aspects
of class, gender and sexuality.32 Its broad reach across diverse genres spanning
sci-fi, horror and romantic comedy amongst others speaks to the increasing
scholarly interest in design’s intersections with film. Importantly, its scope
focuses beyond the golden years of Hollywood, with a range of contemporary
examples used to explore the psychological element of the interior on screen, an
approach which this book also shares in common.
8 Cinematic Style

This book relies on methods of analysis familiar to fashion and interior studies
adopted from the fields of design history, gender studies and sociology. They are
combined with the visual analysis of film to provide an understanding of the
various ways that fashion, spatial design and film enrich each other’s surfaces and
embedded meanings. The approach throughout privileges discourses of fashion,
interior design and architecture as they are represented in film examples, rather
than the intricacies of critically reading cinematic histories and techniques.
The selection of case study examples ranges from silent film, European art
house, Hollywood cinema, break-through independent film and advertising
short-film – deemed pertinent for their aesthetic circulation within the fashion
system. Alongside the films themselves, images of fashion and spatial design
provide important evidence of the ways that these modes of surface and style
are conceptually and aesthetically aligned. This scope is intentionally broad, and
undoubtedly significant examples are omitted. My aim is to demonstrate the
reoccurrence of particular modes of intersection between fashion and spatial
design across a range of cinematic and consumer contexts, in the hope that this
survey will encourage further scholarship.
The book is structured in two parts. Part 1: Fashion and the Interior as Filmic
Device thematically explores representations of gender and sexuality through
fashion and interior design and architecture. Each of the chapters here contribute
to the overarching argument that the interrelationship between fashion and spatial
design is central to character and narrative development, while simultaneously
aligning film with consumer culture and the fashion system. Recognizing the
dynamic combination of sex, sets and costumes as an ostentatious showcase for
the desires of consumer culture, the chapters in this section are underpinned
by the argument that gendered and sexual representations of characters on
screen are indebted to the culmination of fashion, the interior and architecture
to provide audiences with an understanding of character’s interior motivations
and identities. I consider the ways that gender and sexual identity have been
positioned in relation to sites of domesticity and kinship, and the ways that
fashioned bodies both reinforce and contest traditional roles and representations.
Chapter 1 argues that bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms, as intimate
domestic spaces, coupled with form-fitting sensuous silhouettes, have been
inherently tied to women’s gender and sexual identities. Drawing on a range of
films spanning classical Hollywood cinema such as Dinner at Eight (1933) and
The Women (1939), along with romances In the Mood for Love (2000) and Une
Parisienne (1957) amongst others, this chapter examines the figure of the modern
woman across time and how her identity has been linked to luxurious surfaces on
 Introduction: Cinematic style 9

the body and in the home. Here, I draw on the feminist film discourses of Laura
Mulvey and Mary Ann Doane to articulate some of the contradictory positions
of visual pleasure that are tied to these representations.33 The intersection
between female protagonist as spectacle and object of consumption is well-worn
within cinematic discourse. However, it is relevant to revisit these debates in
order to understand the complex ways that female characters seek to fulfil their
own desires and visible autonomy within the context of the sensory pleasures of
fashion and the interior. The regulation between maternal, marital, moral and
material obligation that is played out in the cinematic examples discussed in this
chapter is testament to the complex ways received concepts of femininity have
been constituted through fashion and the interior on screen and interpellated
within consumer culture.
The perceived overvaluation of surface and appearance that is associated with
feminine identities is called into question in Chapter 2. The unconventional
correlation between heroic masculinity, fashion, stylish interiors and glamorous
architecture is brought to bear on Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959)
and the James Bond film franchise. While much film scholarship would have us
believe that women have been unduly influenced by the consumer cultures of
cinema, in fact it is clear that men have also sought to engage with the pleasures
of fashion and spatial design. Here, I rely on the architect Adolf Loos’ cultural
theories of modernism to draw out some of the contradictions that have emerged
regarding the relationship between masculinity, the modern body and the
modern home. I argue that the protagonists of spy films can be understood as
playboy dandies who engage with the consumerist desires of heteronormativity.
This chapter considers the sexualization of space and bodies that have been
promoted to male consumers in ways not dissimilar to the representation of
feminine and queer identities. As such, Chapter 2 reinforces the argument that
intersections between fashion and spatial design reveal the unstable relations
of conventional assumptions regarding how gender identities are constituted
through these surfaces.
Questions of gender and sexuality as they relate to fashion and spatial design
culminate in Chapter 3. Focusing on queer film and representations of surface
and space, this chapter moves towards a more complex theoretical position
regarding the relationship between pleasure, spectacle and spectatorship. I
argue that recent queer nostalgia films, Carol (2015), A Single Man (2009) and
Laurence Anyways (2012) develop a queer sensibility through highly stylized
dress and décor that operate in ways similar to Michel Foucault’s ‘heterotopias’.34
That is, fashion and the interior have the potential to operate as spaces where
10 Cinematic Style

individuals are free to perform their gender and sexual identities in ways that
challenge normative positions. The aesthetic excesses and artifice of queer
cinema are situated here to challenge long-standing views that fashion and the
interior, surface and style, lack substance and are instead revealed to convey
emotional depth. With reference to Judith Butler, these examples further
complicate relationships between bodies, clothes and space and reiterate the
performative capacity of bodies and space to convey the fluidities of gender and
sexual identities outside of cinema.
These three chapters, while covering a broad array of examples and theoretical
perspectives, are underpinned by intersections that reveal synergies between
fashion and spatial design, that both challenge and reinforce debates concerning
the representation of gender and sexual identities on screen. These arguments
are posed alongside consideration of these surfaces as constituting a form of
visual pleasure that is at times contradictory. By drawing on examples from
fashion and design media that promote screen lifestyles as a social performance
that can be adopted by consumers in everyday life, I position the intersection of
fashion, spatial design and cinema within the fashion system of representation,
mediation and consumption.
The role of architecture and interior design as the mise-en-scène of fashion
retail and its connection to cinematic discourses has gone largely unconsidered.
The exception being Jean Whitehead’s Creating Interior Atmospheres, which
proposes mise-en-scène as a mode for interpreting interiors on screen, as well as
domestic, exhibition and retail environments.35 Part 2- Film Interiors as Fashion
Spaces redresses this paucity in scholarship and examines the multiple ways that
the fictional fantasies of film have been translated into commercial contexts.
Focusing on spaces of fashion consumption, each of the chapters in part two
demonstrate how film characters and narratives have been converted into
fashionable products. As such the structure of the book highlights the confluence
between fashion, spatial design and film, whereby part one demonstrates how
film promotes luxury fashion styles and glamorous spaces to consumers; and
part two demonstrates how fashion adopts film narratives and applies these to
architecture and the interior so that consumers might experience these silver-
screen fantasies in real life.
Chapter 4 provides historical understanding of the confluence between
fashion and film mediated through the motif of the staircase. As a staging
device, staircases have positioned bodies as spectacles for viewing pleasure, both
on the catwalk and on screen. Arguing for the fashionable iconicity of these
spatial affordances, I consider the staircase in fashion photography, film and
 Introduction: Cinematic style 11

retail environments as sites for transformation, social arrival and acceptance

through examples including Dior and Chanel, Ziegfield Girl (1941) and Funny
Face (1957). With reference to the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu I examine the
metaphoric potency of the fashion staircase as symbol that apparently traverses
class boundaries, altering states of social status and cultural capital.36 In this way,
the relationship between fashion, spatial design and film is examined in this
chapter as operating within both dream and cultural imaginaries, as well as the
real spaces of commodity transaction.
The relationship between film and consumer culture is further elucidated
in Chapter 5, which takes as its focus the analogy between window shopping
and film spectatorship as mechanisms of the fashion image. This chapter
traces the passage from arcade to cinema through examples from familiar
department stores, and film tie-ins, as well as lesser known intersections between
French avant-garde cinema, couture fashion and architecture, pioneered by
collaborations between Sonia Delaunay and Robert Mallet-Stevens. Developing
from Mike Featherstone’s argument that the glamorous surfaces of screens and
windows mediate fashion as an aesthetic and pleasurable experience, this chapter
also considers how fashion, space and cinema are mobilized to translate the
illusionary world of film to tangible real-world desires on display.37 Here again,
the commodification of bodies and spaces through the mechanisms of spectacle
comes into tension with the sociocultural affordances of these dynamics.
The final chapter is further concerned with the sensory, emotional and
aesthetic experiences that fashion and interior design produce, enhanced
through the mise-en-scène and narrative associations of film. Examining the
fashion flagship store and other experiential retail environments through the
lens of Gilles Lipovetsky’s concepts of ‘artification’ and aesthetic capitalism,
Chapter 6 examines how fashion brands have adopted scenographic interiors
as core components of their marketable identities.38 Here, I develop the concept
of ‘brand heterotopias’ to examine how luxury fashion brands such as Gucci,
Prada, Fendi and Ralph Lauren develop an inter-spatial layering of narrative
associations, that merge past and present through heritage indicators and the
evocation of screen styles. Specifically, I argue that luxury brands commodify
history and nostalgia through the borrowing of film sets and narrative contexts
to leverage and enhance designer mythologies.
My aim in this book is to provide an overview of the relationship between
fashion and spatial design mediated by cinema from the silent era to the
contemporary digital age. In doing so, I highlight the important role that this
previously overlooked triangulation produces in the representation of gendered
12 Cinematic Style

identities and appeal to the lifestyle aspirations of consumers. It does not claim
to be exhaustive, but rather acts as a foundation to elucidate the significance
of surface and style to cinematic spectacle. As such, this book aims to further
embed the intersections between fashion, interior design and architecture within
histories of cinema and discourses of design. The importance of recognizing
these confluences is to challenge why these different dialects of design have
often been kept apart despite similar aesthetic styles, modes of representation
and sociocultural contexts. It speaks to the power of design and cinema studies
sometimes exclusionary discourses that disregard surface and style as frivolous
and feminine. Saying this, I am aware that this book also in some ways reproduces
exclusion. While I have attempted to incorporate cinema and fashion media
examples that represent people of colour and non-western perspectives where
relevant, there should be more. This is a problem of the Western fashion and
film industries, as well as a problem of their repeated histories, and a subject to
which I will return in the conclusion of this book.
 1

Bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms:

Modern women, seductive spaces
and spectacular silhouettes

The aesthetic limitations of black and white film required tactile and reflective
surfaces of fashionable luxury that included silk, satin, velvet, fur and feathers.
The sensual nature of these fabrics implied a link between sexuality and
consumption and were synonymous with the spaces occupied by the female
protagonists of the ‘woman’s film’. Here, I broadly identify this genre as focusing
on the lives of women characters engaged with themes of love, marriage, sex,
career, fashion and glamour.1 Bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms have been
historically gendered as feminine spaces associated with intimacy, romance
and sex. On film, they provide equally seductive surfaces to imagine fantasy
lifestyles and performative roles. From the era of early silent film onwards,
fashion and the domestic interior provided audiences with an appreciation of
female characters’ identities, motivations and desires that were aligned with
consumer culture. This understanding stemmed from a broader cultural milieu
in which domestic interiors and fashion were perceived as an extension of a
woman’s inner-being and part of her decorative role in the home. Through a
series of examples including The Single Standard (1929), Dinner at Eight (1933)
and The Women (1939), this chapter will consider intimate spaces associated
with women and their corresponding silhouettes to argue that surface and
style have been inextricably linked to women’s sexuality in ways that suggest
agency and emancipation, yet are also ultimately tied up with consumption and
questionable morality.
In comparing early woman’s films and their representation of fashion and
intimate interiors to later examples from the romantic comedy genre of the 1950s
such as Pillow Talk (1959), and more recently, post-feminist ‘chick flick’ Pretty
Woman (1990) as well as art house romance In the Mood for Love (2000), this
14 Cinematic Style

chapter will draw on film theories of consumption to examine the pleasure of

surface and style and their relationship to changing sexual mores for women.
It is not my intention here to suggest a linear and continuous trajectory of
representation but rather to identify the recurrence of particular modes of
intersection between fashion and the interior in a number of cinematic contexts.
Throughout this chapter particular attention will be paid to the history of women’s
intimate domestic spaces to provide narrative understanding of the interior
motivations of female characters on film, and how these are reinforced through
fashion. The translation of these cinematic styles through fashion and interior
design magazines such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Good Housekeeping and House
Beautiful will be examined to consider the ways in which fantasy representations
on film are promoted to modern women consumers beyond the cinema.

Marketing the modern woman

Film historian Charles Eckert’s influential 1978 essay ‘The Carol Lombard in
Macy’s Window’ recognized the role of Hollywood film in mass marketing
fashion, furnishings and cosmetics to American audiences – particularly
women – during the 1920s and 1930s.2 Eckert surmises that Hollywood’s role
in consumer culture was due to a number of conditions: the dominant role of
women as consumers, the film industry’s commitment to schemes of product
display and a star-system dominated by women who were ‘merchandising assets’
– which in turn influenced the types of films that were made. So-called ‘woman’s
films’ provided the perfect settings for fashion and furnishings to be displayed.
With their focus on bedrooms, bathrooms and boudoirs, it is not surprising, as
Eckert notes, that by 1929 ‘foreign sales of bedroom and bathroom furnishing
had increased 100 percent because of movies’.3
The figure of the ‘modern woman’ – at this point, also known as the flapper or
new woman – was particularly important to early woman’s films. As both cultural
figure and sociological phenomenon the modern woman was characterized by
her non-traditional approach to sexual relationships, employment outside the
home, education and economic independence, as well as visibility in the public
sphere. As historian Mary Louise Roberts states, ‘the modern woman became
associated with the aesthetic of a modern consumerism … [and] became the
means by which women expressed a more liberated self ’.4 Cinema, along with
fashion, literature and advertising, was one of the central mediums to promote
the image of the modern woman in her various forms to audiences.
 Bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms 15

Understanding the role of the modern woman in cinema and her relationship
to consumer culture is confounded by her position as both subject and object.
For example, within the context of Laura Mulvey’s seminal essay ‘Visual Pleasure
and Narrative Cinema’, the modern woman, indeed any woman, on film is the
object of the ‘male gaze’, susceptible to objectification and fetishization for
the pleasure of the spectator.5 This idea complies with broader psychoanalytic
feminist understandings regarding the status of women in patriarchal society
where: ‘the use, consumption and circulation of [women’s] sexualised bodies
underwrite the organisation and reproduction of the social order’.6 Further,
cinema not only represents women as objects of desire, they are also desiring
subjects – through the positioning of women as consumers, both on screen and
in the audience. The feminist film theorist Mary Ann Doane elucidates how:
The female spectator is invited to witness her own commodification, and … to
buy an image of herself … this level involves not only the currency of a body but
of a space in which to display that body.7

In other words, through the medium of film, the female spectator is encouraged
to participate in her own objectification and commodification by identifying
narcissistically with the woman on screen. Further, she performs the role of
consumer by not only desiring to be like the woman on display, but to also
consume her fashions, and the interior spaces she inhabits.
The double-bind of this condition is further complicated by the ways in
which both fashion and the interior operate as markers of identity formation –
especially for women – and the forms of agency and pleasure that these modes
of adornment offer. As Elizabeth Wilson outlines in Adorned in Dreams, fashion
can be understood as both an object of oppression, but also a cultural, social
and aesthetic form that can express the ambiguities of identity, relating the self
to body and the world.8 With this in mind, I contend that the modern woman
character on film, as associated with fashion and the interior, can be seen to both
limit and reinforce gender roles and objectified positions, while simultaneously
articulating agency. As Liz Conor deftly explains, ‘modern women saw self-
display to be part of the quest for mobility, self-determination and sexual
identity’.9
The modern woman character was established as a particular type in films,
beginning with the new woman and flapper of the 1920s, and the femme fatale
of the 1930s and 1940s. However, echoes of her type can be seen in future
decades, up until the present moment – if we understand her as a reoccurring
figure of women’s emancipation, be it social, sexual, economic or political.
16 Cinematic Style

Undoubtedly these are complex characters. The modern woman, in many of her
film guises, is bound to a mode of femininity that much feminist thinking would
define as oppressive. That is, bodily adornment through clothing or setting,
contributes to women being defined by their sexuality in relation to men.10 Yet,
these women also destabilize the patriarchal order by offering performances
of female identities that are morally ambiguous and outside of the constraints
of traditional femininity. Many of the female characters outlined here are
understood as ‘fallen women’, however, the disjuncture between this image and
their association with pleasurable lifestyles and fashionable forms makes them
desirable to many female audiences. As such, it is worth considering that female
spectatorship of bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms and their corresponding
silhouettes is not only framed within the context of voyeuristic, narcissistic,
sexual desire but also a pleasure in looking at the surfaces and spaces of fashion
and the interior that are tied to their embodied experience. Instructive here is
art historian Susan Best’s position, that Mulvey’s analysis of ways of looking at
cinema ‘leaves us much better informed about the sexual dynamics of looking,
but also impoverished when it comes to discussing visual pleasure … [for it
excludes] other modes of looking or other sources of pleasure’.11 Perhaps some
of the pleasure that female audiences derive from these films is the triangulation
that occurs between an embodied understanding of the sensuality of slinky
fabrics and shiny surfaces, identification with female characters that primarily
seek to fulfil their own desires beyond traditional patriarchal restraints, and the
latent possibility of how this fantasy might be enacted beyond the screen.

Bedrooms

When MGM art director Cedric Gibbons introduced ‘modern’ bedrooms

to American silent-film audiences in the late 1920s, low beds, gold and
black ziggurat wall panels, and geometric light fixtures became immediately
associated with the freedoms of the modern woman and her lifestyle.12 Our
Dancing Daughters (1928) is one of the first Hollywood films to be dominated
by Art Deco interiors, which was coupled with the exotic short skirts of the
flapper. The opening sequence, in which the film’s heroine Diana Medford (Joan
Crawford) dances to jazz music in her bedroom highlights how shimmering
surfaces and sequined streamlined silhouettes became associated with modern
women’s increasing social, sexual and physical mobility. Such luxurious surfaces
both on the body and in the home were suggestive of decadence and seduction.
 Bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms 17

The women who inhabited these spaces on screen were generally engaged in
some form of impropriety, be it Crawford’s lascivious half-naked dancing as
Diana, Greta Garbo’s juggling of numerous suitors as Arden Stuart in The Single
Standard (1929) (Figure 1.1), or as the adulteress Irene in The Kiss (1929).
In this way ‘modern’ design was synonymous with questionable morals. For
example, Arden’s Deco bedroom in The Single Standard represents her free-
thinking and free-spirited approach to romantic liaisons. Similarly, her costumes in
various scenes remind us of her progressive approach to womanhood. Consisting
of stripped pyjamas, black and silver zig-zag embellished top, and lame coat dress,

Figure 1.1 Greta Garbo as Arden in The Single Standard (1929). Credits: John S.
Robertson (Director), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (Film Production).
Photo: ullstein bild via Getty Images.
18 Cinematic Style

the use of geometric patterns and at times masculine attire, reinforced her modern
woman character. Living alone in her stylish apartment wearing an Adrian-
designed wardrobe, Arden pursues sexual equality by engaging in relationships
with a number of men, yet ultimately ends up as wife and mother in a traditionally
styled abode, underscoring the polarity between modern and maternal woman.13
Women’s morality was equated with dress, and taste in interior accoutrement, so
encapsulating broader sociocultural anxieties of the era. Populist commentators,
religious groups and conservative politicians were concerned by modern women’s
seemingly loose morals and competition with men in working environments,
which they perceived resulted in the erosion of home and family life.14
In these examples, fashion and the interior in tandem represent the interiority
of modern women characters on film and are an extension of her inner being.
Women’s fashions and interiors were often designed in correlation with each
other, operating to position women as decorative augmentation in the domestic
sphere. This close affiliation served the role of aligning women’s identities to
consumer products. Film, magazines and advertising artfully suggested that the
desirable attributes of the modern woman’s lifestyle – social mobility, economic
independence and sexual freedom – might be achieved through surrounding
oneself with the style. While Art Deco has frequently been denigrated in design
history due to its relationship with the feminine and consumerism, I argue that
these spaces and fashionable forms of modernity also allowed women to imagine
new social, cultural and professional identities.15
Art Deco schemes, inspired by the furniture and interiors on display at the
1925 Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Moderns in Paris, became the
hallmark of Gibbons’ sets, influencing American design aesthetics until the 1940s.
Whether Gibbons attended the fair in person or not has been debated.16 However,
it is clear that photographs and reports, along with examples of this bold new
style reached the art director.17 The 1925 Paris Exposition’s emphasis on fashion,
opulent home décor and women’s luxury goods was represented across multiple
pavilions. Modern French bedrooms, boudoirs and bathroom settings coupled
with mannequins wearing the latest in haute couture in the Galeries Lafayette
Pavilion and the Pavilion de l’Elégance showcased how female consumers might
adopt both fashion and interior looks to enhance their lifestyles. As a 1925 review
of the Pavilion de l’Elegance proclaimed: ‘this is not a fantasy to seduce the eye:
rather instruction for those who wish to realise it in their own home, where the
relationship between personal style and beautiful home is never in conflict.’18
Many of the features that made Gibbons’ sets notable can be found in
photographs of ensembles at the 1925 Exposition by Maurice Dufrêne,
 Bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms 19

Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and Pierre Block, including low set beds, metallic
printed geometric wallpapers, pyramid-shaped light fixtures, graphic rugs and
angular furnishings. As will be explored further in Chapter 5, while these styles
were new to the American audiences of Gibbons’ films in 1928, French avant-
garde silent cinema was already employing new modern set designs through the
innovations of architect Robert Mallet-Stevens in 1924. Jean Epstein’s Le Double
Amour (1925) is another example of the confluence between modern fashions
and interiors prior to Hollywood’s championing of the style (Figure 1.2). The
melodrama is the story of a countess who partakes in a love affair with a gambler,
resulting in her financial ruin and single motherhood, before she becomes
a successful cabaret singer. Here, Pierre Kèfer’s geometric set designs, and
furniture featuring Francis Jourdain style floral textile prints, are coupled with
floaty handkerchief hem dresses by fashion designers Drecoll and Paul Poiret to
convey Laure Maresco’s (Nathalie Lissenko) interiority. The contrast between
Art Deco geometric gridded windows, abstract patterned covered cushions,
and floral-patterned furniture creates an uneasy tension, suggestive of Laure’s
inner turmoil in choosing love over honesty. While cinema often represented
modern design as the backdrop to moral failings, its glamour provided a unique
promotional opportunity for fashion and décor designers. As Francis Jourdain
said of lending set decorations to Louis Delluc, Germain Dulac and others: ‘My

Figure 1.2 Laure Maresco as Nathalie Lissenko in Le Double Amour (1925). Credits:
Jean Epstein (Director), Films Albatros (Film Production). Screen still.
20 Cinematic Style

sponsors saw these loans as advertising interest, as long as the name of the store
appeared in the credits.’19
The visual effectiveness of what would come to be known as Art Deco on
screen and in the home was also being relayed to French consumers through
feature articles in the interior magazine Art et Decoration from 1925 onwards.20
Similarly, French Vogue reported on the relationship between interior design
ensembles at the 1925 Exposition and fashions of the time, encouraging women
to ‘live as they dress’, with both architecture and fashion turned towards simple,
clean, harmonized forms.21 This formula, uniting modern women, modern
fashion and modern interiors on the page, and on screen, would become
remarkably successful in the Hollywood context.
Initially promoters were unsure of how American audiences might receive
Gibbons’ new screen style, noting that: ‘Weird beds, almost to the floor, have
little woodwork frame, [apart from] foot-high boards which conceal the springs
and do away with the conventional legs of a bed’ – a surprising feature of modern
furniture.22 The novelty of the sets in Our Dancing Daughters was similarly
reported in newspapers, noting that:
It is the first time that the screen has shown such a faithful picture of the
great revolution the French mode in home furnishings is about to effect. The
moderniste motif is carried out even to architectural details, and it will afford no
end of keen amusement to see square, solid, severe lines and the quixotism of
strange lighting arrangements.23

Despite these misgivings, readers of women’s fashion and interior magazines

were keen to apply this new style to their own homes. In an interview with Ladies
Home Journal from 1933 Gibbons enthusiastically recounts how his set furnishings
were copied in homes throughout America. His reflections on how rooms should
reflect the personality of their inhabitant are commensurate with his ideas about
how sets should be decorated in accordance with a character, noting that:
Norma Shearer is a feminine, responsive, vibrant sort of person. Hence, I have
decorated her home so that the backgrounds are very simple … Joan Crawford
is more vivid, more restless personality. She can have a bolder background in
her settings.24

Significantly, Gibbons also identifies the importance of fashion for women’s

home decorating advising that: ‘Instead of wondering if a rug should fit into
her room, she should visualise herself against it in her new blue or pink dress
and ask, ‘Would it be becoming to me?’25 Women readers of fashion, style and
film magazines were given further cues by Hollywood stars as to how she might
 Bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms 21

envision herself in such a way, through photographic editorials depicting the stars
at home, or in modern interior settings wearing the latest fashions. Joan Crawford
often appeared in this manner, for example, wearing Schiaparelli posed next to a
‘modern glass chair, a new idea in decoration’ for Vogue, or photographed in her
New York apartment wearing a dark mink coat for Town and Country.26
One of the most memorable of classic Hollywood bedrooms is that of Kitty
Packard (Jean Harlow) in George Cukor’s Dinner at Eight (1933). The all-white
quilted headboard framing a double-bed covered in taffeta linen, strewn with
huge pillows and surrounded by diaphanous curtains is almost absurdly decadent
nouveau-riche luxury. This excessive spectacle of pleasurable surfaces suggests
that we should understand Kitty as a hedonistic, shallow woman, consumed by
appearances. Designed by interior decorator Hobe Erwin and MGM designer
Frederic Hope, the room incorporated ten different shades of white. As Erwin
said of the design:
The idea was to present a setting which would give the observer insight into the
occupant, namely the pretty but common Kitty Packard … the audience will
take one look at this room and would have little difficulty in recognising the
character of the person who would live in it.27

Rich in textural qualities, the bedroom and boudoir to which I will return –
are perfectly matched to Adrian-designed loungewear and gowns. Dressed in
a slinky halter-necked satin nightgown and plush fur shrug, Kitty entertains
her doctor lover, eats chocolates, admires herself in the mirror and talks on
the phone to make social engagements, all while lounging in bed. An evening
gown version of this garment is revisited later in the film at the dinner of the
title. Here, Kitty wears a long, form-fitting white satin gown with gold halter-
neck, its exposed back framed by a fur stole, recalls the earlier bedroom scene.
The implied relationship between nightgown and evening gown would not be
missed by astute fashion readers. Magazines such as Vogue often promoted their
similarities, recognizing that negligees were a more affordable form of wearable
luxury for middle-class women than an extravagant dress. Fashion advertorials
also referred to cinema, inviting women to imagine themselves ‘cast in new
roles’ by wearing a ‘gay, mad Lillian Russell’ nightdress, for example.28 Dinner at
Eight makes the connection between nightwear and evening wear, not to suggest
an economy of clothing, but to enhance our understanding of Kitty’s attire
as sexually provocative. Gold-digging behaviour, social climbing and sexual
indiscretion are equated with showy glamour. However, while Kitty’s character
is presented as morally flawed, fashion and the interior as they relate to her body
22 Cinematic Style

represent an image of highly desirable, easy to come by wealth, sexuality and

pleasure at a time when American society was beholden to the impacts of the
Great Depression and Protestant values pertaining to work and sex. Despite
Kitty’s shortcomings, her character is ultimately redeemed due to these very
character traits, as will be discussed further in relation to the boudoir.
Dinner at Eight creates a complex understanding of the relationship between
the modern woman’s sexual liberation, the modern bedroom and streamlined
fashions. Modern design is coded as glamorous and desirable, yet also threatens
to destabilize women’s traditional role as submissive wife and mother, and
instead encourages morally ambiguous behaviour. Surface style, it seems, allows
for women to perform in ways that would otherwise be frowned upon. As Joan
Crawford described of her fans’ reaction to her role as a prostitute in Rain (1932):
‘They would accept me as Letty Lynton who was just as vulgar, but she had style.’29
With this in mind, we can understand sexually promiscuous characters in the
bedrooms of 1920s and 1930s Hollywood cinema to be perceived as heroines if
they artfully used fashion in their quest for self-determination, making them
likable and desirable.
By 1934, with the introduction of the Production Code and the censorship of
sexual references in Hollywood film, fashions of silk, satin, velvet, feathers and
fur became even more laden with sexual connotations. While these luxurious
materials were still associated with characters of dubious morality, respectable
women wore high-necked blouses coupled with trim suits. In the bedroom, house-
coats and dressing gowns kept erotic effect under wraps. Not long after this, the
luxuriously appointed bedroom of the sexually liberated heroine almost entirely
disappeared, to be replaced by the twin beds of sexually repressed relationships.
Interior design historian Hilary Hinds explains: ‘a double bed was too explicit
in its sexual associations … Only twins had the necessary cultural delicacy …
to [imply] marital sexual intimacy’ without the possibility of facilitating it.30 In
her exhaustive cultural study, Hinds draws attention to readings of twin beds
that allowed for women to forge a separate space within marriage, suggestive
of positions of equality and autonomy. On film, such a reading might apply
to Adam’s Rib (1949), in which Katherine Hepburn as Amanda is more than
a match for her husband Adam (Spencer Tracey). The plot involves a case in
which Amanda and Adam are pitted against each other as opposing lawyers,
which Amanda wins based on an argument regarding equality of the sexes.
However, this results in the pair filing for divorce. The twin beds of Amanda
and Adam’s household imply a marriage based on a companionable meeting
of the minds rather than a passionate love affair. As with other films such as
 Bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms 23

Twin Beds (1942), the subtext is that marriages in which the wife works, or seeks
equality, subsequently lack sexual intimacy. It is not until women submit to their
husband’s wishes or ideas that the dysfunctional aspects of a relationship can
be overcome. Ultimately, while twin beds may have represented equality for
modern women in some contexts, they were overwhelmingly associated with
sexual repression and unsuccessful unions.
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, with the waning of the Production Code a
new bedroom emerged for the modern woman on film. Now an economically
autonomous career girl, living in a designer apartment, the bedroom of
the single girl was functional rather than a place of indulgent pleasure. For
example, in Pillow Talk (1959) (Figure 1.3) in which Doris Day plays successful
interior designer, Jan Morrow, her bedroom is seen as a ‘problem’. In the
opening scenes of the film the audience is introduced to Jan as a career-focused
woman to the detriment of her love life. Wanting to make a business call in her
bedroom, the plot problem emerges as she is caught in a three-way telephone
call between her neighbour Brad (Rock Hudson) and his lover Eileen. The

Figure 1.3 Doris Day as Jan Morrow and Thelma Ritter as Alma in Pillow Talk (1959).
Credits: Michael Gordon (Director). Photo: Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images.
24 Cinematic Style

split-screen technique used here draws attention to the differences between

the women’s characters. Jan’s bedroom decorated in lemon and white appears
almost virginal compared with Eileen’s seductive boudoir with its pale pink
satin décor. When Jan complains about the romantic nature of the phone call
she is privy to, Brad intimates that her ‘bedroom problem’ is due to her single
woman, career girl status – resulting in her uptight demeanour and lack of sex.
As the plot develops, Brad concocts an alter ego, Rex to seduce Jan in revenge
for her complaints about his phone-manner to the telephone company. The pair’s
budding romance is conducted primarily over a series of split-screen telephone
conversations occurring in their respective bathrooms and bedrooms. With each
call, the split screen spatially evolves to bring the couple closer, until their beds
appear fused together. We understand this as Jan’s increasing willingness to sleep
with Rex/Brad. Pillow Talk generally follows a stereotypical representation of a
womanizing bachelor who does not want to get married, and an uptight single
woman who does not want to have sex until she is in a relationship. Interestingly,
Jan’s sexual desires are finally asserted through the symbolic reconfiguration of
Brad’s bedroom.
After learning of Brad’s deception, Jan is given the opportunity to decorate
his apartment in the hope that he can win her back. A comical scene ensues
in which the bachelor pad’s technological functions of seduction are exposed.
In particular, a hidden bed which springs from the couch highlights how the
designer décor is a ruse that conceals Brad’s playboy personality. Through her
professional knowledge, Jan seeks her revenge by making Brad’s womanizing
ways visible through her choice of refurbishments. She converts his stylish
bachelor pad into a harem – complete with silk draperies, red walls and velvet-
covered bed strewn with pillows. The result is garish and tasteless but reveals that
Jan has an understanding of the relationship between the bedroom and sexual
persona, which until this point, she seems to repress. In one of the final scenes,
Brad kidnaps Jan from her bed and delivers her into his apartment wrapped in
her pyjamas and bed sheet in order to remonstrate with her over the decoration.
However, she flips the switch on the situation both literally and figuratively,
using the bachelor pad’s technologies of seduction to lock him in, and we assume
consummate their relationship.
In this way, the final bedroom scene of Pillow Talk suggests a subversion of
the character’s interiority and associated sexual desires. As will be discussed
further in Chapter 3, the modernist bachelor pad, as seen on screen and in
magazines such as Playboy, represented masculine virility and a refusal of
suburban married life. This is true to Brad’s character until he falls in love. Jan’s
 Bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms 25

redecoration of his bedroom, however, does not follow the mid-century modern
aesthetic of her own apartment which is understood as a representation of her
career-minded, no-nonsense, modern-woman persona. Nor does she convert it
into traditional homely domesticity which would be associated with marriage.
Instead the bordello decorating schema suggests a wildly, passionate persona.
This does not conform with our understanding of Jan as a sexually repressed
woman, rather, her desire is displayed through the configuration of the bedroom
in an overtly sexualized schema.31 The bedroom in this instance allows for the
modern woman to act outside familiar gendered roles of seduction and assert
her own desires, where premarital sex occurs on Jan’s terms.
While the redecoration of Brad’s bedroom to convey Jan’s sexual desires
occurs at the end of the film, this aspect of her character is not completely out
of context as it is alluded to through her Jean Louis designed costumes. While
her attire at times complies with the idea of sexual inexperience – for example,
a series of demure pyjamas and house coats – she also wears the dress code of a
sexually assured woman. This takes some familiar forms in the case of a figure-
hugging deep-red velvet strapless gown and white evening dress complete with
fur stole, deigned in the same mode as femme fatale characters of the 1930s.
Perhaps the most telling ensemble however is a fire engine red-coat worn with
leopard print hat and muff which she wears immediately after learning of Brad’s
deception. Conveying a wild and passionate side of Jan’s character, sparked
by both her anger and sexual frustration, this look has its counterpart in the
final bedroom scene. Through the combination of fashion and the interior, the
audience becomes privy to Jan’s increasing sexual assuredness even at times
when the dialogue or narrative implies otherwise.
The bedrooms and associated glamorous fashions of Hollywood films from
the 1920s onwards established a syntax through which to understand the
interior lives and motivations of modern women characters on screen. While
the meanings of women’s bedrooms and fashions changed according to social
mores, gender norms and evolving consumer cultures, the symbolic association
between these spaces was formative in developing a correspondence between
fashion and the interior and their relationship to a character’s interiority. These
correspondences continue to be developed in a range of Hollywood and art-
house cinema contexts, where the cultural connotations between women’s sexual
identities and bedroom settings exploit or subvert these associations.
For example, Wong Kar-Wai’s much celebrated In the Mood for Love (2000)
(Figure 1.4) offers an alternative image of the bedroom, in which, despite the
sensuous setting, sexuality is repressed. Set in Hong Kong during the 1960s, this
26 Cinematic Style

Figure 1.4 Maggie Cheung as Su Lizhen In the Mood for Love (2000). Credits: Wong
Kar-Wai (Director), Jet Tone Productions and Paradise Films (Film Production).
Screen still.

visually arresting romantic melodrama tells the story of two married neighbours,
whose spouses are conducting an extramarital affair. As the central protagonists,
Su Lizhen (Maggie Cheung) and Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) attempt
to come to terms with their spouse’s betrayal, they imagine and enact encounters
from the affair and in turn gradually become attracted to each other. Despite
their feelings of loneliness, yearning, desire and love, they are determined not to
behave like their spouses and never sexually consummate their feelings.
The film relies heavily on the lustrous and expressive surfaces of cramped
apartment rooms to cast the protagonists’ emotional composure in sharp relief.
Wong Kar-Wai has said, ‘I sometimes treat space as a main character in my
films’, and in the case of In the Mood for Love, bedrooms play a prominent role.32
These spaces are cast as highly sensuous and are heavy with emotional longing.
As architectural historian Anne Troutman describes, the erotic dimension of
architecture: ‘is the unconscious, instinctual side of our experience of form
and space […] eschewing the overtly sexual, the erotic is a state of phenomenal
ambiguity, indirection, tension and suspension’.33 I suggest that the bedrooms of
In the Mood for Love fulfil this spatial erotic dimension through the excesses of
the interior in combination with Su Lizhen’s highly decorative and fashionable
cheongsam.
 Bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms 27

The confluence of dress and décor conveys Su Lizhen’s interiority. Her

cheongsam is in constant conversation with the walls that surround her. Sometimes
they blend in almost completely – where the distinction between an olive-green
dress with yellow daffodil print and the floral curtains she stands next to blur
together like a Monet painting. In this particular instance, we understand her
melancholy mood as her body is enveloped by soft muted tones. In the bedroom
scenes, the relationship between fashion and the interior appears indicative of
her emotions, which fail to be communicated through facial expression or words.
Discord and contrast between dress and wallpaper are apparent in the bedroom
she shares with her husband, as opposed to the harmonious effect achieved when
she visits her neighbour, alerting us to their easy companionability. The most
evocative bedroom of the film is a hotel room. Chow Mo-Wan hires this secret
space, symbolically hidden behind a fluttering red curtain, in order to write a
martial arts serial story that he hopes Su Lizhen will help him with, and we intuit,
also consummate their love. This bedroom appears heavy with erotic tension,
the wall paper is a deep fuchsia, patterned with striking blue flowers, and lit
romantically by exotic light fittings. In a montage scene depicting the growing
closeness of their relationship, Su Lizhen wears a number of cheongsams that
echo the colours and floral decorations of the bedroom. While this bedroom in
not witness to any kind of sexual passion between the pair, it seems to conspire
with Su Lizhen’s clothed body to convey the depth of emotion, sensuality and
desire that the audience senses is underneath the couple’s reserved demeanour.
Erotic tension also comes to bear on Su Lizhen’s body, as we understand the
fabric to convey a hidden syntax of sexual desire, and the silhouette, to represent
traditional ideas of womanhood as respectability, restraint and repression.
While Wong Kar-Wai’s nostalgic representation of women’s repressed sexual
identities in 1960s Hong Kong is out of step with contemporary understandings,
In the Mood for Love proved to be highly influential to contemporary branded-
fashion. The visual excesses and sensory mood of the film echo the aesthetic
and atmosphere of short fashion films and long-form perfume and cosmetic
commercials that have been a significant part of the fashion mediascape since the
early 2000s. As will be discussed further in Chapter 3, the use of auteur directors to
couple art house film with luxury fashion branding has been a concerted campaign
for asserting cultural capital. Wong Kar-Wai has directed advertisements and
fashion films for Saint Laurent (2019), Shu Uemura (2011), Dior Midnight Poison
(2015), Lancôme Hypnose (2005) and Lacoste (2002). This branded content draws
on familiar leitmotifs from In the Mood for Love, including fluttering curtains,
melancholic music score, vivid colours and highly textured wall surfaces to create
28 Cinematic Style

the appearance of embodied and olfactory experiences of fashion and cosmetics.

The seamless merging of the director’s cinematic lexicon with commercial luxury
branding can be understood as yet another way that cinema has marketed fashion
to female spectators, which has its roots in film tie-ins established in the boudoir.

Boudoirs

The boudoir has been recognized as an inherently female space since its appearance
in the early 1700s within aristocratic households. Its French linguistic origins
indicate it was a place for women to ‘sulk’, suggesting the need of a private location
for women to withdraw from the masquerade of feminine duties within the
household.34 While its initial purpose may well have been pejoratively termed as a
site for female moodiness, over time the boudoir came to represent a space where
women might undertake a range of activities; reading, daydreaming, bathing,
dressing, intimate conversation and erotic seduction. The boudoirs of literature
and art in the eighteenth-century were elaborate sensuous spaces, furnished with
chaise-longue, mirrors, patterned wallpapers and plush soft furnishings. French
libertine erotic literature of the period provided detailed description of the
architecture and interior decoration of the boudoir for the purposes of seduction
and pleasure. In many instances, the boudoir itself was metaphoric of the female
body. Opulent, soft and inviting materials, diaphanous curtains, hidden alcoves
and secret enclosures were portrayed in such a way as to provoke imaginative
reverie in broaching such spaces to arousing affect.35 While the encroachment of
these feminine spaces by men in literature was an allegorical allusion to sexual
encounter, in reality it was also one of the few spaces in the home set aside for
individual female retreat, where women might have control of this private sphere.
As Troutman outlines, the boudoir came to represent the locus of female sexual,
political and intellectual power in the home, where she might obtain:
some measure of freedom from the social and sexual conventions of the time …
[providing] the physical and psychological space for subversion of a fixed and
rigid social system from within.36

The boudoirs of early twentieth-century cinema play a similar role in the

portrayal of female agency. The soft lighting and sensuous surfaces of satin
sofas, silky curtains and plush velvet cushions provided the perfect setting
for sexually liberated modern women to stage their seductions and power
plays in scenes where they might partake in intimate tête-à-tête or gossipy
 Bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms 29

telephone conversations. For example, Kitty Packard’s boudoir in Dinner at

Eight (Figure 1.5) is the setting for a coup d’ètat in which she gets the upper
hand over her brutish husband Dan (Wallace Beery). An elaborate, white-
fringed dressing table, supporting numerous glass bottles of perfumes and
creams, framed by brightly lit mirrors and gauzy curtains is integral to the
mise-en-scène. As Kitty puts on her make-up and prepares to go out for dinner
she argues with her husband about his numerous short comings. Dressed
in a chemise and sparkling sequined robe accented by plumes of ostrich
feathers, the allure of this garment is tied to obvious connections between

Figure 1.5 Jean Harlow as Kitty Packard in Dinner at Eight (1933). Credits: George
Cukor (Director) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (Film Production). Photo Credit:
John Springer Collection/CORBIS via Getty Images.
30 Cinematic Style

glitter and wealth, but also the ostentatious seductive associations of feathers.
Fashion historian Emmanuelle Dirix provides clues to the sexual connotation
of feathers where they are tied to Vaudeville costume and the associated
glamorous vulgarity of the demi-monde. Feathered gowns in Hollywood
were linked to the ‘easy but exciting’ sexuality of gold-digger characters or
courtesans as evidenced in Shanghai Express (1932), Red-Headed Woman
(1932) and Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933).37
Kitty’s sexually provocative attire coupled with the overwhelmingly hyper-
feminine space of the boudoir provides a sharp contrast to the lumbering physic of
her husband. We sense that he is out of place in this soft, alluring setting. Despite
his forceful, and at times physical attacks on Kitty, she is able to manipulate
him to her will – both in relation to the affair she is having with her doctor,
and in coercing him not to take over the business of their socially respectable
dinner host. The boudoir here not only represents Kitty’s opportunistic use of
her sexuality to gain wealth, social capital and pleasure on her own terms, but
is also the seat of her power, as she manages to obscure her own moral failings
by correcting those of her husband through her fast-talking social intelligence.
Film noir of the 1940s similarly positioned the boudoir as a space of power and
seduction for femme fatale characters in examples such as The Big Sleep (1946)
and Gilda (1946). For instance, the first time we meet the title role character in
Gilda (Rita Hayworth) we are given insight into her captivating and sexually
empowered interiority through her well-appointed boudoir (Figure 1.6). The
sheen of a long satin skirted dressing table with matching ottoman, and large
mirror framed by heavy drapes appear as coded references to her social climbing,
‘gold-digger’ character. This is reinforced through her gauzy nightdress which
slips from her shoulder. At this moment, and with a flick of her hair, her answer
to her husband’s question ‘are you decent?’ merges the meaning of her dress and
moral character. Her state of undress and indecent behaviour are spectacularly
brought to the audience’s attention. As with the example of Kitty in Dinner at
Eight, the negligees and nightdresses Gilda wears throughout the film have their
double in a series of form-fitting white evening gowns. These are in contrast to a
striking black satin sleeveless gown with long black opera gloves she wears while
singing ‘Put the Blame on Mame’ at the height of the film, which is suggestive
of her deadly sexuality. Through these shifts in costume, designer Jean Louis
reveals Gilda’s complex character, as a woman who uses her sexual power to
achieve her goals but who also has a ‘good’ side. Ultimately fashion and the
interior come together to represent the femme fatale figure as a decadent body.
The sartorially sensuous and sumptuous surfaces of décor allude to the femme
 Bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms 31

Figure 1.6 Rita Hayworth as Gilda and George Macredy as Ballian Mudson in Gilda
(1946). Credits: Charles Vidor (Director), Columbia Pictures (Film Production).
Photo Credits: Columbia/Getty Images.

fatale’s pleasure in her sexuality, which while represented as darkly dangerous,

also suggests freedom from the constraints of traditional femininity.
In addition to providing a backdrop of luxurious decadence, the boudoir also
offered the opportunity for film tie-ins. In these scenes audiences were educated
that even the most attractive film stars required beauty routines to enhance
their looks. The careful application of cosmetics while seated at a luxuriously
appointed dressing table – à la Greta Garbo in The Kiss, or Marilyn Monroe,
Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) – offered
consumers an achievable image of modern glamour which they might replicate
in their own life. Like fashion and the interior, cosmetics were a key component
of the performance of modern woman identities. Magazines similarly promoted
the relationship between boudoir beauty routines and movie star glamour. Max
Factor advertisements featuring the likes of Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer
and Rita Hayworth sat comfortably alongside articles on beauty advice and
tips for a well-appointed dressing-table. The ongoing column ‘The Cosmetic
Urge’ which featured in Harper’s Bazaar magazine in the 1930s and 1940s often
32 Cinematic Style

made reference to perfume atomizers, make-up boxes and even tissues as the
constituents of boudoir luxury and glamour, where displaying these products
seemed almost as important as using them to adorn the body.38
Similarly, the designs of cinema art directors and set designers in the 1920s
and 1930s were often pictured on the pages of fashion and design magazines as
inspirations for home styling. These were not the overly ornate romantic spaces
associated with Madame de Pompadour and the French aristocracy of the past,
but rather modern and glamorous retreats. For example, the illustrator and
designer Paul Iribe who worked in Hollywood on Cecil B. DeMille films, wrote
an article for Vogue in 1919 imploring women to deploy ‘The Audacious Note
of Modernism in the Boudoir’, promoting his gold and red-lacquer deco style
dressing table as the answer to a modern woman’s decorating dilemmas.39 Iribe’s
approach to the seductive setting of the boudoir would be later seen on screen in
The Affairs of Anatol (1921), all be it a vamped-up version. Joseph Urban’s black
glass and black ebony ‘Repose’ boudoir (1929) recalling his work for The Young
Diana (1922) was similarly presented to extoll the virtues of modernism to
fashion readers.40 It seems likely that these magazines also provided inspiration
for set designers. While Kitty’s all-white boudoir was innovative in the cinematic
context, it was a style already promoted to female consumers, where ‘The Rising
Tide of White Decors’ in boudoirs was recognized by Harper’s Bazaar in 1931.41
As the gender-specific function and inhabitation of rooms declined in the
twentieth century, the physical space of the boudoir became less common in
modern houses and by mid-century boudoirs were all but extinct in cinematic
space. However, the dressing table came to encapsulate some of its purposes. With
its mirrors, secret drawers and decorative embellishments, the dressing table is a
feminine piece of furnishing that operates as a private space where women take
control of their appearance for performing in public. Functioning in a similar
way to the boudoir, dressing tables in films are spaces where female characters
reflect on love and engage in conversation around their desires. For example, the
dressing table is a leitmotif in Douglas Sirk melodramas Written on the Wind
(1956) and All That Heaven Allows (1955) playing the role of confident to expose
relationship problems and character flaws. Mirrors in particular highlight the
artifice and illusions that the women of Sirkian melodramas are subject to, not
least of all their own feminine masquerade of performing idealized images as
wives and mothers who are destined to forgo their own desires.
In contemporary cinema, the boudoir is most likely to appear in heritage
films and costume dramas. As with previous representations, these spaces are
the domain of characters who portray unconventional or promiscuous sexual
 Bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms 33

identities. Recent representations of boudoirs in Dangerous Liaisons (1989),

Marie Antoinette (2006) and The Favourite (2018) convey their historic function
as spaces that enabled women’s intimacy, pleasure and erotic seduction. Coupled
with period costume, boudoirs offer audiences insights into the lavish world of
royalty and the aristocracy. They serve as a site of déshabillé, where protagonists
are literally undressed – albeit merely down to complicated undergarments – and
figuratively exposed to reveal character flaws and wanton secret desires. Often
period boudoir scenes disclose the stakes of female power. They are spaces where
politics and sexuality can be performed with some degree of autonomy, yet, also
allude to the risks to reputation and social position that are tied to the discursive
forces of female pleasure. While the boudoirs of contemporary costume dramas
are often represented as spaces where women’s ambitions are at odds with their
romantic desires, the bathrooms of cinema provide yet further moral tensions in
the portrayal of female protagonists.

Bathrooms

The relationship between boudoirs and bathrooms likely has its origins in
nineteenth-century Paris, when Baron Haussman’s development of the French
capital enabled water to be piped to domestic residences and bathing became a
regular occurrence. As the social historian Michael Adcock argues:
The bathroom began to change from being the site of rather awkward ablutions
to being a place of stylishness and comfort … companies began to advertise
baths as luxurious pieces of furniture. The bathroom was now a place to tarry
and relax, and has taken on some of the romantic connotations of the boudoir.42

Paintings of the period, such as Alfred Stevens The Bath (1873–1874), reinforced
the association between sexual enjoyment and bathing, as courtesans and
prostitutes were sometimes models for these intimate nude scenes.43 Arguably,
this association continued well into the twentieth century, whereby women
bathers were often portrayed as characters who were sexually promiscuous and
morally corrupt in cinema.
Despite the seemingly scandalous behaviour of women bathers, elevation of
bathrooms to stylish and luxurious spaces in the home was in part due to the
influence of Hollywood. Cecil B. DeMille’s silent film Male and Female (1919)
features one of many risqué bath scenes that would be a hallmark of his career.
Characterized by striking tiles, mirrored walls and large bathtubs, DeMille
34 Cinematic Style

films glamorized bathing as an art form, and instructed viewers in styling

and accessorizing the bathroom. For example, in Male and Female, the actress
Gloria Swanson is introduced to the audience as she is helped to disrobe by two
maids and then steps into a sunken bath. Later, an intertitle educates audiences
by asking: ‘Why shouldn’t the Bath Room express as much Art and Beauty as
the Drawing Room?’ Other films such as Dynamite (1929), with its dazzling
marble spa presented the pleasures of the bathroom to American consumers,
with DeMille taking credit for his ‘pictures [having] something to do with [the]
wholesome development of bathrooms as a comfortable part of the American
home’.44 The ‘wholesome’ idea of promoting cleanliness was perhaps outweighed
by the fact that DeMille bathroom scenes primarily provided an appropriate
setting for female protagonists to disrobe to titillating effect. This was particularly
true of the biblical epic Sign of the Cross (1932), which controversially portrayed
Claudette Colbert as Poppaea in a sensuous milk-bath scene, purportedly
contributing to the enforcement of the Hollywood Production Code and its
subsequent censorship of nudity and allusions to sex.45
While films made after 1934 could no longer use bathrooms to overt erotic
effect, they could be useful in providing characters with the sheen of sexual
impropriety. For example, Joan Crawford as Crystal Allen in George Cukor’s
The Women (1939) (Figure 1.7) portrays her immorality to audiences in a
memorable scene in which she lounges in a clear glass bathtub whilst talking on
the telephone to her lover. The bath – with its satin backed cushioning – appears
to act almost as a chaise lounge within a boudoir. The room itself is decorated
with diaphanous curtains hanging across the ceiling, a richly appointed dressing
table and enclave of back-lit shelves dedicated to perfumes and cosmetics, with
glimpses through to the bedroom. The bathtub and boudoir’s glamorous styling
is suggestive of Crystal Allen’s sexual prowess, decadent lifestyle and pursuit of
material luxury. This representation of the bath reflects art historical allegorical
understandings of women bathing where, as Anthea Callen contends:
Bathing was directly associated with lascivious sexual activity, in particular
with prostitution … Writers both for and against intimate hygiene for women
recognised the sensuality of water. They likened immersion in it and its intimate
contact with every bodily crevice to the sexual act itself; water was perceived as
a surrogate lover.46

As the film’s villain – the shop-girl mistress of heroine Mary Haines’ (Norma
Shearer) husband – Crystal’s brazen bathing rituals are presented as indicative
of a woman willing to use her sexual appeal to obtain her avaricious aspirations.
 Bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms 35

Figure 1.7 Joan Crawford as Crystal Allen in the bath and Rosalind Rusell as Sylvia
in The Women (1939). Credits: George Cukor (Director), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
(MGM) (Film Production). Photo Credits: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Getty Images.

While morally the film suggests that Crawford’s character and lifestyle should
be reproached, her fashions and interior décor are presented as highly desirable.
The costumer Adrian carefully contrasted Crawford’s and Shearer’s looks. Where
Shearer’s Mary wears prim suits to suggest her traditional values and ‘good-girl’
attitude, Crawford’s shop-girl uniform of basic black, accessorized with pearls
is no-nonsense chic, in accordance with her forthright character. Later, when
Mary confronts Crystal about the affair with her husband, Crystal wears an
ostentatious gold lame dress with large bows at the throat and waist, coupled
with a matching turban, which is again contrasted with Mary’s understated,
black full-skirted evening gown. As bold and brash as Crawford’s dress is in this
scene, it is upstaged in the finale. In a bitingly bitchy exit, Crawford wears a
glittering two-piece gold-sequinned evening gown with exposed midriff. As she
delivers her final cutting remark, ‘there’s a name for you ladies, but it isn’t used in
high society – outside of a kennel’ the shimmering sequins underscore Crystal’s
words as she departs in glamorous glory.
36 Cinematic Style

The synergy between Adrian’s costuming and Cedric Gibbons’ art direction
has the effect of casting the bathtub as a further fashion ensemble for Crawford’s
character. The bubbles that frame her face and caress her body as she luxuriates
in the bath and talks on the telephone are reminiscent of Adrian costumes from
earlier films. The striking white organdie dress with ruffled shoulders Crawford
wears in Letty Lynton (1932) and the feathery white dressing-gown worn by Jean
Harlow as Kitty Packard in Dinner at Eight can be read as extra-textual fashion
narrative moments that further reinforce Crystal’s unscrupulous character
through visual reference to the conniving Letty and socially ambitious Kitty.
Costume historian Christian Esquevin observes that Adrian often used luscious
white materials for costumes, not only for the reflective properties that white
held on the silver screen, but also as a powerful symbolic contradiction between
the colour’s association with purity and innocence and a character’s persona
of scheming sexual allure.47 While the gleaming foam of Crystal’s bubble bath
could not be sold to consumers with the same effect as the Letty Lynton white
dress – a replica of which sold 50,000 copies at Macy’s department store – the
glamorous appeal of Gibbons’ bathroom designs were indicative of how movie
sets had the ability to set trends and inspire home decorators.
The relationship between bathrooms, fashionable silhouettes and sexually
alluring characters was further developed in films of the 1950s and 1960s. The
demise of the Hollywood studio system and concurrent rise of European art-
house cinema saw the decline of censorship laws and more frequent portrayal
of overt female sexuality. For example, bathroom scenes became a leitmotif
of numerous Brigitte Bardot films, an opportunity to voyeuristically view the
actress’ erotically voluptuous body while wrapped in a towel. Une Parisienne
(1957) in which Bardot plays the sexually assured daughter of the French prime
minister features a typically seductive bath routine, in which her character,
Brigitte, washes her legs with a sponge for her watching husband (Henri Vidal)
to admire. The subsequent towel drying and playful chase escapade between
the couple results in Brigitte’s towel being stripped away to reveal a glimpse of
her naked bottom before she hides behind a plant. Here, titillated audiences
are provided with a sense of gratification after having seen Bardot wear a series
of form fitting Balmain day dresses and gowns. In particular, a siren-red satin
dress which amplifies her hourglass figure is worn while she seduces a prince
(Charles Boyer). This striking silhouette emphasizes her vampish qualities, as
she attempts to have an affair in order to seek revenge on her husband. Bardot’s
sexuality was considered quintessential to her modern woman persona. Having
appeared as a model for Elle magazine, her fashionable, youthful image was
 Bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms 37

amplified in film, and was in contrast to the middle-aged bourgeois aesthetic

of haute couture, epitomized by Dior’s ‘New Look’. Bardot occupied a complex
position of female sexuality on film, both an object of the male gaze but also, as
Simone de Beauvoir described, an image of progressive female sexuality, who
is concerned with her own desires and pleasures, initiates sex and is ‘as much
hunter as she is prey’.48
Aside from providing audiences with the opportunity to ogle Bardot’s
body, the bathroom scene in Une Parisienne is designed to make us aware of
the actress’ ‘naturalness’. While the fashion scenes of the film allude to the idea
of constructed femininity as masquerade, the bathing which occurs in the
film, both in the bathroom, and at a beach in Nice, are reminders of her ‘wild’
irrepressible sexuality. The perceived naturalness of Bardot’s sexuality was seen
as a symbol of liberated womanhood in the 1960s. Yet, this representation is
deeply paradoxical. Bardot’s image is at once the epitome of the ‘to-be-looked-
at-ness’ described by Mulvey, yet also opened the door for women to perceive
the possibility of female agency in her own pleasure and desire.49 As film studies
scholar, Ginette Vincendeau argues this discrepancy is indicative of women’s
position in French society at the time, where:
patriarchal power was inscribed in law and the regime of the double standard
which gave male sexuality a free reign, while containing female sexuality – a
deeply oppressive situation … [where Bardot] flaunted an image of a largely
unapproachable freedom.50

The combination of naturalness, child-like naivety and sexual liberation that

Bardot epitomized in the Une Parisienne bathroom scene might be understood
as a precursor to the character of Vivian Ward, played by Julia Roberts in Pretty
Woman (1990) (Figure 1.8). The bathroom at the Beverly Wiltshire Hotel, in
which Vivian performs her off-key rendition of Prince’s ‘Kiss’, is the setting for
one of the more enchanting scenes of the film. Surrounded by bubbles, with eyes
closed, Vivian listens to her Walkman and sings with abandon, oblivious as love
interest Edward (Richard Gere) watches on. This comic scene occurs as part of
the transformation that Vivian undergoes over the course of the film. Reinforcing
her goofy charm, it also reveals her true character as a ‘natural’ beauty compared
to her heavily made-up masquerade as prostitute. The bathroom with pink
and white marble, Art Deco style lights, and gilt framed mirrors is typical of
Hollywood luxury bathrooms. A large back-lit glass etching depicting a roman
vase on a pedestal provides reference to classical ideals of beauty, and suggests
that this scene might be a modern equivalent to an ancient Greek or Roman
38 Cinematic Style

Figure 1.8 Julia Roberts as Vivian Ward and Richard Gere as Edward Lewis in
Pretty Woman (1990). Credits: Garry Marshall (Director), Touchstone Pictures (Film
Production). Screen still.

goddess bathing. As film theorist Mari Ruti argues, the morning sequences after
Vivian and Edward spend the night together, are important to the interpretation
of the other transformative fashion makeovers in the film. Her authentic ‘noble’
persona represented by her natural, classical beauty is ‘closer to a lady than a
hooker’ so the new clothes that follow are then understood to ‘make her a more
sparkly version of who she already is’.51
While the bubble bath scene reminds audiences of Vivian’s ‘natural’ and
noble character it also reinforces that Vivian operates on her own terms. As she
negotiates to be Edward’s ‘beck and call girl’ for the week, her excitement at
bargaining to her benefit is celebrated with an underwater dance. It is a reminder
of Vivian’s occupation as sex worker, yet as film theorist Hilary Radner contends,
the film does not condemn prostitution on moral terms but rather because ‘it fails
to provide self-fulfilment’.52 Linking the bathtub in Pretty Woman to a situation
in which sex is traded for material rewards is indicative of broader associations
perpetuated in Hollywood film in which women’s sexual desires are represented
as mercenary. The conflict in Vivian’s character as both noble and avaricious
established in this scene is ultimately resolved through consumer culture, and
fashion transformation. The subsequent Rodeo drive shopping montage in
which Vivian parades a series of glamorous ensembles to the Roy Orbison title
song, provides audiences with a fantasy of pleasurable fashion metamorphosis
 Bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms 39

which negates her character’s previous sexual impropriety. While Vivian appears
to be transformed from prostitute to lady through tasteful consumption of
fashion, ultimately self-commodification merely takes a different form.
By and large, the bedrooms, boudoirs and bathrooms of cinema in conjunction
with spectacular slinky silhouettes have been associated with the modern women’s
sexuality. As I have outlined here, this relationship is a complex one. The modern
woman’s social, economic and sexual emancipation in cinema has been closely
tied to objectification and consumption. Women’s access to power, wealth and
prestige is regulated by her ability to use her body. Gold-diggers, femme fatales,
adulteresses and prostitutes have been associated with intimate spaces, states
of undress, and form-fitting silhouettes to make this clear. Yet, many of these
characters are immensely likeable. Self-assured sexuality and an unwillingness
to compromise her own pleasure or personal desires are characteristics that
make protagonists played by Joan Crawford, Rita Hayworth and Jean Harlow
appealing to women audiences. While these figures might be understood as
objects of the male gaze, and the rooms and spaces they inhabit as indicative of
confining domesticity, they are also women who don’t appear to be regulated
by maternal or marital obligation. While material obligation, in the form of
fashion and interior accoutrements are integral to the modern woman’s persona
and in particular her morally ambiguous sexual proclivities, it is disingenuous
to think of this relationship as only pertaining to female consumer cultures. As
the following chapter will show, representations of heroic masculinity on film are
just as open to desire for glamorous fashion and stylish abodes.
40
 2

Evil lairs and bachelor dandies: Modernist

architecture, spies and the suit

The French architect Robert Mallet-Stevens was amongst the first to formulate
a theory of set design. He saw the cinema as the ideal mode of representation to
portray the virtues of modern design to the public, stating in 1928, that:
Cinema educates and will continue to educate the mass public in artistic matters
… Art will be communicated to all classes in society; French art will travel across
boarders; and décor in the cinema will become even more ambitious.1

His set designs for Marcel L’Herbier’s L’Inhumaine (1924) (discussed further in
Chapter 5) saw his architecture of clean lines, geometric forms and plain surfaces
translated to the screen, predicting a style that would dominate both architecture
and cinema for the next twenty years. Versions of modernist domestic architecture –
be it Art Deco luxury, or the International Style model of glass, concrete and steel –
normalized the aesthetics of modernism for general consumption by audiences
and spread beyond French avant-garde films to Hollywood cinema.
In the post-Second World War period, mid-century modern style became
associated with glamorous architecture. Intriguingly, while buildings by the
likes of Richard Neutra, Eero Saarinen and John Lautner served as fashionable
abodes for Hollywood film-makers, on-screen these spaces were viewed with
suspicion.2 The destructive power of modernism, science and technology
associated with war saw the integration of traditional domesticity in the form of
both gender roles and living environments in the aesthetics of 1950s cinema. At
this point, the mid-century modern home becomes immoral. As curator Joseph
Rosa observes, while modern architecture was considered appropriate for the
workplace, Hollywood positioned the modern home as lairs for characters who
‘are evil, unstable, selfish, obsessive and driven by pleasures of the flesh’.3
Focusing on Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) and the Bond
movie franchise (1962–2015), this chapter examines the prevalence of
42 Cinematic Style

Machiavellian modernism as a cinematic trope in Hollywood spy films. Yet,

despite Hollywood’s misgivings for mid-century architecture’s claim to devious
world domination, another modern icon prevails in these films in the form of
the suit. The hero protagonists of spy movies are svelte and sharply dressed. Sean
Connery in Anthony Sinclair’s Conduit Cut and Cary Grant wearing impeccable
Savile Row tailoring are indicative of a secret agent style of reliable rationalism that
continues to be perpetuated in contemporary cinema. Specifically, I argue that
Hollywood spy films have established a rivalry between the modern home and
the modern body that reflects long-standing tensions around gender, sexuality
and fashion. Drawing on Adolf Loos’ writings on modernist architecture and
its equation with the gentleman’s suit as a foil to the criminality of ornament,
coupled with an analysis of Playboy magazine, this chapter proposes that the
ultimate victor of the spy film is in fact modernism’s stylish surfaces and forms
as objects of desire.

The glamour of masculinity and modernism

The glamorization of male bodies as erotic objects in cinema has been far
less frequently examined than that of women. Yet, as numerous film scholars
have identified, there is pleasure in viewing male bodies on screen in action.4
According to film theorist Steve Neale, part of the tension of the eroticized
male body in cinema stems from heterosexist and patriarchal positions that
the male body cannot be marked as erotic by another man’s gaze, so sadism
and violence must occur to that body in order to repress erotic contemplation
and desire.5 This persuasive argument applies particularly to action films – such
as the spy movie – in which the protagonist’s body is under constant threat.
However, as Stella Bruzzi argues, this position fails to take into account the ways
that style and mise-en-scène, contribute to the eroticization and aestheticization
of masculinity. Further, by foregrounding accounts of style in understanding
the way that masculinity is portrayed in cinema, more nuanced interpretations
of male identities can be revealed, in much the same way that we have come
to understand women through these surfaces.6 In other words, fantasies of
consumerism, hedonism and pleasure can be attributed to representations
of masculinity that are glamorous and desirable, further complicating the
representation of the male spectacle on screen.
As I have outlined in Chapter 1, the Art Deco styling of bedrooms, bathrooms
and boudoirs in combination with the sartorial syntax of slinky silhouettes,
 Evil lairs and bachelor dandies 43

established a visual discourse that associated these intimate domestic domains

with modern women and contentious sexual morality. The relationship between
glamorous women, overt sexuality and Art Deco design decadence cast this
mode of modernism as sensuous, frivolous and distinctively feminine. The style
was at odds with the principles of influential high-modernist architects such
as Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier, who sought a utopian and radical program
of rationalization and functionality. Their mode of modernity, consisting of
geometric white walls, glass, concrete and steel was underpinned by the ideal
of a classless society, and the realities of everyday urban living – as opposed to
the glamorous, and luxurious surfaces of consumer oriented Art Deco. As I have
argued elsewhere, Loos manipulated understandings of fashion, femininity and
the interior to radically recast the aesthetics of modernist design as a masculine
mode that had long-lasting consequences.7
The American mid-century modern architecture I discuss here might be
considered somewhat removed from Loosian ideals. As proponents of organic
architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright and John Lautner were concerned with
integrating their buildings into the surrounding landscape. By incorporating
natural materials such as wood and stone, they sought to develop a more
‘human’ approach to architecture than the machine-like efficiency of the
European modernists. Yet, the modernist aesthetic of concrete, glass, steel and
geometric forms still dominated the spatial paradigm of their buildings. Loos
was likely inspired by Wright’s Robie House when he visited Chicago, and there
are also similarities in the way that Lautner and Loos approached architectures
of masculinity in the interior.8 What is perhaps more relevant for my purposes
here is the idea that Loos developed a theatrical approach to the interior. As
architectural historian, Beatriz Colomina argues, Loos’ interiors are designed like
a theatre set to frame the occupant. Highlighting the photographic representation
of Loos’ architecture – which poses the interior as a stage for the performance of
domestic life – Colomina draws attention to the way the architect saw his role in
creating an ‘effect that he wishes to impose on the spectator’.9
In recognizing the photogenic qualities of Loos’ interior architecture that was
disseminated through design magazines of the period, and the later glamour
images of American mid-century modernism that would be similarly staged,
it is possible to see how both forms promote an alluring image. Much like
fashion, architecture and the interior are presented as a product of the mass
media and consumption. Alice Friedman astutely recognizes that buildings by
the likes of Wright and Lautner share a self-conscious approach to the styling
of architecture that appealed to American consumers accustomed to seeing
44 Cinematic Style

such images in the mass media, where: ‘these buildings were intended to be
looked at and photographed, and they were styled to appear camera ready and
“glamourized” […] like fashion models.’10 These representations functioned to
create desire and to perpetuate a fantasy of control. Making the link between
masculine heterosexist fantasies and architecture, George Wagner affirms
that, ‘the idea of control becomes the spectacle of a project, […] through the
manipulations of geometry, contrivances of the visual field and the subject’s
view […] It is no secret that architecture is a medium of domination.’11 Just as
much of the literature on modern architecture has sought to associate ornament
with the feminine, so obscuring the ways in which style and the white walls
of modernism were also an artificial surface; the literature regarding fashion,
film and consumption would have us believe that it largely exploits female
audiences.12 As I argue here, the relationship between spy films and mid-century
modern design tells a different story, one in which overt concern for style is
integral to the performance of heterosexual masculinity.

Machiavellian modernism: architecture of evil

Machiavellian modernism in the cold war climate is a central theme of Alfred

Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959). The film tells the wrong man story of
an advertising executive, Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant), who is mistakenly
confused for a spy by the villain Philip Vandamm (James Mason). The ‘catch
me if you can’ action that ensues across a succession of spectacular locations
climaxes in a life-and-death struggle on the face of Mount Rushmore, before
the hero wins the girl, Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint). Throughout the film,
icons of modernity, including the towers of the United Nations Headquarters,
Henry Dreyfuss’ luxury twentieth-century train, aeroplanes and automobiles
provide perilous moments for the lead protagonist to overcome. Perhaps the
most memorable of these is an architectural adversary in the form of Vandamm
House, the first evil lair of its kind in Hollywood cinema.
Based on the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright’s cantilevered Fallingwater
(1936–1939) and the interiors of Usonian houses (1937–1958), the Vandamm
House was imagined by production designer Robert Boyle as a series of stage sets
and matt-painted backdrops (Figure 2.1). The house appears towards the end of
the film, providing the setting for a series of suspenseful scenes. Situated in a
seemingly remote location, with a panoptic mountain top position near Mount
Rushmore, the house represents Vandamm’s inhumanity and formidable power.
 Evil lairs and bachelor dandies 45

Figure 2.1 Vandamm House in North by Northwest (1959). Credits: Alfred

Hitchcock (Director), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (Film Production). Screen still.

As a metaphor for its wealthy mastermind owner and his dangerous vision for
the future, Hitchcock casts modernism as the dastardly dream of designers who
wanted their brutalism to take over the world. The house’s panoramic glass
facade suggestive of surveillance, combined with its cantilevered steel structure,
which teeters perilously over a precipice, proves to be a worthy antagonist.
Thornhill’s first physical encounter with the house involves grappling with
the steel-structure’s slippery surfaces whilst dangling over a cliff-face. Boyle
describes his set-design decisions here as integral to the action, and important
to the film’s themes where he states:
If it’s just an ordinary porch, or something it couldn’t be. So he has to be in a
position where if he is dislodged, he will fall to his death. There has to be some
suspense there. And then, cantilevered meant modern, so it just fell into place.13

The house’s interior proves similarly problematic once Thornhill makes his
way inside. The exposed interior of open-plan living room surrounded by a
mezzanine balcony, and floor-to-ceiling windows, requires Thornhill to perform
ingenuity and stealth to navigate the space undetected, as he attempts to save love
46 Cinematic Style

interest Eve from the clutches of his nemesis. In this way, Thornhill’s ability to
overcome the maleficent modernist home is a metaphor for his ongoing struggle
with Vandamm.
The audience is given further insight into Vandamm’s villainous character
through interior décor (Figure 2.2). The living room is furnished with geometric
textiles, Edward Wormley inspired furniture and Scandinavian design accents.
A prominent Sunburst clock mounted on the horizontally striated stone wall
and numerous Kaiser Leuchten-like floor lamps are recognizable to alert design
aficionado audiences. These interior accoutrements underscore Vandamm’s
wealth and connoisseur identity, the art collector as criminal being a recognizable
cinematic convention for a psychopathy of control, where collecting the world
is contiguous with ruling it. Cold, cruel and calculating, modern design is cast
as criminal.
Yet, this positioning is at odds with modernism’s utopian goals, and in
particular the architect Adolf Loos’ assertion that ‘Ornament is Crime’. In his
polemic essay of 1910, Loos sets out the virtues of modernism by arguing that
ornamentation is a symptom of degeneracy, the domain of so-called ‘primitive-
man’ and women.14 Loos’ aim is to condemn architecture that applies stylistic
facades to clothe its surfaces, and adopts the analogy of women and their

Figure 2.2 Interior of Vandamm House, North by Northwest (1959). Credits: Alfred
Hitchcock (Director), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (Film Production). Screen still.
 Evil lairs and bachelor dandies 47

seductive and erotic use of decorative fashions to entice men as an example of

the immorality of ornamentation. In this way, Loos contributes to the gendering
of modernism as masculine, and is at odds with what he discerns as feminine
tastes for decorative domesticity. Loos sees both women’s fashion and ornament
in architecture as equally deceptive in their purpose of attracting attention
through frivolous display and in their shared interest in representing social
distinction through surface design. For Loos, modernism’s simplicity, rationality
and lack of ornamentation represents masculine authority, intelligence and
moral integrity, ideas that would underpin the thinking of a range of architects
and designers from Le Corbusier to the Bauhaus. In fact, the characteristics
that underpin Loos’ architecture are found in his penchant for fashion, in the
form of the English gentlemen’s suit. Loos wrote a series of essays that proceed
‘Ornament and Crime’ outlining his ideas about the importance of austerity
in dress including ‘Men’s Fashion’ (1898) and ‘In Praise of the Present’ (1908).
As numerous architectural historians have identified, it is clear that Loos’
thinking about the suit as a form of simple, functional, attire was the basis to
his innovations in architectural style.15 For Loos the modern man is masked
by the uniform nature of his clothing, allowing him to protect his interiority,
and function in the social sphere, the suit represents ‘a desire for the disguise of
difference’.16 Loos explicitly connects his architectural purpose and men’s austere
attire when he states:
When I was given the task of building a house, I said to myself: in its external
appearance, a house can only have changed as much as a dinner jacket. Not a
lot therefore … It had to become significantly simpler. I had to substitute gold
buttons with black ones. The house has to look inconspicuous.17

In drawing attention to the relationship between modernist architecture and

the suit, Loos essentially equates modernism with heroic masculinity, and in
particular the style of the English dandy. Exemplified by Beau Brummell,
the dandy reformed male dress from its previous ostentatious form to a
more retrained style of dark sobriety and understated, carefully constructed,
elegance.18 The dandy’s rational, tailored attire came to represent modern urban
masculinity – uniform dress that made it possible to merge with the crowd.
This approach to dressing compliments Loos’ views that both architecture and
the suit should produce a masquerade – a facade that obscures the personal
aspects of character associated with the interior. For Loos, the masculine mode
of modernist architecture was rational, controlled, surface. However, a number
of tensions emerge from this alignment. Loos equation of architectural surface
48 Cinematic Style

and male suit as a mask fails to recognize that the masquerade of austerity is
just as artificial as female fashions and decorations. The concept of masquerade
on film has primarily been associated with the excesses of femininity, as
Doane outlines, the feminine masquerade is ‘constituted by a hyperbolisation
of the accoutrements of femininity’.19 However, as Butler reminds us, the acts,
gestures and accoutrements of gender are performative, they are manufactured
fabrications that can equally apply to the men’s performance of the traits of
masculinity.20 With this in mind, I argue that the relationship between modern
architecture and the suit underpins gendered understandings of modernism and
its relationship to seemingly ‘natural’ rationality, authority and control, which in
turn reveals a further set of tensions that arise in the rivalry between modern
home and modern man in spy films.

Bachelor dandies

In her book Sex and Suits, Ann Hollander establishes the male suit as
inherently modern, from its initial manifestation in the form of Neo-classical
dandy attire. The suit represented a shift from decorative dress for men
toward utility and rationality, embedding gender divisions and challenging
visible class differentiation. She argues that from its beginnings the suit held
an erotic charge in its shaping of the male body to highlight classical heroic
masculinity:
The male figure was recut and the ideal man recast … Now the noble proportions
of his manly form, created only by the rigorous use of natural materials, seemed
to give him an individual moral strength founded on natural virtue, an integrity
that flowers in aesthetic purity without artifice, and made him an appropriate
vessel for forthright modern opinion.21

Roger Thornhill’s suit in North by Northwest is fitting attire for a classic hero
(Figure 2.3). The grey-flannel Savile Row bespoke tailoring by Klingour, French
& Stanbury is perfectly moulded to Grant’s physique. Reinforcing the actor’s
panache on and off screen, the suit is a stylish metaphor for machismo. Grant’s
well-known acute personal interest in clothing is associated with a type of
masculine, bachelor dandyism that the audience also associates with Thornhill’s
character – a lady’s man who also has homosexual appeal. Yet, this is not just
any well-cut suit, it has gained iconic status in the minds of movie goers. As
Jonathan Faiers suggests, Grant’s suits have an almost magical power, where:
 Evil lairs and bachelor dandies 49

Figure 2.3 Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill in North by Northwest (1959). Credits:
Alfred Hitchcock (Director), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) (Film Production).
Photo Credit: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images.

The majority of suits on screen function fairly simply, connoting respectability,

authority and conservatism, but there are certain sets of clothing that transcend
this expected function and assume a super-functional existence as ‘armour-
plated’ suits which bestow a mythical status on their wearers.22

This certainly applies to Thornhill’s grey suit, which adapts admirably to his
character’s every challenge. As fashion theorist Ulrich Lehmann contends,
throughout the film the suit shows remarkable endurance in its ability to recover
from pursuit and assault. Even after the memorable crop-dusting sequence
in which Thornhill narrowly escapes a swooping aeroplane, the crease in the
50 Cinematic Style

trousers remains sharp and the crisp of the collar perfectly in place.23 The suit
is invulnerable to adversity and its consistency and functionality suggests the
dependability of its wearer. Thornhill’s English tailoring conveys self-restraint
and the ability to act in a time of crisis while maintaining a stiff upper-lip. The
suit also adapts to each aspect of Thornhill’s character as it emerges. Whether
erroneous or actual – advertising executive, government spy, suspected criminal
and sophisticated lover are shifting personas that Thornhill adopts throughout
the film. In Loosian terms then, the suit comes to represent a mask or disguise
that adjusts to each new identity. Writer Todd McEwan for Granata magazine
astutely recognizes that North by Northwest ‘isn’t a film about what happens to
Cary Grant, it’s about what happens to his suit’.24 In his sartorial satire, McEwan
notes that Grant ‘grows into his suit over the course of the adventure and finds
a life (and a wife) to suit him’.25 The suit transforms him from a lad-about-town
to responsible and reliable suitor, Thornhill’s character must live up to the suit’s
admirable qualities.
Similarly, to Cary Grant’s Thornhill, the various Bond actors of the 007 movie
franchise use the suit as a metaphor of the character’s reliability in times of crisis.
However, James Bond’s suits never attained the quality of transforming its wearer
into a committed companion. Its suave silhouette continues to signify the spy as
sex symbol. As film historian Andrew Spicer explains of Sean Connery wearing
an Anthony Sinclair Conduit Cut suit in the first Bond film Dr. No (1962):
He incarnated […] the international playboy who embodied the Swinging Sixties.
Bond became […] a hero of consumption, refined, hedonistic and liberated[…]
the projection of audiences’ aspirational fantasy of stylish and successful living.26

As with Thornhill’s character, Connery’s Bond adopts bachelor dandy

styling (Figure 2.4). British tailoring offers understated simplicity that also
mirrored Beau Brummell’s blatant eroticism of skin-tight breeches and cut-
away jackets designed to emphasize a sculpted male body. Connery’s sharp suits
similarly heightened the contours of his figure and his sexual allure and were
fetishized in men’s magazines of the period. For example, a 1966 article in GQ:
Gentleman’s Quarterly provides rich details regarding Bond’s suit proportions:
‘natural shoulders … two buttons … flapped pockets … 10 [inch] side vents’
are presumably outlined as an education in style that readers might copy.27
The Bond image complies with spy style more broadly in fashion editorial and
advertisements of the 1960s – where trench coats, trilby hats and debonair
smoking jackets were frequently portrayed to convey their elegant, distinctive,
‘racy’ and sophisticated attributes.28
 Evil lairs and bachelor dandies 51

Figure 2.4 Sean Connery as James Bond and Jack Lord as Felix Leiter in Dr. No
(1962). Credits: Terrance Young (Director), Eon Productions (Film Production).
Photo Credit: United Artist/Getty Images.

While Bond’s suit has changed according to the times and the physics of his
various actors, for the most part it represents these same fantasy ideals to its
consuming audience. For example, Pamela Church Gibson observes that Roger
Moore’s 1970s flared trousers seem to reflect his characterization of Bond as
a bawdy humourist, while Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan adopted the
double-breasted, light-weight, silhouette of Italian tailoring – a suave realignment
to Britain’s position within the EU.29 Daniel Craig’s Bond is perhaps the most
eroticized of all, switching from casual, linen Brioni tailoring in Casino Royale
to the tightly fitting, short narrow cut jackets that his body all but bursts out
of in Spectre (Figure 2.5). Church Gibson wittily identifies that audiences fear
for the Tom Ford clad Bond, ‘but it is a sartorial mishap, a split seam, that they
worry about, rather than a properly-aimed bullet from one of his adversaries’.30
The form-fitting look is designed to heighten Craig’s physical strength and
masculinity, perhaps at the expense of soignée. Though expense does seem to be
part of the equation, as designer Tom Ford claims, ‘James Bond epitomises the
52 Cinematic Style

Figure 2.5 Daniel Craig as James Bond wearing Tom Ford in Spectre (2015). Credits:
Sam Mendes (Director), Eon Productions (Film Production). Screen still.

Tom Ford man in his elegance, style, and love of luxury.’31 Undeniably, whatever
the cut of his cloth, Bond’s sartorial slickness in the series of films aligns male
consumption with sexuality. In this way, the suit becomes a sign of what Loos
would consider immorality, the eroticism of the suit degenerates its decency
and lack of distinction. Bond’s suits are not a disguise of difference – rather, his
eroticized body is overtly on display. In much the same way, as the Bond girl is
interchangeable, the various Bonds are in some ways reduced to their bodies, or
at least the stylishness of their suits.

Playboy styling

North by Northwest’s Thornhill and the various Bonds are represented as

playboys – sleek, sophisticated, urbane men whose adventurous exploits are
equalled by their womanizing heterosexuality. As Viki Karaminas and Adam
Geczy argue, playboys as Hollywood types were role models to young urban
bachelors who sought hedonism and indulgence through ‘fashion, style and
spending … [they] fetishized the sophisticated world of the connoisseur’ as
a means of obtaining a multitude of women.32 Men’s style magazines in the
1960s were keen to exploit Bond’s connoisseur tastes as a way to convince
 Evil lairs and bachelor dandies 53

their readership to partake in luxurious consumer lifestyles. Articles such as

‘The Impassioned Palate of James Bond’ and advertisements for Jim Beam,
Rolex and Aramis cologne provided insights into the fictional character’s
pronounced preferences.33 Bond’s sophisticated style and that of playboy
dandies in general were a particularly rich subject for producing consumerist
heteronormativity.
The suit as a symbol of sexual prowess and a wardrobe staple for the Hollywood
dandy bachelor, was advocated by Playboy magazine, in keeping with its founder
Hugh Hefner’s attitudes towards masculine fashionability. As fashion historian
Becky Conekin observes, Playboy promoted ‘an elegance of uniformity’ achieved
through a well-tailored suit in a neutral colour.34 The sharp and slim-fit suits that
Thornhill and Bond wear are emblematic of the playboy lifestyle of conspicuous
consumption. Playboy took fashion seriously, describing in detail the essential
elements of distinguished dressing. For example, editorial copy outlining the
exploits of a playboy at a party in the January 1965 issue reads: ‘Host is impeccable
in Italian olive-colour nubby-silk dinner jacket with black satin lapels and sleeve
cuffs, black mohair-worsted trousers with satin extension waistband and side
stripes.’35 Presumably the playboy’s knowledge of sartorial sophistication was just
as significant to his persona as the ability to apply effective seduction techniques.
In fact, from its beginnings in 1953, Playboy magazine forged an association
with the James Bond character of Fleming’s novels, a relationship reinforced
through the film adaptations. In the 1960s Octopussy was serialized in its pages
and the magazine featured ‘Bond girls’ from the movies as covers, beginning
with a special ‘James Bond’ issue published in November 1965, which featured
thirteen actresses from the first four Bond films. These pictorial features
continued throughout the 1960s and 1970s along with interviews with each of
the Bond actors.36 Intriguingly, these features often ran alongside stories that
profiled architects including Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe, as well
as articles aimed at educating bachelors in the latest tastes for home decorating.
As architectural historian Reyner Banham confessed of his illicit readership of
the magazine: ‘Playboy has over the years discussed and illustrated quite a lot of
furniture … plans and perspectives.’37 The bachelor dandy in Bond’s vein was
not just a well-heeled, immaculately suited, cad – he was also a sophisticated
design aficionado.
The playboy’s penchant for home decoration occurs within the context of
deeply gendered heterosexist expectations of family life in post-war America. As
identified in Chapter 1, with the example of Rock Hudson’s bachelor character
in Pillow Talk, at this time, opposing domesticities were pitted as rivals. The
54 Cinematic Style

bachelor pad as sexual lair versus the white-picket fence, and family-life of
the suburban home encapsulated the gender binaries and sexual politics that
emerged in the 1950s. This designation follows from the development of
nineteenth-century separate spheres which defined men’s public function in the
urban space of work and situated women as tastemakers in the private space of
the home. In addition, gendered spaces within the home also reinforced these
separate spheres with the parlour, bedroom or boudoir marked as feminine and
the dining room, smoking room and study as masculine. These spaces were
decorated according to traditional gender distinctions – masculine spaces were
dark with heavy furniture, while feminine spaces were designed with lighter
colours and decorative objects. As Sparke outlines, codification of décor in this
way served to reinforce gendered self-identities. As women entered public life
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries these distinctions slowly
eroded; however, decorative considerations in the domestic sphere were still
considered the domain of women.38 Modern design ideals such as open plan
living and rationalist approaches to the interior also meant that the gendered
division between these spheres became less evident, where social and intimate
spaces redefined the home’s functions.39
The relationship between women’s sexuality and bedrooms, bathrooms and
boudoirs examined in Chapter 1 highlights that the boundaries between these
separate spheres are unstable, and that gender identities and power relations are
negotiated in both public and private space in complex ways. I argue that the
bachelor pad is another example indicative of this tension, emerging as a space
where men might occupy domesticity in ways that were traditionally associated
with women. Design historian John Potvin suggests that, ‘men progressively
turned to alternate spaces and sought out venues in which homosociability was
welcomed … [allowing men] to escape the constraints of domestic servitude.’40
This observation is remarkably close to the way that Playboy marketed the
bachelor pad to it readers:
A man dreams of his own domain, a place that is exclusively his own … Playboy
has designed, planned and decorated, from the floor up, a penthouse apartment for
the urban bachelor – a man who enjoys good living, a sophisticated connoisseur
of the lively arts, food and drink and congenial companions of both sexes.41

Hedonistic consumption, marketed by men’s magazines, became a prevalent

mode of male desire in ways that had been traditionally associated with the
feminine, and was closely aligned to heterosexual ideals of masculine conquest.
Features such as the latest electronic entertainment equipment, a built-in bar,
 Evil lairs and bachelor dandies 55

light dimmers and luxurious bed linen were discussed alongside erotic photo
spreads and lengthy narratives on the art of seduction. In her influential study of
domestic space on film, The Apartment Plot, Pamela Robertson Wojcik proposes
that the bachelor pad is linked to urban sophistication and seduction, in contrast
with the suburban, and its association with marriage and emasculation. She
associates this with the way that Playboy magazine marketed a lifestyle to its
readership where the ‘apartment functions as the exciting expression of the
person he is and the lifestyle he leads’, with the bachelor pad demanding men’s
participation in a consumerist design culture.42 Modernist decorating tastes in
particular are aligned with the bachelor pad aesthetic, where:
clean lines, smooth surfaces … designer furniture made of steel, leather and
wood such as an Eames Lounge chair, a Florence Knoll desk or a Noguchi coffee
table” defines the playboy “in opposition to both feminine and queer tastes.43

In essence, Playboy modernism at home was shorthand for hyper-masculine

virility on display and facilitated a program of sexual coercion. Text accompanying
bachelor pad plans often outlined how designer furnishings might be used by
Playboy predators. For example:
Knoll cabinets … hold a built-in bar. This permits the canny bachelor to remain
in the room while mixing a cool one for his intended quarry … no chance of
leaving … and returning to find her mind changed, purse in hand, and the
young lady ready to go home.44

In this way, the architecture and furnishings of the bachelor pad lair were
presented as modern technologies that assisted in the control and domination
of the playboy’s guests. These scenarios are not so far removed from the Bond
villains’ use of technological gadgets to keep their victims captive.
Playboy sexualized the modern bachelor pad as a commercial strategy, and as
such might be seen as a corruption of Loos’ moral ideas for modern architecture.
Yet, Loos also sought a world of bachelorhood through his work. His ‘reverence
for male society in the military, men’s clubs and the board-room’ was reflected in
his architecture for bars, cafes and the gentleman outfitters Knize (Figure 2.6).45
Through these homosocial spaces he sought to reinstate masculine culture
and aesthetics in the context of a world that he thought had become overtly
feminized through the styles of Art Nouveau and the Weiner Werkstätte. For
Loos, these overtly sensual styles had allowed women to penetrate the public
sphere with effeminacy and eroticism. Rather she should stay solely in the
private sphere of the domestic, and even then, the bedroom should be the place
for her ornamental occupation.
56 Cinematic Style

Figure 2.6 Adolf Loos interior design for the gentleman’s outfitters Knize, Vienna
(1910–1913). Photography by Photo Studio Gerlach. Photo Credit: Imagno/Getty Images.

This demarcation between masculine and feminine space was realized in

the apartment he designed for his first wife Lina, in 1908. The salon and living
rooms furnished with wooden, sturdy and geometric forms were representative
of the bachelor masculine realm, ‘more akin to a hunting lodge than the
domestic sphere’.46 His wife’s bedroom appears to be the only place she might
inhabit – sheathed in gauzy fabrics, flowing white curtains and sheep-skin
floor-coverings. It is worth noting the conflict here between Loos’ assertion that
modernist masculine architecture was morally forthright in opposition to the
erotic, feminine and decorative, and Loos’ own sexual morality. As Colomina
outlines, Loos was accused of paedophilia and had a succession of child-
like wives and affairs with very young women, suggesting that: ‘Loos’ public
moralism denouncing ornament as a savage perversion is perhaps a pathological
 Evil lairs and bachelor dandies 57

symptom of what it attacks, a disguise, a displacement.’47 Certainly Loos personal

behaviour casts him in the realm of the playboy in a similar mould to Bond.
Given the link between the modern suit, modern architecture and the playboy
lifestyle I have outlined here, it is somewhat antithetical that Bond seems to
hold such disdain for the modern home. The Regency style, Georgian home he
inhabits in Dr. No and the barely furnished apartment of Spectre are curiously at
odds with Bond’s otherwise fashionable, luxurious and technologically advanced
consumer desires. Bond is presented as a modern man on the go, racing cars and
commandeering speedboats, he is travelled and experienced. It is clear he lives
a life of hedonism and pleasure as well as pursuit. His lack of interest in the
interior suggests a lack of ‘interiority’, that is, a lack of inner life. As theorized
by Walter Benjamin, regarding the emergence of individual persona and its
relationship to the decorated room as a marker of the inhabitant’s personality
– the concept of interiority is concerned with both the psychological effects a
space might have on its inhabitant, and how the space might be configured by
the inhabitant to reflect individual subjectivity.48 Bond’s house, with its blank
walls and banal furnishings that provide little insight into his personal tastes,
acts as the mask rather than the suit. Indeed, the suit in Spectre gives us clues to
Bond’s inner turmoil, its visibly restricting tightness is metaphoric of his desire
to break free from the constraints of his role as spy. This is not so true of Bond’s
adversaries who are just as much playboy dandies as the franchise hero, all of
whom seem to revel in modern interior decoration.
The formula of master-criminal inhabiting ultra-modern and remote lair
became a leitmotif for set-designer Ken Adam in Dr. No, Goldfinger (1964), and
Diamonds Are Forever (1971). This style has been further perpetuated in the
recent films Quantum of Solace (2008) and Spectre designed by Dennis Gassner,
who draws on Adam’s original aesthetics. According to architectural critic Steve
Rose, Bond’s desire to destroy modern architecture was based in his creator,
Ian Fleming’s scorn for the style, after his neighbour, Italian architect Erno
Goldfinger demolished Victorian houses to build modern villas on Willow Road
in Hampstead. The act provided Fleming with the name for one of his most
notorious villains and a recurring finale where Bond demolishes modernism
in his victory over schemes of world domination.49 For Adam, a trained
architect, and set designer for seven of the early James Bond movies, modernism
represented power and material wealth. Parallels between architectural order
and Cold War villains’ desires for a ‘new world order’ were epitomized in sets
for Dr. No’s Command centre, Goldfinger’s Rumpus room and Ernst Blofeld’s
Lair in You Only Live Twice (1967). Despite Bond’s eye for style in the form of
58 Cinematic Style

the suit, his seeming dislike for modernism at home represents conservative and
traditional values in conflict with his playboy image.
One of the most memorable of Bond’s modernist architectural nemeses is
Elrod House, in Diamonds Are Forever (1971). Designed by John Lautner for
interior designer Arthur Elrod in 1968, like his mentor Frank Lloyd Wright’s
Fallingwater, it incorporates natural formations with modernist materials
of concrete and glass. Built on the side of a mountain, with sweeping desert
vistas, the cinematic references to the Vandamm House of North by Northwest
and its panoptic view, along with remote location on a precipice, reinforces the
relationship between modernist architecture, domination of the landscape and
devious desires. While both Lautner and Wright sought to incorporate rock
formations, water features and wooden surfaces in their architecture as a way
of softening and humanizing the cold, stark surfaces of modernism, on film
these types of spaces instead suggest a villainous control over nature. Lautner’s
architecture has frequently featured in similar roles, including the Sheats-
Goldstein House as a pornographer’s den in The Big Lebowski (1998), the Malin
House as home to a sexual voyeur in Body Double (1984) and the Garcia house as
drug smuggler’s hide out in Lethal Weapon II (1989). The circular architectural
forms and wide-reaching views of Lautner’s Elrod House appealed to Adam as
set designer for their ability to symbolically convey the Bond villain’s lair as a
command centre to enable world domination. He described it as a ‘fantastic
house made of reinforced concrete. It was very futuristic, and I thought, ‘I
couldn’t have designed it better myself.’50
In Diamonds Are Forever, Elrod House plays a fortress designed to hide a
kidnapped Hugh Hefner type billionaire, guarded by two ‘playmate’-like
swimsuit-clad adversaries, Bambi (Lola Larson) and Thumper (Trina Parks).
The sequence begins with a cream linen-suited Connory navigating the circular
concrete structure of the house and a series of glass doors, to be confronted
by Bambi – who cartwheels out of the womanly shaped Gaetano Pesce UP5
armchair, and Thumper – who lounges seductively on the building’s internal
rock formation (Figure 2.7). The titillating fight scene that ensues involves
unnecessary acrobatic prowess, the destruction of a glass coffee table, a thigh
clenching headlock and Bond’s catapult out of an open window into the
swimming pool below. A playboy’s dream, Bond appears almost at home, or at
least to enjoy the erotic wrestling.
The link between Bond films and playboy style is further reinforced in the
photo-story depicting Elrod House, ‘A Playboy Pad: Pleasure on the Rocks’
in the November 1971 issue of the magazine.51 Like Bond movies, particular
 Evil lairs and bachelor dandies 59

Figure 2.7 Lola Larson as Bambi, Elrod House interior, Diamonds Are Forever (1971).
Credits: Guy Hamilton (Director), Eon Productions (Film Production). Screen still.

attention is paid to the technological gadgets that operate the home, as well as
spatial arrangements which would presumably help in the bachelor’s seductive
performance – including a king-sized shower, tiled mirrored sauna, mini-bar
and bed with lighting control panel. It is worth noting here the way in which
Lautner’s architecture at Elrod House positioned the bedroom so that it would
extend directly onto the living space. This configuration suggests a social
exhibitionism of sexual performativity. Not unlike the portrayal of bedrooms
in women’s films, the bedrooms of playboy architecture are associated with
sexual promiscuity – though a much more socially sanctioned form. In the same
way that Playboy turned sex and women’s bodies into representational visual
consumption, modern architecture and design are presented as an erotic and
elicit fetish. The real-world Elrod House, like the many modernist ‘Playboy Pads’
that featured in the magazine, is described as an architecture of seduction, where
the fantasy of hosting some acrobatic swimsuit models, doesn’t seem entirely out
of the question. Playboy magazine essentially equates Bond’s character as suave,
sophisticated sex symbol with the suit he owns and a modernist home that fits
with his image as a bachelor.
Cinema and consumer magazines were not alone in conflating American
mid-century architecture such as Lautner’s Elrod House with playboy imagery.
As the prominent architectural historian Sigfried Giedion wrote in the
60 Cinematic Style

introduction to the fifth edition of Space, Time and Architecture, fashionable

architecture of the 1960s is ‘a kind of playboy-architecture … an architecture
treated as playboy’s treat life, jumping from one sensation to another’.52 While
Giedion was critical of this style of fashionable modern architecture, American
consumer society was much more receptive. The glamour of playboy architecture
appealed to the aspirational ideals of middle-class male consumers who sought
social mobility, economic prosperity and sexual fantasy. The triangulation of
Bond’s fashionable persona, playboy identities and modernist design produced
the body, interiors and architecture as sites for men to seduce women. In this
way, architectural modernism, design and the suit are in fact not in conflict at
all. While modernism was connected to the Machiavellian in the movies, pitted
against stylishly suited sex symbol spies, together they represented a lifestyle
of hedonistic pleasure and luxurious consumer culture. While Loos argued for
the suppression of fashion in both clothing and architecture as a sociopolitical
critique of distinction through taste, where lack of ornamentation opposed
the conspicuous display of wealth, instead modernist architecture and the suit
appealed to middle-class consumerist bachelor dandy identities for their ability
to convey these very attributes.
Interestingly, and in contradiction with the heterosexist fantasies
perpetuated by Playboy, an alternative version of the relationship between
modernist architecture and the suit is also present in spy films, where queer
characters also tend to inhabit these spaces. For example, North by Northwest’s
Leonard (Martin Landau) is stereotypically represented in the realm of
Production Code gay, concealing his homoerotic and ‘immoral’ desires for his
partner in crime, Vandamm. The cut of his suit is tight and slim, as Lehmann
argues, suggestive of a feminine silhouette.53 Leonard and Vandamm’s shared
interest in objet d’art and unclear living arrangements inside the Fallingwater
styled lair are further suggestive of stereotypical Hollywood representations
of queer characters. Similar to the characters in Hitchcock’s Rope (1948),
North by Northwest equates overt concern for wardrobe and interior décor
with moral depravity and homosexuality. Wojcik pinpoints that the bachelor
pad in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, ‘participates in the discourse of the closet …
in which one can try on, secrete or disclose one’s identity’.54 Apprehension
surrounding men’s domestic behaviour becomes code for homosexuality. The
representation of gay protagonists and modernist interiors will be explored
further in Chapter 3, through the case study of Tom Ford’s A Single Man
(2009). Here, however, it is worth drawing attention to the social conditions
that contributed to these cinematic associations. As Potvin outlines in
 Evil lairs and bachelor dandies 61

Bachelors of a Different Sort, queer bachelors were often perceived as a threat

to heteronormative ideals. Bachelor homemaking activities were equally
conceived as aberrant in their propensity for extravagance, decoration and
artifice where:
Gayness, in patriarchal ideology, is the repository of whatever is symbolically
expelled from hegemonic masculinity, the items ranging from fastidious taste
in home decoration to receptive anal pleasure. Hence from the point of view of
hegemonic masculinity, gayness is easily assimilated to femininity.55

In the case of North by Northwest, homosexuality is portrayed as a literal threat

to heteronormativity, where presumably if Leonard was able to kill Eve as he had
intended, the way would be open for him to pursue a relationship with Vandamm.
The relationship between homosexual identities, modernist styling and threats
to heterosexuality has often been suggested within the Bond franchise, where
villains including Le Chiffre in Casino Royale, and Raoul Silva in Skyfall have
been coded queer. The ‘deviant’ behaviour of these characters is problematically
associated with their sexual orientation. The Bond villain’s taste for glamorous
modern architecture is just another stereotype of queer deviancy perpetuated
by Hollywood, where a love of surface style, much as Loos suggested, is seen as
a crime against heteronormative convention. The relationship between queer
identities and modernist aesthetics might appear at odds with Loos homophobic
views on anti-ornamentalism – an idea alluded to when he claims ‘the person
who runs around in a velvet suit is no artist but a buffoon or merely a decorator.’56
However, modernism – if regarded as a style – can be understood as a strategy of
survival to avoid surveillance for those performing queer identities.57 As we will
see in the following chapter, the gender-based assumptions that are associated
with fashion and the interior on film are more complex than simple readings of
modernism as a heroic, heterosexual masculine pursuit might have us believe.
62
 3

Luxurious longings: Queer heterotopias in

décor and dress

The concept of ‘camp’ has been a useful mechanism within queer discourse as a
means of interpreting and encoding the visual and stylistic excesses of cinema to
expose gender and sexuality as performative constructs.1 During the Production
Code era of classic Hollywood cinema, performances by Greta Garbo, Bette
Davis and Joan Crawford, along with the extravagant dances of Busby Berkeley,
or the lavish costumes of Adrian, might be understood by queer audiences as
operating within the camp paradigm. Film historians Harry Benshoff and Sean
Griffin explain that, ‘shared appreciation of certain films and stars was a way
for queer communities to coalesce and feel a sense of connection.’2 Camp – as a
practice of reception and representation – is understood as both performative
mode and aesthetic sensibility.
Consensus on the constituents of camp and its affiliation with queer aesthetics
is much contested, with debates surrounding its association to specific genders,
cultures, tastes and styles. Here, I am interested in camp as a self-conscious
stylistic construction relevant to the interpretation of fashion and the interior
on film.3 Susan Sontag’s ‘Notes on Camp’, while obscuring much of camp’s queer
sensibility, identifies artifice and stylization as central components to camp
aesthetics. For Sontag:
Clothes, furniture, all the elements of visual décor for instance make up a
large part of Camp. For Camp art is often decorative art, emphasizing texture,
sensuous surface and style at the expense of content.4

This is not to suggest that all fashion or interior design on film can be
read through the lens of camp, but rather acknowledges the significance of
appearances, surfaces and style to certain queer audiences. Jack Babuscio,
who focuses on film in ‘Camp and the Gay Sensibility’, draws attention to
these same stylistic devices. However, he argues that camp’s emphasis on
sensuous surfaces is not devoid of politics, nor empty of meaning as Sontag
64 Cinematic Style

suggests; rather it is an expression of emotion, a means of asserting identity

and performing a role.5 Within this discourse of aesthetic excess and artifice, I
propose the aesthetics of nostalgia as another element in this lexicon of queer
cinematic style.
Queer nostalgia in cinema can be understood as a mode of camp; where, as
Mark Booth contends, camp recreates retrograde, outmoded versions of the past,
redefined in ways that are ironic.6 However, more melancholy and romantic forms
of nostalgia are also relevant to the aesthetic pleasures of queer cinema. The films
primarily under discussion here, Carol (2015), A Single Man (2009) and Laurence
Anyways (2012), are indicative of a queer sensibility where highly stylized dress
and dècor are fundamental forms of dramatic storytelling. It is important here to
note, that following Janet Jacobsen, I use the term queer throughout this chapter as
a noun – for example, to describe space, as an identity that is not heteronormative
and as a verb – a way of doing that that challenges or resists expectations or norms.7
Through an examination of queer nostalgia on screen, I argue that these films
develop the aesthetics of ‘camp’ to produce a new type of queer heterotopic space.
These ‘other spaces’ challenge the order of things by subverting the ordinary to
reveal contradictions and disrupt time and space, allowing for queer histories to
emerge as sites of pleasure, desire, longing and kinship.

Queer nostalgia as a cinematic style

Literary theorist, Svetlana Boym describes nostalgia as reflective, embracing

longing, loss and the imperfect process of remembrance, it is ‘a romance of one’s
own fantasy’.8 However, queer nostalgia is in some ways contradictory, as the
past is not idealized, nor necessarily fondly remembered. The lived experience
of queer people is often a history of stigma, shame and suffering – something to
be overcome. In this way queer nostalgia is a reminder of what the present lacks
and hints at what a utopian future might look like. It suggests fluidity between
past, present and future to arrive at other ways of being in the world.
Much queer nostalgia in cinema, imagines a melancholy view of the closeted
past in order to view the present as progressive, but often fails to critique current
conditions.9 Certainly, the representation of queer romances in cinema is
predominantly a history of tragedy, loneliness, depression and oppression. It is
only more recently – in the wake of the Stonewall riots in 1973, the effects of gay
liberation, the influence of avant-garde cinema and the development of New Queer
Cinema in the 1990s – that narratives challenging heteronormative stereotypes,
celebrating a variety of queer identities and diverse sexualities emerged on screen.10
 Luxurious longings 65

Heritage cinema, as Richard Dyer argues, has also been ‘notably hospitable
to the homosexual subject’ affirming ‘the place of queers in cultural patrimony’
where dress and décor are the ‘defining pleasures of heritage spectacle’.11 Many
historical biopics and period fictions of queer experience, while not designated as
heritage films, similarly rely on developing an aesthetics of nostalgia that signals a
reimagining of past familiar styles. For example, Todd Haynes’ Carol, Tom Ford’s
A Single Man and Xavier Dolan’s Laurence Anyways follow histories of queer tragic
romance that highlight past oppression. Yet, they also complicate the problems of
the past in that they produce an aesthetic form of viewing pleasure. The longing
and loss associated with the past is not a fantasy of returning to that time, but rather
an attempt at recuperating a history of queer desire. Queer nostalgia involves a
retelling of the past in order to create a LGBTQI heritage with its own imaginaries,
symbols and stories.12 I argue that queer nostalgia is constituted through the
aesthetic tone of sensuous surface to depict queer desire as pleasurable in order to
produce a past that is not just fraught with difficulty, but also luxuriates in longing.13
The aesthetics of nostalgia, especially in décor and dress are often coded queer.
Interior design historian Christopher Reed observes that queer spaces often
reclaim and exaggerate past historical styles, such as Victorian ornamentation or
Art Deco, where: ‘extravagant interior décor signifies gay space in Hollywood’.14
Devotion to beauty has often been positioned as pejorative, and to suggest
a relationship between queer ways of seeing and aestheticism might easily
fall prey to essentialist stereotypes in how to account for the overt presence
of style in these films. Indeed, numerous film critics have suggested that all
three of these films privilege style over substance, and surface over emotional
depth.15 However, to dismiss the emotional content contained in surface details
would be to overlook a history of queer coding that was affirming in certain
cinematic contexts, and fails to see that the aesthetics of sumptuous surface are
a transgression against patriarchal norms of aesthetic austerity.

Queering surface and space

Based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Price of Salt (1952), Todd Haynes’ Carol
tells the story of a burgeoning lesbian relationship between a department store
shopgirl Therese (Rooney Mara), and a wealthy housewife Carol (Cate Blanchett).
The narrative is problematized by the sexually repressive culture of 1950s America,
and the heterosexual relationships that both women are involved in. From
the outset Haynes uses overt stylization as a mode of ‘queering’ the audience’s
perspective – that is challenging normative viewpoints – where he notes that:
66 Cinematic Style

There are a lot of films with gay subjects … that are formally very straight and
don’t challenge the dominant ways of representing the world. And films like some
of Hitchcock’s or Sirk’s that have these weird, perverse, complex perspectives
that can be far more gay than most movies about gay themes – because they’re
coming from an outsider’s perspective and change how you see things.16

In the case of Carol, Judy Becker’s production design and Sandy Powell’s costume
design are responsible for the deeply sensuous surfaces and styles that punctuate
the film’s mise-en-scène. The pleasures of surface are central to the audience’s
understanding of Carol and Therese’s desire for each other. It is a love story based
in looking, but also in small gestures and touch, where studied attentiveness to
textural details reveals the character’s deeper desires. From their initial meeting
at the department store, tactile surface and the longings of touch are conveyed
through Carol’s luxurious, plush fur coat, emphasized by its juxtaposition
with the ratty appearance of the fake fur trimming of Therese’s Santa Claus
hat (Figure 3.1). In the transaction that follows Carol leaves her smooth, grey
kid-leather gloves as an invitation to Therese’s touch. This sartorial catalyst to
their relationship conveys the significance of clothing to our understanding of
both characters. Here we see concepts of the masquerade and interiority at play,
where Carol’s restrictive tailored silhouette reminds us of her confinement to
rigid heteronormative societal expectations, while Therese’s transformation

Figure 3.1 Contrasting textures. Rooney Mara as Therese and Cate Blanchett as
Carol in Carol (2015). Credits: Todd Haynes (Director), Number 9 Films, Film 4,
Killer Films (Film Production). Screen still.
 Luxurious longings 67

from childlike Peter Pan collars to sophisticated plaid suits tells of her growing
confidence and self-awareness.
Clothing also comes to represent the intimate space between their bodies.
For example, a sequence where Therese smells Carol’s teal-blue sweater and
gently caresses her peach-coloured camisole neatly folded in a suitcase subtly
implies the disrobing of Carol’s cool demeanour to find the softness beneath,
and creates a sense of sexual frisson. Erotic effect is similarly implied in two
moments where Carol places her hand on Therese’s shoulder that bookend the
couple’s romance. These instances are tightly shot, making us pay close attention
to the textures and tones that the protagonist wear in a way that slows down
time, so that we might also linger in the languid moments of their longing for
each other (Figure 3.2). A squeeze of a shoulder, a touch of a cuff or a smoothing
of a skirt presents audiences with a highly pleasurable surface experience of
the sensuality of textiles, creating spectatorial identification and desire. These
cherished moments captured in cloth are a metaphor for Carol’s and Therese’s
love materialized through the desire to touch the body beneath, the space held
in fabric is this anticipated moment unfolded. Haynes’ obsession with surface
here is reminiscent of his earlier film, Far from Heaven, which similarly deals
with forbidden love, both gay and interracial. He described the approach of this
earlier film – which equally applies to Carol – as: ‘an embodiment of dissident

Figure 3.2 Attention to fabric. Rooney Mara as Therese and Cate Blanchett as Carol
in Carol (2015). Credits: Todd Haynes (Director). Number 9 Films, Film 4, Killer
Films (Film Production). Screen still.
68 Cinematic Style

desire that is too overwhelming for its characters and thus spills out into the
world, of things, objects and costumes’.17
Fine details depicting heightened emotional content are similarly present in
Tom Ford’s adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel, A Single Man.
The film follows a day in the life of George Falconer (Colin Firth) as he grieves
the death of his partner of sixteen years, Jim (Matthew Goode) and contemplates
suicide. Engaging with a nostalgic interpretation of 1960s design, inherent
artifice is again a mode of mise-en-scène that constitutes a visual language
associated with queer desire. As the film progresses, pleasure in surface becomes
increasingly palpable as George begins to see beauty in all that surrounds him
through an intensification of colour. Similar to Haynes approach in Carol,
colour, surface and style are presented as a queer way of seeing – asserting the
protagonist’s vision at a time of queer invisibility. As established in Chapter 2, this
perspective differs from the patriarchal restraints of modernism that historically
positioned colour, decoration and ornamentation as deviant, overtly feminine
and queer.18 In this way, as film theorist Kirsten Moana Thompson suggests,
A Single Man represents colour and attention to surface as embodied sexual
passion, and presents the central character George, as ‘an artfully constructed
series of beautiful surfaces’.19 However, as I delineate here, these surfaces are not
without meaning or emotion.
Arianne Phillips’ costume design portrays George’s character as a carefully
composed perfectionist through his impeccably tailored, slim-fit suits. His ritual
of dressing – one of the opening scenes of the film – is, as George describes, ‘a
layer of polish’ that helps him to perform a role. George’s suit is understood as a
fabrication, an impersonation of conservatism and rigidity that masks his sexual
identity, while his female friend, Charley (Julianne Moore) is also presented as
overly concerned with appearances through her chic 1960s geometric fashions
and lush, Moroccan inspired interiors (Figure 3.3).
Rich colour and attention to fashioned surfaces, coupled with the presence of
Moore, creates intertextual dialogue with Haynes’ Far from Heaven (2002), and in
turn, the Sirkian melodrama All That Heaven Allows (1955). As queer film theorist
Brett Farmer explains, ‘with its scenarios of sexual and social transgression and
its highly stylised mise-en-scène, the melodrama opens a space for queer …
meaning and desire.’20 A queer sensibility is common to all of these films, where
the aesthetics of fashion, interiors and objects stand in for emotional content and
the inner lives of characters. Yet, A Single Man plays with the possibilities of queer
nostalgia beyond reference to previous camp cinematic styles and 1960s design
fetishism. The diegesis of the film revolves around the fluidity between past,
 Luxurious longings 69

Figure 3.3 Surface style. Colin Firth as George and Julianne Moore as Charlie in A
Single Man (2009). Credits: Tom Ford (Director), Artina Films, Depth of Field and
Fade to Black (Film Production). Screen still.

present and future. George is constantly reminded of his lover Jim and revisits
past moments of their life together. These scenes are imbued with lush tonal
qualities that are replicated in his present as he becomes aware of the beauty, love
and desire that appear in his daily life, so hinting at the possibilities of the future.
Perhaps even more than his clothes, George’s mid-century modern
house provides insight into his character. Architect John Lautner’s Schaffer
Residence, designed in 1949, is here cast against type. Modernism in this
film is not presented as evil or menacing, though Ford may well be playing
with the conventions of Hollywood cinema that also attributed the modernist
home to the deviant sexuality of ‘bachelors of a different sort’. In his study of
the queer aesthetics and the lived experiences of notable homosexual men in
Britain in the early twentieth century, Potvin investigates how these men who
lived together, ‘sought to redefine the parameters of domestic life and fashion
a new cultural order’ through the design of their domestic interiors.21 We
might then understand A Single Man’s George and his Lautner designed home
through the aesthetics of queer sensibility, representing modern domesticity
as a space where interiority, shared tastes, emotional bonds, comfort, pleasure,
intimacy, kinship and love are present. This is vastly different to the playboy
pad representation of Lautner’s Elrod House in the Bond classic Diamonds Are
Forever, discussed in Chapter 2.
70 Cinematic Style

The house’s mood mimics George’s interiority. Its red-wood walls, vast glass
surfaces and beige and grey décor are at times melancholy, cold and lonely.
Conversely, in a number of scenes in which George looks through the house’s
windows and glimpses back to his previous life with Jim, the interiors are warmly
lit, but also cluttered with books, objects and soft furnishings that reflect the
fullness of these moments (Figure 3.4). Nostalgia bleeds through the mise-en-scène
as sensual encounters with the past, but also connects to imminent possibilities
of the future. In the final scenes of the film, when George brings potential love
interest Kenny (Nicolas Hoult) home, the house vibrates with emotion (Figure
3.5). Its wooden surfaces reflect orange and red tones suggestive of intimacy and
passion that George and Kenny might yet share, provoking George to rethink his
suicide and instead live in the present.
In this way, nostalgia is represented in its conventional form – through
George’s longing for his relationship with his dead lover. Yet, the house also
provides insight to queer nostalgia for contemporary audiences. The glass
exterior walls of the Schaffer house prompt a dialogue between the protagonists
about the visibility of George and Jim’s relationship, and remind viewers that
at the time of the film’s setting, homosexuality was culturally in the closet. As
Potvin’s study highlights, homosexuality was often perceived as a threat to the
stability of domesticity and heteronormativity: ‘not only were homosexual, gay
or queer men meant to perform closeted identities in the public domain, but

Figure 3.4 John Lautner Schaffer Residence. Colin Firth as George in A Single Man
(2009). Credits: Tom Ford (Director), Artina Films, Depth of Field and Fade to Black
(Film Production). Screen still.
 Luxurious longings 71

Figure 3.5 The intimate interior. Colin Firth as George and Nicolas Hoult as Kenny
in A Single Man (2009). Credits: Tom Ford (Director), Artina Films, Depth of Field
and Fade to Black (Film Production). Screen still.

they were also meant to be invisible within the supposed safety of their home.’22
The closet as the ‘defining structure of gay oppression’, as described by Eve
Kosofsky Sedgwick, denies, conceals, erases and makes invisible queer sexual
identities.23 For George and Jim to co-exist in their glass house made their
homosexual relationship visible to their neighbours, so inviting the possibility of
persecution. Yet, their cohabitation also plays with understandings of the closet,
which is not only seen as a space of shameful secrecy, but can also be a site of
nurturing, pleasure and becoming. Their relationship is presented as decidedly
domestic, caring and intimate. In his influential book, Queer Space, Aaron
Betsky argues for the complexities of ‘the closet’ as a psychologically nuanced
space of interiority and a physical space that:
Contains the building blocks for your social constructions, such as your clothes
… a place to hide, to create worlds for yourself out of the past and for the future
in a secure environment … the closet contains both the secret recesses of the
soul and the masks that you wear.24

A Single Man overtly connects the relationship between fashion and the interior
to George’s interiority and anxieties around the visibility of his sexual identity.
His carefully constructed, fashioned exterior, conveyed through his clothes is
an integral part of his disguise. The mask that he shows to the world is similarly
72 Cinematic Style

created inside the sanctuary of his home which conveys an equally polished surface
interior of glamorous modernism. Yet, we also understand this space as the locus
for George’s nostalgic, emotional yearnings for his past life of domestic pleasure
with his partner, Jim. As such, I suggest that George’s house is closer to a queer
heterotopia than a closet, its glass walls at times act like a mirror, producing a
space in between past, present and future. A space that simultaneously reveals and
conceals, where he can reconstitute his identity according to context and desire for
visibility or invisibility as he crosses thresholds between public and private.

Queer heterotopias: Motels and mirrors

For Michel Foucault, heterotopias are ‘other’ spaces that deviate from the
ordinary spaces we inhabit through a disruption of time and space. He includes
examples such as cemeteries, cinemas, brothels, museums and libraries; spaces
which replicate normalcy while simultaneously calling it into question through
ways that merge past and present are both isolated yet penetrable, or juxtapose
illusion with the real. The motel, for example, is a site where illicit sex might
take place, sheltered and hidden, it is a space that anyone can enter but is also a
space of exclusion.25 Extending this concept, ‘queer heterotopias’ are ‘places where
individuals are “free” to perform their gender and sexuality without fear of being
qualified, marginalised or punished’ outside of the norms of heterocentrist space.26
The concept of queer heterotopias is complicated in Carol, where we are
constantly reminded that the protagonists are confined by the society that
they live in and the tragic choices that must be made, here true freedom is not
possible. Yet, within the diegesis queer heterotopias emerge as reminders of
the possibilities that may be available in the future. For example, the road trip
Carol and Therese take to explore their relationship is punctuated by a series of
hotel rooms in which their desire can take its expression. They are other worlds
within the other world of nostalgic 1950s America. Motel and hotel rooms
are familiar domestic spaces that, for these women, lie outside the traditional
heteronormative households that entrap them, giving them permission to act
otherwise to their confining heterosexual roles.
The first of these spaces is the Presidential Suite at a motel in Ohio (Figure
3.6). The tones of the room are olive greens, beige and brown, with Victorian
replica furniture, Americana wallpaper and printed curtains. The contrast of
textures in the scene – velveteen upholstery, an angora throw, satin cushions,
Carol’s silk pyjamas and tweed dressing gown – while incongruous, creates a
 Luxurious longings 73

Figure 3.6 The Presidential Suite. Rooney Mara as Therese and Cate Blanchett as
Carol in Carol (2015). Credits: Todd Haynes (Director), Number 9 Films, Film 4,
Killer Films (Film Production). Screen still.

sense of intimacy and comfort as the women flirtatiously play with make-up.
Here, they are able to be relaxed in their attraction to one another as they
perform the masquerades of gender. The next hotel in their travels, The Drake
in Chicago, is traditionally luxurious. Chintz floral curtains and pink striped
upholstery are sentimentally romantic. Therese’s excited exclamation: ‘This
furniture, this fabric’ draws our attention to how physical space reflects the
interiority of the character’s emotions as they enter into another realm of
feeling for each other.
Their final motel stay is the most dire, reflecting the situation of their
relationship exposed, and the consequences for Carol’s custody battle. The
room’s vivid chartreuse green is a visual climax to the persistence of the colour
throughout the film’s sets in various shades. Scriptwriter Phyllis Nagy has
described how it was important that the hotel where the physical consummation
of Carol and Therese’s desire takes place should be mundane: ‘an ordinary place,
ordinary women in an extraordinary situation’.27 As a queer heterotopia it is far
from a glamorous space, though the intensity of surface colour is suggestive
of other worldliness far from the aesthetics of traditional domesticity. The
indication of this being a queer heterotopic space is further reinforced through a
seduction scene that begins as a reflection in a mirror (Figure 3.7).28
74 Cinematic Style

Figure 3.7 Mirror as queer heterotopia. Rooney Mara as Therese and Cate
Blanchett as Carol in Carol (2015). Credits: Todd Haynes (Director), Number 9 Films,
Film 4, Killer Films (Film Production). Screen still.

For Foucault, the mirror is a heterotopia, a virtual space that opens up on the
other side of the glass, both real and unreal. As he explains:
In the mirror, I see myself there where I am not … I am over there where I
am not … From the standpoint of the mirror I discover my absence from the
place where I am since I see myself over there … The mirror functions as a
heterotopia in this respect: it makes this place that I occupy at the moment that
I look at myself in the glass absolutely real, connected with all that surrounds it,
and absolutely unreal, since in order to be perceived it has to pass through this
virtual point which is over there.29

As a queer heterotopic space the mirror opens up another world for Carol and
Therese in which their love is possible, a place beyond where they currently
stand where they can speak openly of their desire for each other. At once we
see where they are not, but also where they could be, reminding viewers of the
constraints of history and the possibilities of the future. Just as the mirrored
qualities of George’s modernist glass house allowed him to revisit his past
love with Jim in A Single Man, queer heterotopias elucidate the dynamics of
nostalgia as a space of loss and longing, a temporality that is in the past, of the
moment, and not here yet. In this way audiences are positioned to view both
 Luxurious longings 75

these films as if they were Hollywood melodramas from the 1950s and 1960s,
inserting queer experiences retrospectively to open up these unrecognized
histories in the present. Importantly, the surfaces of queer heterotopias not
only allow for movement between multiple temporalities, they also function
to create transition spaces where fluid identities and sexualities are made
possible.
Betsky’s architectural treatise on queer space also draws attention to the
symbolic significance of the mirror to queer identity, a space of appearance,
‘free and open, shifting and ephemeral’.30 The mirror represents something of
queer experience, an alternative space where the world is reordered allowing
for gender and sexual fluidity. Queer theorist, Fabio Cleto provides some
insight as to the role of mirrors in the performance of gender and sexuality as
masquerade:
The history and theory of camp is a theory and history of gazes … apparatuses of
display … and Mirrors … the made-up camp eye [sees] a lot … it tells the truth
of masks … That is what camp re-cognition displays, reimagining ordinariness as
it reacknowledges it, appreciating the limits and excesses of perception … is the
overstylized, self-fashioning gesture of reinvention.31

This aspect of the mirror, as a queer heterotopic space of self-recognition and

transformation, is further examined in Xavier Dolan’s Laurence Anyways (2012).
Similar to Haynes and Ford, Dolan’s cinematic style challenges traditional
cinematic conventions of surface, with an emphasis on fashion and the interior
in order to represent themes of gender and sexual identity.
Spanning a ten-year period that begins in the late 1980s, the narrative follows
Laurence Alia’s (Melvin Poupaud) transition from man to woman and her shifting
relationship with girlfriend Fred (Suzanne Clement).32 After establishing the
passionate and performative nature of their romance, the film shifts to examine
Laurence’s process of transition and Fred’s ambivalence towards her partner’s
gender self-actualization that ultimately leads to the couple’s separation. A pivotal
moment, signalling Fred’s acceptance of Laurence’s identity as a woman, occurs
in the intimate space of their bathroom, in which Fred watches Laurence apply
make-up in a small handheld mirror. Laurence’s carefully made-up eye, reflected
back to her in the mirror, sees herself as herself, reinvented and reimagined. The
dialogue is telling, when Fred encourages Laurence to use the large mirror, she
replies ‘I know what I look like’, implying that the larger mirror would break
the illusion of Laurence’s carefully composed vision of herself – that her overall
appearance does not completely comply with her identity. This scene represents
76 Cinematic Style

a queer way of seeing that challenges heteronormative and patriarchal attitudes

towards pleasure in appearance, and opens up the possibility for understanding
queer heterotopias as sites for transformation.

Fashioning queer heterotopic space

As with Carol and A Single Man, Laurence Anyways – through Dolan’s costume
design and art direction – positions pleasure in surface and style as a central
mediator between queer relationships. The opening sequence in which Laurence
showers Fred with laundry while she lies asleep in their richly hued azure blue
bedroom is accompanied by dialogue that is revisited throughout the film
regarding the nature of what minimizes their pleasure – a discussion that often
centres around colour, sound and sensuality. Suffusion of colour bleeds across
scenes to suggest mood, affect and emotion; a throbbing purple discotheque full
of latent possibility and a red-light that highlights the erotic sentiment behind
an inviting smile, are just some of the visual reminders in this film that surfaces
are important to queer identities in the ways that they are enacted, encountered
and encoded in everyday life. The contrast between this queer sensibility and
normative ways of seeing is brought into sharp relief when Fred decides to leave
Laurence to pursue a suburban life with a new partner. This shift is symbolically
represented by the blinding white modernist house Fred inhabits, its blandness
conveys the emotional emptiness her new life entails.
The concept of queer heterotopic space is revisited in one of the most evocative
scenes of the film, in which the couple are reunited after years of living apart. Laurence
and Fred decide to visit the fictitious Black Island to see if they might return to life
together. As they walk down its deserted, peaceful, white streets blanketed in snow,
they are showered with brightly coloured clothes falling from the sky. This rain of
fashion represents their shared exuberance at being together in a space where they
can be themselves, visible as a couple, outside of social restraints. For Laurence,
fashion as a primary signifier of gender identity in society, is both liberating and
repressive. Presenting as a man, wearing men’s clothes she was unable to express her
true identity, in this moment living as a woman, she is liberated by the pleasurable
and expressive qualities of fashion, and so is surrounded by the possibilities of queer
heterotopic space as sites of transformation and self-realization.
This scene is one of many that emphasize how surface appearances and style
operate as a queer space to express fluid and diverse gender and sexual identities.
Two scenes that engage nostalgic 1980s music video sequences highlight how
 Luxurious longings 77

fashion acts as a transformative self-expression. For example, Laurence’s first

experience at work dressed as a woman is marked by her choice to wear a forest
green pencil-skirt and jacket coupled with a gold blouse, yellow heels and one
long earring. Determinedly embodying her gender identity, her new look is met
with a range of gazes that are bemused, embarrassed, admiring and intrigued.
Set to upbeat music, in a sequence that implies a catwalk, Laurence’s fearless and
triumphant embrace of her identity, is a transformative fashion moment. Another
scene, again set to a music video score, highlights the artificial staging of femininity.
Fred, dressed in a sequined evening dress with large shoulder pads, attends a ball.
Understood through the lens of Judith Butler’s concept of gender performativity,
Fred exaggerates her appearance of femininity to the point of impersonating a
drag queen.33 As she dramatically reasserts her heterosexual identity, sparking
her return to a heteronormative lifestyle, interior and exterior qualities of gender
experience are further questioned as the underlying theme of the film.
Fred’s performance of womanliness as masquerade in the ball scene is just
one example of how drag and camp fashions are used by Dolan as recurring
leitmotifs that emphasize the negotiation of gender identity. However, as
Nick Rees-Roberts suggests, Laurence’s costuming also ‘problematically
boarders on drag … compounded by the casting of a cisgender actor in the
title role … [it] potentially reifies and renaturalises binary difference through
the narrative vehicle of transgender’.34 In this way, the drag and camp styling
of Laurence’s appearance might be interpreted as misrepresenting and
misgendering trans lives, with audiences possibly viewing this character as
simply a man in a dress (Figure 3.8). While drag styling might be understood

Figure 3.8 Melvin Poupaud as Laurence Alia in Laurence Anyways (2012). Credits:
Xavier Dolan (Director), Layla Films and MK2 (Film Production). Screen still.
78 Cinematic Style

as highlighting the performative nature of gender roles in the case of Fred’s

character, in the case of Laurence, it fails to adequately represent trans lived
experience.
A further nuance to the deployment of drag and camp fashions in this film
occurs with the introduction of the Five Roses. Following a scene in which
Laurence is beaten up in a bar, she stumbles upon the home of the Five Roses,
a performing family of queer characters and drag queens who inhabit a church,
decorated in flamboyantly kitsch op-shop thrift (Figure 3.9). Stained-glass
windows shrouded with glittery beaded curtains, leopard print sofas, gold
cherub statues, candles and an abundance of 1950s lamps produce an eclectic
effect which is further exaggerated by the Five Roses personal styles, consisting
of kimono, plastic ponchos and 1970s brightly coloured prints. In this queer
heterotopia, Laurence finds acceptance and a place of belonging for the first time.
Drag and camp fashion and the interior in this instance convey the emancipatory
possibilities of living outside of the societal constraints of gender normativity.
This scene is also representative of subversive models of kinship, recalling the
‘houses’, ‘mothers’ and ‘children’ of the drag scene. As Butler outlines regarding
the ballroom subculture represented in the documentary Paris in Burning (1990)
these people:

Figure 3.9 The Five Roses in Laurence Anyways (2012). Credits: Xavier Dolan
(Director), Layla Films and MK2 (Film Production). Screen still.
 Luxurious longings 79

‘mother’ one another, ‘house’ one another, ‘rear’ one another, and the
resignification of the family through these terms is not a vain or useless imitation,
but the social and discursive building of community, a community that binds,
cares and teaches, that shelters and enables.35

In both the ballroom scene, to which Butler refers, and the queer family of Five
Roses into which Laurence is initiated, fashion plays a crucial role in providing
a queer heterotopic space where everyday life is reordered through self-defined
ways of being in the world creating a sense of community and kinship.
While it is not my intention to compare the representation of drag in
Laurence Anyways to Paris Is Burning, directed by Jennie Livingston, it is
appropriate to digress here from the central argument and make reference
to the film due to its status as New Queer Cinema classic and influential
fashion film which demonstrates how fashion, camp and drag operate as queer
heterotopic space.36 The film has sparked important debates based on issues
of cross-cultural representation, voyeurism, power relations and the artifice of
gender identity.37
Paris Is Burning documents the underground ballroom culture of New
York in the late 1980s. Attended by a spectrum of gender-diverse identities
primarily of African American and Hispanic descent, the ballrooms of Paris Is
Burning are a catwalk where contestants perform their fashioned identity based
on categories of dress that relate to class, race and gender. The importance
of fashion to ball participants identities and the building of community
relations is embedded in the organizational structure of the scene, where ball
‘houses’ are named in the tradition of fashion houses, such as the House of
Saint Laurent, the House of Miyake-Mugler and the House of Balenciaga.
This naming is a symbolic association. Rather than a reflection of a member’s
economic capital, it signals towards subcultural capital of identifying with
a particular fashionable ethos within the scene, and importantly, helps to
galvanize kinship codes of care and support. Within these ‘houses’ gay men
and trans men and women become part of a family. Basing their looks on
fashion models, performing the poses of magazine covers through ‘voguing’
dance moves, the constructs of fashion provide ball participants with a shared
lexicon of style and a space where fashioned queer identities can be explored to
transcend the systems and spaces that exclude them. For Foucault, heterotopias
are real places that act as a kind of utopia, and are sites within culture that ‘are
simultaneously represented, contested and inverted’.38 The queer heterotopic
space of ballroom culture mediated through fashion, as represented in Paris Is
Burning, highlights the ways that appearance, surface and style coalesce as a site
80 Cinematic Style

that queer communities might identify with, and build a sense of connection
through social inclusion and create a ‘safe space’ in solidarity against sexual
and racial oppression.39
Paris Is Burning also makes visible the relationship between queer identity,
fashion, celebrity and branding that is perpetuated through film media. The
film’s release coincided with a number of other cultural moments that brought
the ballroom scene to mainstream fashion attention – including Madonna’s
Vogue video clip in 1990 – raising important questions regarding how cultural
forms are appropriated and commodified within the fashion system.40 Arguably,
due to its reception as a ‘fashion film’ Paris Is Burning could not avoid this
form of commodified exploitation. It is a reflection of how the fashion and film
system operates within a mutually reinforcing relationship of celebrity branding,
advertising and publicity in their contribution to consumer culture.41 Certainly,
Carol, A Single Man and Laurence Anyways engage with this system to varying
degrees as well, due to their emphasis on surface as style. The way these films
represent queer fashionability as integral to self-actualization is central to their
circulation within consumer culture.

Luxury and surface style

The sensorial appeal of surface and style in Carol, A Single Man and Laurence
Anyways, with their heightened attention to costuming that equates being queer
with high-fashion ‘looks’, situates them within in the broader commercial realm
of fashion editorial and branded advertising. The ‘look’ of each of these films is
reliant on an aesthetic expressiveness of surface that is far from the ‘normality’
of everyday experience. Fashion and the interior are treated with heightened
attention to detail in order to reconfigure the clichés of romantic love from
a queer perspective. Visceral colour representations of emotion, decorative
sensibility and vintage styling all contribute to an understanding that self-
fashioning equates with the interior lives of characters. This approach is not
dissimilar to the way in which fashion photography, branding and advertising
seeks to imbue clothing with narrative appeal within consumer culture, and is
also indicative of the way that the relationship between queer style, emotion and
expressiveness is marketed as a cultural form.
Tom Ford’s A Single Man has been widely criticized as a highly stylized
fashion shoot and vehicle for promoting the designer’s brand. Certainly, the
presence of Tom Ford menswear worn by Colin Firth as George, throughout the
 Luxurious longings 81

film can be seen as an exercise in product placement. As Pamela Church Gibson

suggests, the ‘film rather resembles a series of commercials; it contains a number
of vignettes, each with a particular visual feel.’42 This reading highlights how the
melodramatic fashion film draws on the photographic magazine editorial style
to imbue both fashion and the interior with glamour, and the way that fashion
and film employ intertextual branding elements. In this case, Nicholas Hoult
who plays Kenny featured in the Tom Ford 2010 eyewear campaign and Tom
Ford Menswear model, Jon Kortajerena played the role of Carlos in the film.
Ford’s claim that he identified particularly with George’s character and adapted
the original novel’s narrative to convey autobiographical details from his own life
further reinforces that this film can be closely aligned with the Tom Ford brand.
As Lee Wallace observes, ‘Ford’s mood film relaunches homosexual style, once a
coterie fashion as an aspirant brand [ … and … ] retools homosexual feeling as
an on-trend sensation.’ Ford’s foray into fashion film, as designer turned director,
is indicative of the changing mediascape of fashion, where online fashion films
of branded entertainment are commissioned by luxury labels for promotional
purposes. Regarded as a long-form perfume commercial, A Single Man follows
the logic of advertisement turned art cinema.43 Ford’s film can be understood
as an extension of a range of branded content where auteur directors create
short films for fashion houses. Lynch’s Lady Blue Shanghai (2009) for Christian
Dior, Yang Fudong’s First Spring (2010) for Prada and Jean-Pierre Jeunet Train
de Nuit (2009) for Chanel are just a few examples of how the cultural capital
associated with acclaimed avant-garde cinema is transposed onto luxury fashion
objects. This alliance is part of a broader cultural strategy adopted by fashion
conglomerates that use film along with art, architecture and design to create a
system of consumption that is increasingly based on immaterial value – a subject
to which I will return in the second part of this book. Each of these cultural
forms provides fashion with a layer of artistic longevity beyond the possibilities
of a typical seasonal collection. Fashion films offer brands like Tom Ford a set
of qualities that seemingly justify luxury status. In the case of A Single Man,
the aura of a ‘genius’ queer designer/director, aesthetic beauty, connoisseurship
and heritage are luxury values that are transposed onto Tom Ford the brand.
Interestingly, these qualities appear to be a continuation of themes that are also
important values to queer heritage film, a comparison that is useful in elucidating
how fashionable homosexuality has been portrayed within consumer culture.
A Single Man presents audiences with a number of elements that, as Dyer
argues of queer heritage cinema, envisions homosexuality ‘among the attractions
of pastness’, affirming a history that has often been denied or ignored.44 These
82 Cinematic Style

elements include: the source material of queer literary heritage – in this case
Isherwood’s novel, queer creative direction and emphasis on aesthetic beauty and
connoisseurship that ‘savours the qualities and presence of dwellings, costumes,
artworks, objects’.45 A Single Man continues a trajectory established by films such
Merchant-Ivory’s Maurice (1987), which finds pleasure in homosexual desire
in a period of oppression and self-repression. Based on E. M. Forster’s semi-
autobiographical novel, Maurice shares many of the same qualities as Ford’s
film, including queer authorship, creative direction and attention to surface –
in particular, fashion – to convey queer identity. For example, the film’s central
protagonists, Maurice (James Wiley) and Clive (Hugh Grant) wear the restraints
of their social condition through elegant tuxedos of stiff white collars and
conservative English tailoring. As Dyer astutely observes, the well turned out
gentleman is a significant element of queer heritage cinema, ‘a declaration that
gay men too could form part of graceful, decorous masculinity … [rather than]
something abnormal … [also facilitating] the exploration of what men may find
attractive in each other.’46 Similarly, A Single Man represents homosexual identity
as a stylish endeavour that continues a history of pleasure in dressing and being
looked at. The social legitimization of dressing well is equated with an ideal of
mainstream social integration. This contradiction – the pleasure of dressing in
order to conform to heteronormative ideals – is also present in the way cinematic
fashion is represented as aspirational to both queer and mass audiences. For
example, a British Vogue article from November 1987 titled ‘Actor’s Tweeds’
features Wiley, Grant and Rupert Graves to promote Maurice through a six-page
spread of English country gentry fashions. While the article is careful to note the
heterosexual identities of the actors, it highlights that ‘a more emotional, feminine
side’ and ‘depth of feeling’ are desirable homosexual character traits and are overtly
tied to dressing well in herringbone jackets and cashmere coats.47 This coupling
of queer fashionability with emotional expressiveness or melodrama becomes a
commercial trope shared across film and magazine advertorial, creating an image
of queer consumer lifestyle that is inherently tied to luxury aesthetics. In the case
of the Maurice fashion spread for Vogue emotional sensitivity is equated with the
subtleties of minimalist luxury styling courtesy of Armani. For Tom Ford the
brand as envisaged in A Single Man, luxury consumerism becomes an integral
component of aspirational queer lifestyle.
Xavier Dolan also engages with luxury queer lifestyle branding. As an
ambassador for Louis Vuitton menswear, his promotional work for the fashion
label inflects his films with another layer of stylish veneer and positions Dolan
within the league of other celebrity auteur directors, including Francis Ford
 Luxurious longings 83

Coppola, Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson who have similarly collaborated
with the brand. Since 2015, Dolan has featured in five menswear campaigns that
sartorially shift between what Rees-Roberts describes as ‘normative (straight)
masculinity … [in contrast] with the more seductively subversive (queer)
editorial shots of Dolan in style magazines’.48 For example, Dolan seemingly
flaunts his queer sensibility in a December 2014 L’Uomo Vogue cover story.49
Dressed in a series of extravagant coats and jackets, including a leopard print
by Saint Laurent, along with boldly patterned styles by Burberry and Valentino,
Dolan appears as bare-chested, bohemian, enfant terrible as he smokes his way
through a ten-page photographic spread to promote the film Mommy (2014).
A more polished and sophisticated version of this ‘queer’ image of Dolan is
presented in the Louis Vuitton Men’s Summer 2016 campaign. Beginning with a
Dolan quote, ‘aesthetics are nothing if there is no connection with meaning’, the
one-minute short film consists of a series of dissolving images of Dolan wearing
an embroidered bomber jacket and floral printed bowling shirt.50 The retro
clothes, quiff hairstyle and tropical leafy backdrop are a nod to Dolan’s vintage
and camp aesthetic as seen in Heartbeats (Les Amours Imaginaires) (2010) and
Laurence Anyways. The advertisement’s voice-over espouses Dolan’s views on
the building of characters through costume, the designer as storyteller and the
relationship between style and identity. Through this narrative, consumers are
led to make the connection between Dolan’s queer cinema and Louis Vuitton
style. Dolan’s masquerade of fashionable costumes suggests clothing as the
conduit to a range of possible identities, where a wardrobe of different selves is
part of a lexicon of queer aspirational lifestyle.
Interestingly, the circulating fashion imagery associated with Carol does
not operate within the same paradigm as the queer creative director/designer
discourse associated with Ford and Dolan. Rather, the potential for mass-market
appeal obscures the lesbian content of the film and associated queer lifestyle
branding codes and instead focuses on the trend-setting styles that might be
translated into women’s wardrobes. For example, a ‘What’s Now’ advertorial for
Instyle magazine (2015) suggests cat’s eye sunglasses, lady-like gloves and a top-
handle satchel, as essential purchases in capturing the Carol ‘look’.51 Similarly,
Vogue magazine connects the style of Carol to contemporary fashion to inform
consumers about how they might be inspired by catwalk shows at New York
fashion week, asking costume designer Sandy Powell and director Todd Haynes
to share their views on collections by Anna Sui, Marchesa and Thom Browne.52
In these examples, the ways in which fashion advertising content often serves
to reinforce traditional gender roles relating women to consumptive practice
84 Cinematic Style

is clear. As Diane Waldman outlines in her analysis of 1940s Hollywood

publicity campaigns, although a film might encourage oppositional readings,
overwhelmingly the related publicity directed at women ‘channelled their
interests towards romance, marriage and consumption’.53
Shifting the codes of fashions associated with lesbian characters in heritage
films towards consumer culture’s focus on heterosexual ideals has its precedence
in Queen Christina (1933). The film, starring Greta Garbo as a bisexual, cross-
dressing seventeenth-century Swedish monarch is considered a lesbian classic for
the kiss shared between Christina and her lady in waiting. The costumes, designed
by Adrian, blur gender distinctions and include, stiff black-velvet smocks with
white collars reminiscent of Calvinist clerical garments, a cavalier outfit of velvet
tunic and trousers, and a regal bejewelled gown of Marie-Antoinette proportions.
As film theorist Jane Gaines argues, the costumes in Queen Christina make
connections between clothes and gender roles, whereby dressing in different styles,
Christina is seen to perform a ‘homosexual/heterosexual flip-flop’.54 This sexual
ambiguity, when translated into commercial contexts, was presented as concretely
heterosexual. As Gaines outlines, ‘tie-ups and co-operative advertising [such as
a] window display connecting Queen Christina with a half price flatware sale
secured the meanings of the film and resolved its fluctuations for heterosexuality.’55
Similarly, Queen Christina-inspired fashion displays at department stores
presented the consumption of Hollywood style within reach of everyday women,
where their appeal lies in their association to Garbo and designer Adrian, rather
than Christina’s queer aesthetic. In this case, as with Carol commodity tie-ins,
the film’s queer meanings conveyed through costume are deflected by the fashion
system as they are recontextualized in fashion advertisements, magazines and
shop window dressings. Surfaces and styles that were heavily imbued with queer
love and longing become emptied of these meanings and are instead flattened
projections of consumer pleasure and desire. Section two of this book ‘Film
Interiors as Fashion Spaces’, will examine the multiple ways that the fictional
fashion fantasies on film have been translated into the commercial spaces of
fashion, to provide further insight into the ways narrative and identity become
aligned with consumer culture and the fashion system.
 4

Grand entrances: Staircases, stages and

fashion parades

Fashion has long been associated with theatrical excess. As sociologist Gilles
Lipovetsky argues, since the fourteenth century, when rapid change in clothing
and differentiated dress styles first occurred in Western Europe, fashion shifted
‘overall appearance into the order of theatricality, seduction and enchanted
spectacle’.1 Lipovetsky is referring here to the fantastical fripperies of style –
think the pointed tippets of medieval dress, or the baroque embellished robes
of Louis XIV. Yet, he is also speaking generally of the power of fashion to create
a desirable fantasy image, a dreamworld that continues to entice audiences
well into the new millennium. In this way fashion cannot be separated from
aesthetic seduction, where ‘fashion goes hand in glove with the pleasure of
seeing, but also with the pleasure of being seen, of exhibiting oneself to the
gaze of others’.2 The fashion show is in many ways the apogee of fashion’s
spectacular form, enticing audiences with surfaces that hold meanings and
mythologies well beyond the realities of woven cloth. The spectacle of fashion,
as many have argued, is deeply problematic; it can be understood to conceal
the workings of patriarchy and the male gaze, as well as the mechanisms
of capitalism and the real nature of commodity transactions that obscure
human labour.3 Yet, these aesthetic excesses also open new possibilities for
individual creative expression and complex social negotiations of identity. The
performance of fashion in the fashion show, while a commercial endeavour,
is also a form of visual pleasure that at its heart is a transformation story,
predicated on the radical changes of appearance and symbolically, social
situation.
While the relationship between the fashion show and cinema has been examined
by fashion and film historians including Sarah Berry, Caroline Evans and Charlotte
Herzog, the spatial affordances that enable this spectacle to operate so effectively
across modes of representation are rarely examined.4 This chapter contends
86 Cinematic Style

that staircases and stages are visual cues that support narratives of character
transformation and transcendence while simultaneously spectacularizing a
fashion moment. Here, I make the case for the staircase as fashion icon across
cinema, photography, fashion parades and retail environments.5

Staging the salon: When the lights are

lowered to a rosy glow

The British couturière Lucile, also known as Lady Duff Gordon, has been widely
credited for introducing a theatrical element to the staging of fashion shows in
1900.6 She recounts in her memoir that, based on her experience designing for
the West End, she was the first to install a stage at one end of the couture salon –
complete with footlights and framed by an olive chiffon curtain.7 In addition,
she hired a number of beautiful working-class women as mannequins, and
alluded to the relationship between fashion and narrative with her ‘Gowns of
Emotion’.8 Duff Gordon described the transformational and enchanting effect of
her clothes displayed in this manner:
When the lights are lowered to a rosy glow, and soft music is played, and the
mannequins parade, there is not a woman in the audience, though she may be
fat and middle-aged, who is not seeing herself looking at those slim, beautiful
girls … And that is the inevitable prelude to buying.9

Here, the couturière might as well be referring to the effects of the cinema
spectacle on female audiences. The theatrical staging of fashion shows was no
doubt a prelude to later developments in film where drama, star quality and the
performance of fashion collide to instigate consumptive desire. Film historian
Sarah Berry elucidates these origins further: ‘Hollywood’s use of fashion as
spectacle has its roots in entertainment forms like the theatrical tableau, night
club revue … and fashion show.’10
Lucile’s salon innovations were soon adopted by a number of French couturiers
including Paul Poiret, Jeanne Paquin and Maison Beer, all of whom installed stages
to striking effect. The stage, slightly raised, with two or three steps leading down to
the salon floor, offered couture customers an opportunity to view fashion within
the frame of atmospheric fantasy, but also alluded to how one might ‘appear’ to
admiring onlookers. Articles in magazines such as Vogue frequently reported on
the elaborate staging of fashion shows to their readers. For example, an article on
‘The House of Nicole Grout’ from 1927 explains the setting where:
 Grand entrances 87

The deep doorway leading from the mannequin’s quarters is really a tiny stage
with a glass floor and lighted from four directions. A girl comes through, stands
for an instant in startling illumination, and then steps down into the salon.
A Groult gown, you observe instantly, is as distinctively Groult as a Picasso
painting is a Picasso.11

Similar reports on the House of Lucien Lelong in 1925, The House of Bechoff
and The House of Jean Magnin in 1927, draw attention to stages and staircases as
important features of the décor that enhanced the reception of the couture show.
By alluding to relationships between theatre, art and design, these spaces further
sanctified fashion in the eyes of the consumer.12
The relationship between early haute couture fashion and the theatre has
been thoroughly investigated by art historian, Nancy Troy. Couture Culture: A
Study in Modern Art and Fashion is one of the few monographs that examine the
interrelationship between fashion and the interior.13 This study, which focuses on
Paul Poiret, provides important insights into how couturiers developed staging
techniques derived from the performing arts, so enriching the perception of their
designs. They dressed actresses both on and off stage, and developed cultures
of display that established fashion as a spectacular commodity expanding
from the private salons of the Parisian couture houses to wider audiences in
department stores throughout Europe and America. This system, as Troy alludes
to, is the foundation of cinematic tie-ins and star systems that underpinned the
relationship between fashion and film cross promotional strategies throughout
the twentieth century.
Importantly, the stage in the salon offered couturiers the spatial affordance of
creating a grand entrance for their designs, coupled with the effect of the body in
motion. This method of display enhanced the surface appearance of garments,
and contributed to fashion’s performance as apprehended image. As fashion
historian Caroline Evans outlines in The Mechanical Smile, her exhaustive
coverage of early fashion shows: ‘there was something inherently cinematic
about the fashion show … both privilege the visual fascination of movement …
in a beguiling flow of effects and surfaces.’14 Evans notes the many ways that film
and fashion interacted in the early twentieth century. For example, from 1910,
newsreels of the latest fashions from Paris couturiers including Callot Soeurs,
Drecoll and Paquin were circulated worldwide to promote France’s luxury
industries. These short films generally portrayed house models and actresses
wearing the collections within couture salons, in gardens, and in front of iconic
monuments.15
88 Cinematic Style

Paul Poiret in particular is noted for his use of film, portraying mannequins
modelling his lampshade tunics and trouser skirts which he showed to fashion
press and public audiences on his tour of America in 1911, and again in 1913.
Troy similarly notes this early fashion film as an important aspect of Poiret’s
promotional strategy. While he generally claimed distain for advertising, he
cleverly adopted film’s artistic merits to obscure his marketing techniques with
a ‘veneer of culture’.16 Poiret, along with a range of couturiers since the 1870s,
established the conditions of aligning fashion with art, architecture, interior
design, theatre, film and other cultural products that continue to be exploited
by contemporary fashion brands.17 Drawing on the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s
theory of social distinction through taste, the use of theatrical mise-en-scène,
dramatic interior architecture and staging devices by couturiers in their salons
can be understood as a mode of conferring symbolic value and cultural capital
on fashion garments through the consecrating discourses of the arts.18
While elements of the fashion show were featured in early silent cinema –
for example, scenes focusing on sumptuous Lady Duff Gordon gowns in Way
Down East (1920) – the theatrics and glamour of Parisian style fashion parades
firmly entered the cinematic context in the 1930s. A number of women’s films
including Vogues of 1938 (1937) and Mannequin (1937) used the format to
disrupt the narrative and presumably enthuse female audiences to purchase the
latest looks. Perhaps the most striking example of this effect occurs in George
Cukor’s The Women (1939). The fashion parade is a six-minute technicolour
extravaganza showcasing Adrian designs, which somewhat disconcertingly
stops the action of the otherwise black and white film. The fashions range
from sportswear and swimsuits, to elaborate tea party gowns and elegant
evening wear. There are nods throughout to haute couture with a number of
references to Elsa Schiaparelli’s designs including a swimming-cape complete
with a mannequin hand clasp, eccentric hats and wide-shouldered suits with
decorative epaulettes. The scene takes place in a department store, where seated
guests watch on as the curtain parts and a small stage with steps appears, much
akin to the design of theatrical haute couture salon interiors. Similar staging
devices can also be seen in Roberta (1935) and Stolen Holiday (1937) both of
which use staircases to showcase the designs of Bernard Newman and Orry-
Kelly, respectively. While these fashion shows are integrated more seamlessly
into the narrative than is the case with The Women, they perform the same
role of creating an avenue for fashion consumption. In some instances, this was
through direct tie-ins – as was the case for Roberta, where Newman designed
ready-to-wear copies for Macy’s.19
 Grand entrances 89

The trope of the fashion catwalk has since been incorporated in a range of
fashion focused films, such as the sartorially satirical Who Are you, Polly Magoo?
(1966), Mahogany (1975) in which Diana Ross stars in the rags-to-riches tail of
a fashion designer, Paris fashion week docu-drama Pret-à-Porter (1994) and
fashion world expose meets romantic comedy The Devil Wears Prada (2006),
amongst numerous others. The staging techniques of couture fashion salons,
translated to cinematic contexts, give audiences the impression that they had
access to an exclusive realm. As film historian Charlotte Herzog argues:
The dream/film offers to fulfil the wish of buying, owning and wearing the
fabulous gowns … which would be impossible for many women in real life
… The audience in the movie theatre can enjoy an improved social status and
increased buying power equal to that of the cultural elite.20

In other words, drawing on Bourdieu, being exposed to the consecrating rituals

of the fashion field provides audiences with a cultural knowledge of couture
without having to possess the social and economic capital required to enter into
such spaces. In this way, the staged fashion show on film might be understood by
audiences to transcend class boundaries, reinforcing the transformative role of
fashion. I argue that the staircase in particular is an architectural motif that has
come to accessorize fashion across physical space, film and photographic image
to represent women’s transformation in a myriad of ways.

The staircase as fashion icon

By the mid-1920s, a new aesthetic of salon interior design had become de rigueur
for haute couture fashion houses. Curtained stages were largely replaced by an
overall modern effect of Art Deco styling that had been widely celebrated at the
1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. Fashion and the Art Deco
interior were brought together by couturiers including Maison Myrbor, Madeleine
Vionnet and Jeanne Lanvin in order to cater to the desires of the modern woman.21
Arguably, the couturière Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel and her designs epitomized this
confluence of modern woman persona, the straight silhouette of the modern body,
and the minimalism of modern décor more than any other fashion house. The
salon at House of Chanel was a vast open space, accented by domed chandeliers
and mirrored walls creating a sparkling and refracting effect. A mirrored staircase
positioned between the couture salon on the first floor and the designer’s second-
floor apartment set it apart from other haute couture maisons of the 1920s.
90 Cinematic Style

The staircase at Chanel has become an iconic image of the couturière’s myth.
There are a multitude of publicity images, by photographers including Robert
Doisneau, Cecil Beaton, Douglas Kirkland and Suzy Parker which positioned
Chanel at the top of the stairs (Figure 4.1). Multiplied through mirrored
panels, she is the omnipotent observer of her empire, an image cemented in the
collective imagination as a symbol of fashionable modernism. Chanel’s claim
that ‘I spent my life on the stairs’ bolstered this myth, as she sat there, hidden
from the audience below, to view the reception of her collections.22 In addition
to promulgating her celebrity designer persona, the mirrored staircase also
served as a backdrop to her couture collections in magazines. Illustrations and
photographs in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar presented the Chanel staircase as an
icon of fashion: ‘the famous faceted mirrored spiral staircase’ was the backdrop
to a jacquard velvet evening gown in 1931, a white sequin embroidered ball
gown in 1937 and dinner pyjamas in 1967, amongst numerous others.23 In
these images the staircase is positioned as an entryway into the fantasy world
of the Chanel lifestyle and reinforces Chanel’s modern woman brand identity.
As Evans observes, Chanel’s stagecraft created ‘a human kaleidoscope as
the mannequins came down the circular staircase … which splintered and
refracted their image like a futurist painting in motion’.24 Her interpretation

Figure 4.1 Fashion designer Gabrielle Coco Chanel sitting on the stairs in her
atelier. Photo Credit: Photo by Photo 12/UIG/Getty Images.
 Grand entrances 91

implies reference to Marcel Duchamp’s painting Nude Descending a Staircase,

No. 2 (1912) which depicts the female body in movement, active and repeated.
It is a fitting analogy for Chanel’s garments which materialized modernist
fascinations of speed, movement and multiplicity in form and reproducibility.
Chanel’s collections represented in repetition across the mirrored surface of
the staircase comply with her vision of creating what Vogue described as ‘The
Chanel Ford – The frock that all the world will wear’.25
The longevity and significance of the staircase to the Chanel brand were further
reinforced by Karl Lagerfeld. In 1983, the year that Lagerfeld became director of
the Chanel brand, photographs by Helmut Newton depicted Lagerfeld on the
staircase in a similar mode to images of Chanel, drawing a seemingly continuous
line between the two designers. The mythology of the Chanel staircase is a visual
point of reference to confer the idea that Lagerfeld’s succession at the house
would follow in the spirit of Chanel’s style. Lagerfeld alluded to this continuing
design dialogue in a 2003 imagined interview in which the two faces of the
Chanel brand talk to each other. Strikingly, the interview begins: ‘Coco Chanel: I
am watching you. The other day I saw you posing on my famous staircase … Karl
Lagerfeld: Your staircase? You sold your business years before you went wherever
you are now.’26 Like Chanel, Lagerfeld posed on the staircase in various moments
throughout his career, sometimes with celebrity models – including Victoria
Beckham for Elle France in 2012.27 More significantly, the staircase continued to
be circulated as an iconic backdrop to the Chanel look. For example, a towering
spiral staircase was the centrepiece to the spring show in 2006, and two curved
staircases flanked an orchestra for spring 2014.
In 2019, the mirrored staircase appeared yet again as an icon of the brand’s
heritage, tethering another new designer at the helm, Virginie Viard, to Chanel’s
signature style. The fashion codes developed by Gabrielle Chanel – little black
dresses, cream suiting, quilted bags, chains belts and pink tweed – which had
informed Lagerfeld’s collections for thirty-six years, were again reinterpreted
by Viard. For the Métiers d’Art collection, presented at the Grand Palais,
Viard collaborated with film director Sofia Coppola to recreate Chanel’s 31
Rue Cambon apartment, the salon and mirrored staircase. An interview with
Coppola for Vogue provides telling insights regarding how the Chanel myth is
recreated through the icon of the staircase. She states that:
It was a Chanel fantasy dream for me … I had always loved those images of the
stairs – the old days at rue Cambon with Coco standing on the stairs … My
main role was really the atmosphere … when I do a film, the sets have to relate
to what the people are wearing – it all has to come together. So it was fun to
92 Cinematic Style

… incorporate the atmosphere and sets to compliment what she [Viard] was
designing … I love that she incorporates so much of the history and codes.28

In this way, the Chanel style coupled with the icon of the staircase provides the
brand with a narrative of continuous heritage, timelessness, aura and immaterial
value. Gabrielle Chanel was well aware of the benefits of providing couture
clients with such experiences, as she explained in 1935:
When my customers come to me, they like to cross the threshold of some magic
place; […] they are privileged characters who are incorporated into our legend.
For them it is a far greater pleasure than ordering another suit. Legend is the
consecration of fame.29

Viard, like Lagerfeld before her, reconstitutes the legend of Chanel through
these iconic references and incorporates a further layer of cultural sanctification
by collaborating with a famed film director. In this way, the staircase not only
spectacularizes the fashion moment, but also symbolizes the threshold of a
fantasy world that the Chanel consumer buys into. The mythology of the mirrored
staircase at Chanel continues a set of cultural associations of transformation,
transcendence, appearance and arrival. The architectural historian John
Templar provides insight into the symbolic function of the staircase as: ‘art
object, structural idea, manifestation of pomp and manners, behavioural setting,
controller of our gait, political icon, legal prescription, poetic fancy’.30 To this
list, I would add fashion icon – a repeated and recognizable symbol that has
come to represent goddess like decent from the heavens, Cinderella moments of
admiration and more generally fashion as change.
The staircases of fashion photography established their majestic and
elegant associations well before Chanel refurbished her couture house. Edward
Steichen’s first fashion photographs of models on the stairs at Paul Poiret in
1911, published in Art et Decoration exploited the staircase’s structure to create
perspective, providing close-up and full-figure views of the fashions on display.31
From this point, stairs became a frequent feature of Steichen’s images, and in
fashion photography more generally. There is an exhaustive array of images I
could refer to here. Some notable examples include: George Hoyningen-Huene’s
1928 image of model Bettina Jones wearing Schiaparelli-designed sweater and
shorts, smoking a cigarette as she talks to a male model against the backdrop
of graphic black and white steps, Richard Avedon’s 1947 photograph of Renee,
wearing the New Look and twirling her way down the steps at the Palace de
Concord and the Liszt gown of swirling black and white patterned curves
echoing the balustrades at Dior by Willy Maywald in 1948. In fact, the staircase
 Grand entrances 93

at Dior so frequently appears in fashion photographs of the 1940s and 1950s that
its image might almost rival the staircase at Chanel (Figure 4.2).
The proliferation of fashionable staircases can be understood through fashion
historian Margaret Maynard’s framework that positions fashion photography as
an ecology of images – that is, ‘a rhetorical practice, informed by provisional,
external engagements and framing procedures that play with relational
contrasts’.32 In other words, fashion photography is in constant conversational
reference with other fashion photographs, but also with other visual media to
convey meaning and narrative, so much so that the image of fashion is just as
much a commodity as the garment being depicted. Certainly, photographs such
as Mike Figgis’ campaign for Agent Provocateur Kate Moss Descending (2007)
which reference the Duchamp painting, or Maywald’s Eugenie dress, Ailee Line
(1948) reminiscent of Renoir’s Woman on the Stair (1876), are testament to

Figure 4.2 Model standing on staircase wearing a white organdie dress by Dior,
Paris, March 1956. Publication: Picture Post. Photo Credit: Savitry/Picture Post/
Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
94 Cinematic Style

this intertextual relationship. With this vast array of photographic reference

points in mind, it seems clear that the staircase then can be understood as a
fashion object, or accessory, in much the same way as the Eiffel Tower, yellow
taxies or red telephone boxes operate as emblematic devices in photography to
convey the fashionability of Paris, New York or London. The staircase, through
its reoccurring image as fashionable accoutrement in photography and film,
conveys a fantasy of transformation and transcendence that echoes the way
that fashion operates as a product of class distinction and how its codes can
be manipulated for the purposes of social mobility. The staircase, like fashion,
performs the role of transition space between one state and another.
A powerful evocation of this relationship can be seen in stylist André Leon
Tally’s fashion editorial ‘Scarlett N’ the Hood’ photographed by Karl Lagerfeld for
Vanity Fair magazine in 1996. Naomi Campbell plays the role of Scarlett O’Hara
from Gone with the Wind (1939), in a photo shoot that remakes the iconic staircase
scenes from the film, with the supermodel wearing Givenchy by John Galliano.
In this tableaux Tally reimagines the inherent racism and white supremacy of a
film that essentially glorifies the Confederates and their support of slavery by
casting a model of Afro-Caribbean decent in the role of the plantation owner’s
daughter. Tally’s satirical take on Gone with the Wind is commentary on fashion
and film’s racial stereotyping and the lack of representation of people of colour
in these spaces of glamour. The staircase in this instance represents an imaginary
transformation of history, in which it is possible for a woman of colour to play
‘a grandiose grand dame of the nineteenth century’. As Tally states of the photo
shoot, ‘I wanted people to think: What if ? … it was a quiet form of activism. My
way of approaching diversity in the world of fashion was to communicate with
the power of suggestion.’33 The staircase in fashion photography is an emblem
of change, capturing an arrested moment, whether that be the arrival of a new
era of inclusiveness – as in Tally’s editorial, acceptance into a new social realm
as implied by photographs of grand gowns on the Dior staircase or simply the
appearance of a new style. Films including Gone with the Wind, and many others
that have fashion at their forefront, use these architectural tropes in similar ways.

Staircases in fashion film: You stepped out of a dream

As with fashion photography, Hollywood has frequently cast the staircase as

stylish architectural accessory. Symbolically representing upward social mobility
and the desire for transformative self-improvement, the staircase offers the
 Grand entrances 95

opportunity to observe the fashion of leading ladies in moments that partially

disrupt the narrative to create visual spectacle. Film Historian Barbara Klinger
notes that Universal Studio’s publicity machine identified the stairway as an
architectonic site of spectacle, where: ‘it takes a circular staircase to bring out a
girl’s sex appeal … [the staircase’s entertainment value lies in] exhibiting breath
taking showgirls to their best advantage.’34 This was obviously the case for Busby
Berkeley films which drew on the tradition of Florenz Ziegfeld’s Broadway
showgirl spectacles of costume and dance. Here again the relationship between
fashion and staging devices to produce glamorous forms of entertainment is
made evident, Ziegfeld hired Lady Duff Gordon to design the costumes for his
showgirls in 1915. Lucile gowns were part of the attraction of seeing a Ziegfeld
production (Figure 4.3). As Herzog notes, ‘fashion was the theme of many musical
numbers … “Maids of Mesh,” … “The Laces of the World” and the “Episode of
the Chiffon” were all vehicles for spectacular costumes.’35 The fashion parade
format that Lucile helped develop was transposed into the Broadway setting,
which in turn, would be transposed to the feature film. The influence of the
Ziegfeld Follies in establishing this mode of display for fashion in film should

Figure 4.3 Ziegfeld Follies performers dressed by Lucile (Lady Duff Gordon) (1917).
Photo Credit: Bettmann/Getty Images.
96 Cinematic Style

not be underestimated. In addition to collaborating with Lucile to create an

extravaganza of fashionable excess, the architect Joseph Urban produced sets
that were equally fantastic. Aside from creating elaborate scenography praised
as ‘ecstasy to the eye’, Urban’s grand staircases were the centrepiece for numerous
musical numbers, on which the dancers posed and paraded Lucile’s looks.36
These key aspects of fashion’s staging became standard to the translation of the
Follies style musical revue to cinema.
The motif of the stairway in Busby Berkeley films, such as Gold Diggers of
1933 (1933), Dames (1934) and Ziegfeld Girl (1941), was a spatial construct
which served as an ornamental platform for showcasing the talents of hundreds
of uniform girls who danced rhythmically up and down the steps. It also
provided symbolic function, conveying the social climbing element of the
storyline that these films held in common – in which, typically working-class
women become showgirls and attract the romantic attentions of wealthy men.
The dreamlike qualities of these scenes were an escape from the realities of
depression era America, offering fantasies of glamour and wealth. For example,
early on in Ziegfeld Girl, Hedy Lamarr, Lana Turner and Judy Garland make
their debut as showgirls in a Follies revue. The production features an elaborate
staircase sequence in which the three women wear extravagant white goddess
gowns and sparkling costumes to the strains of ‘You Stepped Out of a Dream’.
As the women appear on the stairs to the words ‘you are too wonderful’, ‘you
are too marvellous’, the sequence takes on the appearance of a fashion parade
with showgirls wearing an array of fantastical costumes, feathered gowns, silky
sheaths and gauzy confections (Figure 4.4). The relationship between fashion,
staircases and the women protagonists’ dreams of stardom and social mobility
couldn’t be clearer.
This narrative of self-improvement, common to many musicals, can also
be seen in a number of Audrey Hepburn films, which similarly offer multiple
moments of fashion transformation. From chauffer’s daughter to sophisticated
romantic interest in Sabrina (1954), dowdy book store assistant to glamorous
model in Funny Face (1957) and cockney flower seller to society lady in My Fair
Lady (1964). Each of these films rely on a Cinderella storyline of working-class
girl turned elegant woman, with staircases providing moments of spectacular
appearance, transcendence of class boundaries and the emergence of a more
confident persona. Elegant fashions play prominent roles in arrival scenes –
think Sabrina’s black and white Givenchy gown glimpsed across the stair case
balustrade, or the Cecil Beaton glittering sheath dress worn by Eliza Doolittle as
she ascends the stairs at the Embassy ball. Grand entrances provide audiences
 Grand entrances 97

Figure 4.4 Hedy Lamarr, Judy Garland and Lana Turner as chorus girls wearing
Adrian designed gowns in Ziegfeld Girl (1941). Credits: Busby Berkeley and Robert
Z. Leonard (Director), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Film Production). Photo Credit:
Bettmann/Getty Images.

with the opportunity to ‘study costume details and admire the heroine’s enviable
ability to use fashion as a traditional feminine path to social improvement and,
of course, romantic happiness’.37
Perhaps the most memorable of Hepburn’s fashion staircase moments occurs
in Funny Face. The film adopts the visual language of a Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar
photo editorial to demonstrate the power of fashion to change the character
of protagonist Jo Stanley (Hepburn) from bookish philosopher to fashionable
romantic. The first scene in which Jo is unveiled as an elegant fashion model
takes the familiar trope of the stage and the raising of the curtain to reveal her
stiffly posed in a long white sheath dress and pink flowing cape. While we see Jo
emerge according to the film’s dialogue, ‘not as a butterfly, but a bird of paradise’,
the transformation is not yet complete. Her response to the wide approval of the
fashion editorial team is, ‘it’s wonderful, but it’s not me.’ This scene is followed
by a series of fashion shoots in which Hepburn poses in Givenchy gowns, each
more spectacular than the next, to show her growing confidence and increasing
98 Cinematic Style

fashionability. The most dramatic of these images occurs as Jo glides down the
stairs of the Louvre with The Winged Victory of Samothrace (200BC) behind her
(Figure 4.5). Wearing a form-fitting red evening gown with gauzy wrap fluttering
around her, Jo echoes the form of the ancient Grecian sculpture, as if she might
fly down the stairs like the ‘bird of paradise’. In this scene, we understand that Jo’s
fashion transformation is complete. Taking on the role of art director, she infuses
the fashion shoot with her own imagination and personality. Jo has embraced
her fashionable identity and career as a model, as well as her desire for love
interest photographer Dick Avery (Fred Astaire).
Within these films we might understand the staircase as ‘the locus of
spectaularisation of the woman’, as Mary Ann Doane argues, ‘it is on the stairway
that she is displayed as spectacle for the male gaze.’38 Yet, it is also apparent that
these scenes are addressing a female audience. As discussed in Chapter 1, for
Doane the female spectator position is complicated, whereby women view
other female bodies through the eyes of their desirability to men, but due to
women’s dual role as consumer and commodity she is also positioned as her
own oppressor. For Doane, ‘the cinematic image for the woman is both shop

Figure 4.5 Audrey Hepburn descends the Daru Staircase at the Louvre in Paris,
in a scene from Funny Face (1957). Credits: Stanely Donen (Director), Paramount
Pictures (Film Production). Photo Credit: Archive Photos/Getty Images.
 Grand entrances 99

window and mirror, the one simply a means of access to the other.’39 From this
perspective, the staircase is a mechanism which prompts women to examine
herself as an apprehended image of admiration. Fashion, in this context, plays the
crucial role of mediating desire, as the object which highlights women’s beauty
and sexual appeal. However, this position, which reduces female spectatorship
to merely replicate an objectifying gaze fails to take into account appreciation for
embodiment, that is, being in a body and transforming it through adornment
for self-pleasure. In this way Jo’s descent down the Louvre staircase in Funny
Face can be understood as an opportunity to admire Hepburn’s body as an object
of desire, but we might also connect with the experience of wearing clothes as a
method for conveying freedom of individual expression through the body.
The staircase as a site of psychological anxiety and tension has been
examined by Doane in her analysis of the ‘paranoid women’ of melodramas and
suspenseful thrillers. For Doane, films such as The Spiral Staircase (1946) use
the staircase motif to represent the role of the patriarchy and the constraints of
family, marriage or social roles. In many instances the storyline hinges on women
sacrificing their desires to maintain traditional social orders. The staircase
epitomizes this social order, and to not comply results in a tragic outcome.40
The staircase in Luca Guadagnino’s I Am Love (Io sonno l’amore) (2009) plays a
similar role. Drawing on the tropes of the melodramatic staircase as constraint,
as well as symbolic divergence from Cinderella narratives, I Am Love presents
the staircase as a site of psychological evolution and fashion transformation in
unconventional ways.
Set in Piero Portaluppi’s Milanese Villa Necchi Campiglio (1932–1935), I Am
Love is the story of Emma Recchi (Tilda Swinton), the wife of a rich industrialist
who falls in love with her son’s friend. The mansion, a symbol of Italian Fascist
bourgeois culture, is cold and imposing – a metaphor for the Recchi family,
their wealth and conservative values. Fashion plays a similarly significant role
in further delineating the luxurious world of the Recchi family, with the central
protagonist’s costumes provided by Fendi, Hermès and Jil Sander. The staircase
at the centre of this film is the epitome of Milanese style. Its marble steps and
geometric carved-wood balustrade are quietly elegant, an aesthetic of austere
luxury rather than brash, grandiose glamour. Its narrative function seems to
serve the role of highlighting Emma’s understated fashionable restraint. On each
occasion Emma walks down the stairs, she is stylishly dressed and the object of
admiration. The first time she glides down the steps in a Jil Sander burgundy
sheath dress, we recognize her character as the ‘perfect’ wife and mother with
a habitus of tasteful dress, complying with the conservative ideals of the family
100 Cinematic Style

(Figure 4.6). Yet, as the film progresses we observe that fashion plays a crucial
role in conveying Emma’s altered states of sexual awakening. A tangerine-hued
figure-hugging dress worn when she contrives to meet her lover is in sharp
contrast to the monochromatic, tailored looks of her family life.
With this sartorially symbolic register in mind, we can understand Emma’s
next appearance on the staircase, wearing a sophisticated pearl evening gown with
dramatic Sonia Delaunay graphic stole as a form of masquerade. Her dress conveys
the traditional values her family expects of her; however, the patterned stole appears
as an almost Freudian slip revealing the real state of her newly discovered sensual
inner life. In this scene, Emma’s grand entrance is approved by the admiring gaze
of her husband, Tancredi (Pippo Delbono). Unaware of her infidelity, he accepts
her masquerade as the devoted wife and mother he knows, while her son, Edo
(Flavio Parenti) turns away – at this point, suspicious of her affections for his
friend. The tragedy that unfolds here after, with the accidental death of Emma’s
son after confronting her about the affair is punctuated by a final staircase scene.
Racing home from Edo’s funeral, Emma strips off her elegant black mourning attire
and changes into her lover’s work pants and jacket. Shedding the restraints of her
family, her final dash down the stairs is the disavowal of her lifestyle of bourgeois
capitalism, and the rigidity of her expected role as perfect wife and mother.

Figure 4.6 Tilda Swinton as Emma Recchi in I Am Love (Io sonno l’amore) (2009).
Credits: Luca Guadagnino (Director), First Sun (Film Production). Screen still.
 Grand entrances 101

Emma’s transformation is the discarding of fashion for a life of simplicity,

and the removal of the mask of style to follow the desires of her authentic self.
While this transformation is not without sacrificial tragedy, the reversal of the
traditional fashion narrative of ascendance to a higher social status complies with
other themes accentuated within the film – the decaying forces of capitalism and
the patriarchy. Emma’s transcendence towards love is on the level of the spirit
rather than the social, affirming her self-actualization and sexual awakening
over traditional gender roles and privileged economic positions. However, while
the overarching narrative of I Am Love appears to be a feminist repudiation of
the constraints of marriage, and fashion’s role in contributing to the restraints
of patriarchal gender roles, this message is somewhat complicated by Swinton’s
presence as the main protagonist due to her status as fashion icon. Film theorist
Hilary Radner outlines this conundrum; Swinton is frequently featured on best-
dressed lists and in high fashion publications, yet also refuses a personal interest
in fashion, where ‘this vexed relationship with fashion inflects Swinton’s cinematic
performances, enhanced by her emphasis on disguise and transformation’.41
Fashion as masquerade provides Swinton with the means to navigate divergent
roles on film and perform the nebulous persona of her celebrity status. I Am Love
is one more fashionable transformation in a career emphasized by chameleon-
like change. Despite an underlying anti-fashion narrative, I Am Love perpetuates
a desirable fashion image, that no doubt contributed to the cultural capital of the
Jil Sander brand identity, and was further enhanced by the glamorous aesthetic
of architectural fetishism in the form of the Villa Necchi Campiglio. This formula
has resonances for consumer culture in the staircases of fashion flagships.

Statement staircases of luxury fashion

The staircase as fashion icon has become a recognizable trope to such an extent that
it is an important focal point for retail spaces. While elevators are more expedient
modes of travel within retail environments, the grand staircase is a signature
architectural feature that contributes to the cultural capital of fashion. Chanel’s
staircase at the salon on rue Cambon and the Dior staircase at the avenue Montaigne
exemplify a tradition that symbolically combines high fashion with elevated status.
However, this relationship has even longer standing in fashion retail environments.
The first specialized department store – the Bon Marche – was known for its
majestic double-revolution staircase based on that of the Paris Opera. Built in the
1870s with the input of Gustave Eiffel, the Bon Marche’s ornamental ironwork
102 Cinematic Style

interiors were impressive spaces that made the luxuries of the upper classes visible
to the bourgeoisie. As architectural historian Meredith Clausen surmises, ‘the
grand stair drew customers upstairs, offering them an opportunity to exhibit their
newly acquired attire in full view of others … The building itself was designed as
a stage set, an elegant theatre for the public.’42 Other Parisian department stores
of the era – the Galeries Lafayette, Printemps and Samarataine – similarly erected
theatrical staircases as the centrepiece of consumer cathedrals. The staircases at the
Bon Marche are now escalators, yet still fulfil the role of consumer spectacle, where
artists and architects including Nendo, Leandro Erlich and Ai Weiwei have been
invited to transform electric staircases into dramatic installations (Figure 4.7).
These artistic transformations of retail spaces are indicative of trends set by luxury
fashion brands which have increasingly collaborated with artists, architects and
interior designers to enhance fashion’s cultural capital and create hybrid commerce,
art and entertainment environments. Lipovetsky describes this conversion
between culture and consumption practices as artistic capitalism, where aesthetic
experience has become an object of mass consumption. To create immaterial value
and emotional connection with fashion products, luxury brands develop ‘an entire
mise-en-scène’ that exploits aesthetics, imagination and emotions to enhance the
consumer experience and stimulate desire.43

Figure 4.7 Oki Sato, Nendo Studio Ame Nochi Hana-Rain Flowers at Le Bon
Marche department store (2020). Photo Credit: Chesnot/Getty Images.
 Grand entrances 103

The feature staircases of luxury flagship stores operate within this aesthetic
and experiential paradigm, combining architectural theatricality, fashionable
display and immaterial value to enhance brand identity. As will be discussed
further in Chapter 6, since the 1990s, strategically located global flagship stores
have become an important site of luxury fashion consumption experience.
Prestigious locations, spectacular architecture and the widest array of designer
products on display reinforce the premium position of fashion brands within
the market. Flagship stores are unique shopping destinations that communicate
brand exclusivity, unique identity and cultural capital. The statement staircases
of flagship stores create spectacular visual impact, both as experience and image.
Take for instance, the Gwenaël Nicolas designed black and white marble staircase
at Dolce & Gabbana’s Old Bond street boutique in London (2018). Widely
celebrated in design magazines such as Wallpaper* and Dezeen, the staircase is
fetishized in ways not dissimilar to fashion, where the descriptions of its exotic
materials and surfaces – ‘Brazilian Copacabana, Indian Black Lightning, and
Chinese Panda White’, – are akin to fashion copy.44 Taking centre stage within the
Baroque styled interior of the boutique, photographs of the staircase position it as
the spatial equivalent to a leading lady’s grand entrance. Architectural historian
Alice Friedman’s insights regarding the ways that glamorous architecture is
designed to be photographed further elucidate this analogy, where: ‘the surface
organisation and treatment of materials … [functions] like make-up on skin
or accessories on a well-dressed body.’45 While Friedman in this instance is
referring to the mid-century modern buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright, her point
that architecture takes on the glamorous veneer of fashion photography is well
made, and equally applicable to the architecture of luxury consumerism. The
experience of the staircase is similarly based on an ecology of fashion images and
cinematic moments, a stage upon which consumers might enact their fantasies
of self-transformation.
The ‘starchitect’ designed statement staircases of fashion flagships are
understood as an expression of the celebrity architect’s virtuosity, contributing
to the further aestheticization of fashions on display, and providing immaterial
value.46 For example, OMA architect Rem Koolhaas’ wooden staircase and
undulating wave at the Prada Epicentre, New York (2000–2012) acts as boutique
showcase, performance and installation space (Figure 4.8). This collaboration
between Koolhaas and Prada further spectacularizes the fashion image, where
the staircase becomes a gateway for Prada to associate its luxury fashions with art
and theatre. The staircase is a symbolic locus of the brand’s cultural capital, which
is further enhanced by the creative reputation of the architect. For consumers,
104 Cinematic Style

Figure 4.8 Prada Epicentre staircase designed by architect Rem Koolhaas (2001).
Photo credit: David LEFRANC/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images.

this is not a staircase to perform the staging of a new image, rather it is a space to
enact socio-economic means of differentiation through appreciation of a brand
that recognizes the cultural significance of novel architecture.
The circulation of the Prada Epicentre stairs as an innovative cultural and
commerce environment in both fashion and architecture media is indicative of
the ways in which fashion retail spaces are styled to produce the appearance
of glamour.47 As Friedman observes, architectural photography and fashion
photography share an aesthetic of ‘theatricality, spectacle, fantasy and narrative
appeal’.48 Further, as with designer fashion, starchitect buildings – and by
 Grand entrances 105

extension their staircases – are understood as luxury commodities, operating

within the realms of authorial genius, signature style, material excess, exclusivity
and expensiveness. As architectural historian Annette Condello argues,
luxury architecture throughout history can be defined in terms of scale, rarity
of materials, ornamentation, novelty and excessiveness.49 The staircases of
fashion flagships certainly hold these qualities in common and are fetishized in
architecture and design media as destination experiences. The list of celebrated
fashion staircases is extensive. Notable examples include: the Massimiliano and
Doriana Fuksas vortex of whirlwind dynamic movement across four floors at
Armani Fifth Avenue; Peter Marino’s incorporation of installation art by Jean-
Michel Othoniel, Guy Limone and Annie Morris in staircase design at Chanel
New Bond Street London, Louis Vuitton Munich and Louis Vuitton Place
Vendôme, David Chipperfield’s geometric terrazzo staircase at Valentino, New
York and Frank Gehry’s deconstructionist steel staircase at Issey Miyake, New
York.50 The unique staircases of these retail environments are key components
of architectural distinction to convey luxury, signifying acceptance into an
exclusive inner realm, and contributing to consumer sensory experience. Key
features of the luxury fashion brand identity – expensive materials, exquisite
craftsmanship and unique design are also exemplified by the staircases of
conspicuous architectural luxury. In this way, the signature staircase contributes
to the immaterial value of fashion – an emblem of the visible and tangible power
and prestige of the brand.
As this chapter has shown staircases are rich with symbolic associations of
transformation, social arrival and spectacular appearance reinforced through
their representation in fashion films and photography. As a space for image
making and the performance of fashionable identities, the staircase enhances the
captivating qualities of fashion objects, and the women who wear them. They are
spaces closely associated with the creation of desire, and as such have an affinity
with the store window, as will be the focus of the next chapter.
106
 5

Windows and screens: Cinema, department

stores and boutique display

Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, dressed in pearls, and elegant black

Givenchy dress, wistfully gazing into the store windows of the famed jewellery
store in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) memorably captures the long-standing
relationship between screen and window. Like film, the shop window is a space
for the creation of desire. The world of fantasy interfaces with everyday life. As
the Tiffany’s scene so clearly articulates, shop windows are places for reflection
and contemplation, a space to consider what pleasures a purchase might bring,
and a mirror that projects our own image into dreams on display. The cinema
screen as a shop window has been similarly positioned. Eckert astutely observes
that films ‘functioned as living display windows for all that they contained;
windows that were occupied by marvellous mannequins and swathed in a fetish-
inducing ambience’.1
As this book has shown throughout Chapters 1 to 3, a range of gender and
sexual identities augmented through fashion, the interior and architecture
have been made desirable to consumers through their appearance on film. The
spectacle of shop windows as dreamworlds to stimulate consumer desire has
been examined by numerous film and fashion historians, with many recognizing
how these spaces prefigured cinema.2 Here, I extend this history to include
the lesser-known intersection between French avant-garde cinema, couture
fashion and architecture, pioneered by collaborations between Sonia Delaunay
and Robert Mallet-Stevens on Marcel L’Herbier’s Le Vertige (1926) and René
Somptier’s Le P’tit Parigot (1926). I argue that a translation occurs from fashion
to architecture that is activated through cinematic effect, which both Delaunay
and Mallet-Stevens would also re-imagine through their individual approaches
to boutique window display.
In developing the analogy between window shopping and film spectatorship
as mechanisms of the fashion image, this chapter will trace the passage from
108 Cinematic Style

arcade to cinema. Drawing on sociologist Mike Featherstone’s ideas concerning

how the windows and screens of consumer culture provide glamorous and
sensory experiences, this chapter argues that the mutual exchange that
occurs between fashion, spatial design and cinema is indicative of a system of
reciprocity. The fashion image is mobilized to translate the illusionary world of
film to tangible real-world desires on display. In this context, the screen and the
window as mediating devices of fashion can be understood as both projection
and mirror for the consumer.

Windows as screens

Shop windows as places to display goods to passers-by have been part of the
urban environment since at least the fourteenth century.3 Their development as
a space of urban spectacle – in modes that replicate the theatre, art gallery and
cinema – was closely related to new technologies of plate glass, electric lighting
and the emergence of new retail environments such as arcades and department
stores. Sophisticated window displays that enhanced a store’s fashionable
standing have been significant to retail practices since the eighteenth century,
and the acceleration of advertising and visual merchandising that occurred
in consumer cultures of the nineteenth century required window dressers to
produce increasingly fantastical tableaux.4
By the late nineteenth century store windows were often thematized, displaying
fully decorated rooms, exotic environments and theatre-like dramas. For example,
L. Frank Baum, the author of the Wizard of Oz (1900), was a pioneering advisor
to window dressers in Chicago in the 1890s and editor of trade magazine Show
Window from 1897 to 1902.5 Having worked in the theatre, as well as a salesman,
playwright and publisher, Baum was uniquely placed to understand how narrative,
spectacle and advertising might come together in the shop window to appeal to
consumers. He proclaimed that windows could sell goods:
By placing them before the public in such a manner that the observer has a desire
for them and enters the store to make a purchase. Once inside the customer may
see other things she wants … the credit of the sale belongs to the window.6

Art historian Stuart Culver argues that Baum cleverly incorporated his
understandings of consumer culture in his children’s fairy-tale The Wizard of Oz,
where the title character is able to artfully sell ‘material objects that symbolise
the spiritual qualities’ that the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and Cowardly Lion
 Windows and screens 109

desire, even though they know he is a charlatan.7 The book, and the later 1939
film starring Judy Garland, portrays reality and dreamworlds side by side, so that
even when the machinery of the fantasy is exposed, the audience still remains
enchanted. Baum’s book presents a narrative where ‘autonomy and integrity
proves to be at the same time the dramatization of an inescapable desire for
an object … that is nothing but an image’.8 This sentiment aptly describes how
Baum also put these ideas to work in commercial contexts by promoting the
concept of the ‘illusion window’, using the effects of mechanical wizardry to
draw attention to the fantasy worlds of visual merchandising. Movement was
an important component of an engaging window display, whether achieved
through the use of real-life mannequins who ‘vanished’ to reappear wearing a
new outfit, or through the use of mechanical devices to power revolving stars
and fluttering butterflies. Baum urged his fellow window dressers to encourage
people to ‘watch the windows! People are naturally curious they will always
stop to examine anything that moves.’9 He clearly understood window display
as a form of entertainment that combined artistry, theatre and commerce to
transform spectators of ‘show windows’ to desiring customers.
Baum’s innovations in window display should be understood within the
context of the female-oriented consumer culture of the period. Obviously,
American cities in the early twentieth century were not the only places to
develop the store window as visual spectacle. The display windows of Selfridges
in London have been an integral part of the department store’s retail strategy
since its opening in 1909 (Figure 5.1). Established by the American entrepreneur
Harry Gordon Selfridge, the eponymous department store developed a range of
new retail techniques that specifically targeted female consumers. These included
locating the perfume and cosmetic counters at the front of the store, a crèche,
reading room and ladies restroom to entice consumers into the store for longer
periods of time, and frequent fashion parades that displayed ready-to-wear
garments. Window shopping was similarly promoted as a pleasurable cultural
past-time, allowing women to engage in this urban experience without having to
enter the premises. Early twentieth-century advertising for the store stimulated
the attraction of visiting the windows by day, but also highlighted that they were
brilliantly lit up every Evening until Midnight. These twenty-one windows,
twelve of which are the largest sheets of plate glass in the world, will be frequently
redressed, and will present a constant pageant of prevailing Fashion.10

Selfridges’ windows – much like other department stores of the era – offered
women a form of self-fulfilment, by providing a legitimate mode of independent
110 Cinematic Style

Figure 5.1 Selfridges windows lit up at night (1935). Photo Credit: David Savill/
Topical Press Agency/Getty Images.

access to the public spaces of metropolitan culture. They also played an

important role in the suffrage movement in England, providing a space for
political engagement on the streets. Selfridge was a supporter of women’s
rights, underwriting feminist publications, encouraging protest organizers
to meet in the store and displaying suffragette colours in the store’s windows.
Perhaps recognizing that support of the movement could also make him money,
Selfridge stocked the white dresses that suffragettes adopted as their uniform.
When in March 1912 women protesters broke the windows of almost 400 shops,
including said department store, Selfridges did not press charges.11
As the case of Selfridges demonstrates, the shop window, like cinema,
complicates understandings of the relationship between women and consumer
culture. As outlined in Chapter 1, according to much feminist film analysis,
cinema contributes to the condition where the female spectator is encouraged to
participate in her own objectification and commodification while aligning herself
to cultures of consumption.12 Just as cinema offered women opportunities to
consider modern identities that enacted forms of liberation and agency through
mobility and self-determination, shop windows both enticed women to engage
in consumption and offered opportunities for new forms of social engagement
 Windows and screens 111

in urban life. Film historian Lauren Rabinovitz provocatively suggests that

reflections in shop windows allowed for a female spectatorship – where women
could participate in acts of looking not only at commodities on display, but also
at herself in relation to other people participating in the urban environment.
Cinema, as a development of the shop-window gaze,
extended the legitimate public space for women to look, and it expanded their
possibilities of a mobilized wandering gaze from the restrictive zone of the street
window and department store to new virtual territories.13

The cinematic effect of shop windows can also be uncovered in Walter

Benjamin’s writings in the allusive montage of thoughts that is the Arcades
Project.14 The covered shopping passages of nineteenth-century Paris provided
Benjamin with an allegory for his investigation into the spectres of modernity.
Drawing on Marxist theories of commodity fetishism, Benjamin proposes the
commodity on display as a phantasmagoria – a spectacle of illusion that enthrals
the bourgeois class through unobtainable dream-like images and experiences
that mask the ‘reality’ of everyday life. Identifying window shopping as the act of
the male flâneur in search of sensation, the phantasmagoric effects of the arcade
provided pleasure in looking, through a constellation of temporal associations.15
Obliquely drawing connections between the arcade as the precursor to
department stores, fashion as a structure that presides over commodity fetishism
and interior spaces as phantasmagorical experiences, Benjamin brings together
these ‘residues of a dream world’, as the constituents of a mobilized gaze of urban
spectatorship.16
Film studies scholar, Anne Friedberg draws parallels between Benjamin’s
experience of the arcade as a temporal movement through space and time that
produced a dream-like state and cinema spectatorship, emerging from ‘the social
and psychic transformation that the arcades – and the consequent mobility of
flânerie – produced’.17 In other words, Friedberg makes the case for the window
shopping flâneur as the precursor to the cinema spectator, both of whom are
engaged in acts of consumption. Furthermore, ‘as visual experience became
commodified in shop display … and in cinema spectatorship, the fluidity of flânerie
(once offered predominantly to men) was now offered as a pleasure to anyone.’18
Like the department store, cinema offered women another public space
to engage in modern urban life. An experience that offered new forms of
identification and the possibility to ‘explore gender, racial and sexual mobility
and engage in the pleasures of more fluid forms of subjectivity’.19 These ideas
are played out in French New Wave cinema director, Agnes Varda’s Cléo de 5
112 Cinematic Style

à 7 (Cléo from 5 to 7) (1961) in which tensions between woman as spectacle

and spectator, window shopper and female flâneur are made evident. The
film tells the story of Cléo’s (Corinne Marchand) profound transformation
from self-involved woman obsessed with her own image to an alert citizen of
the street. Over the course of the film we see Cléo’s dual position as object/
subject made evident through her engagement with windows and mirrors.
For example, in a sequence where Cléo becomes enthralled by the shopfront
of a millinery boutique and then admires herself through the glass and other
mirrored surfaces as she tries the hats on, we understand the character to be
narcissistically captivated by her own image and presented as the object of
desire. This position is reinforced as she walks down the street as the subject
of the admiring male gaze. However, Cléo’s role as spectacle is soon overtaken,
when after a moment of self-realization, she begins strolling the sensory
streets of Paris absorbed by the architecture, happenings and people of the
city. In a moment when she breaks her compact mirror and gives the newly
bought hat to a friend, we understand Cléo is no longer the self-absorbed
image, but rather the poetic flâneuse alert to her place in the world in relation
to those around her. Her subjectivity and agency are asserted as she engages
with modern urban life.
The distinction made between celebrated forms of heroic masculine flânerie
and women’s window shopping is important, where the male flâneur’s activity
of idly wandering the arcades and city spaces, gazing as shop windows has
been acclaimed as poetic figure grappling with a rapidly changing world, while
the female shopper is positioned as a victim of consumptive desires.20 These
misgivings were played out in the nineteenth-century zeitgeist – Émile Zola’s
novel Au Bonheur des Dames (The Ladies Paradise) (1884) is the classic example
describing women’s enthrallment in the dreamworlds of the department store.
Julien Duvivier’s 1930 silent French film version of the book visually renders the
flâneuse’s experience of shop windows and vitrines as exciting and compelling
repetition of marvellous objects, including an array of exquisite fashion’s paraded
in the store’s salon. The film’s representation of women’s consumptive desires
echoes Rosalind Williams view that department store displays were designed
to appeal to the mass public using the stylistic traits of ‘repetition, variety and
exoticism … imbuing merchandise with glamour, romance, and, therefore,
consumer appeal … [as such they] generally lacked any artistic merit’.21 However,
by the 1920s shop windows in Paris were also being celebrated as a new art form,
with avant-garde artists, designers and architects producing exciting effects
based in technologies of the screen.
 Windows and screens 113

Cinematic shopfronts: Boutiques

by Sonia Delaunay and Robert Mallet-Stevens

The cinematic turn in luxury fashion stores might be traced back to artist and
couturière Sonia Delaunay’s Boutique Simultanée which made its debut at the
1924 Salon d’Automne in Paris at the ‘Place Publique’ and was reimagined as part
of the rue des Boutiques at the 1925 Exposition des Arts Decoratifs (Figure 5.2).22
In both these stores Delaunay employed a kinetic window display, setting in
motion a series of her patterned scarves. The roller-mechanism that powered
the exhibition was created by Delaunay’s artist-husband Robert. Using cinematic
analogies Robert Delaunay intimates how consumer cultures of fashion and film
together create enthralling visual scenes:
In this nine-by-twelve-foot spectacle, which represents the entirety of the shop
front, what Apollinaire was already calling the art of the shop front: possibilities
of presenting a great show with many episodes … a spool device permits a
simultaneous development of coloured forms ad finitum.23

The Boutique Simultanée represented Delaunay’s broader project of communicating

abstract art to the consuming public through an oeuvre, which included a

Figure 5.2 Recreation of Sonia Delaunay’s Boutique Simultanée at the Museum of

Modern Art, Paris, 2014. The original shopfront was first presented at the 1924 Salon
d’Automne. Photo Credit: Chesnot/Getty Images.
114 Cinematic Style

prolific array of paintings, fashionable garments, textiles, interior designs and

car decoration. Delaunay cultivated a synergy between fashion, interior design,
advertising and film surfaces that demonstrated her understanding of an emerging
cultural moment in which modern women were visibly performing more liberated
lifestyles. Her approach to the shopfront can be understood as a culmination of her
ideas about the cultural experience of modernity – the embodiment of movement,
rhythm, time and colour. Beginning with her first foray into fashion in 1913 with
the simultaneous dress which was activated through wearing, Delaunay saw fashion
as an animated surface that embraced both the temporal and the spatial. Through
its abstract coloured fragments, the contours of the body were displaced beneath
the garment, and when in motion, it created ever changing effects.24 Delaunay’s
1926 three-minute film, titled L’Elegance, makes these relationships clear. Through
a series of demonstrations, Delaunay’s dresses and scarves are seen in movement
on model’s bodies and in dynamic contrast to a series of patterned backgrounds.
Film in this instance offered the designer a medium through which her geometric
aesthetic approach to colour and pattern was translated across the surfaces of
fashion, the interior and film.
The cinematic movement of the Boutique Simultanée shop window displays
in perpetual motion made the connections between the filmic gaze and window
shopping obvious. Art historian Tag Gronberg’s archival study reveals that that
reportage at the time regarding the shopfronts of the Place Publique described
the stores as: ‘luminous, like a cinematographic image’ and those at the rue des
boutiques, a panoramic ‘film-strip’ sequence of shop façades.25 The boutique
was a collaboration between Delaunay and the haute couturier Jacques Heim,
selling swimwear, fur coats, hats, scarves and accessories. The striking Boutique
Simultanée was Delaunay’s first shopfront. Its spectacular moving surfaces
brought new publicity and opportunities for her designs, and were possibly
the catalyst for future collaborations with the architect Robert Mallet-Stevens.
In fact, the filmic associations of Delaunay’s store at the Place Publique may
also have its origins in Mallet-Stevens conceptualization for the square, which
showcased the latest displays of fashion and interior design by the likes of
ensemblier René Herbst, couturière Madeleine Vionnet and Paul Poiret’s Atelier
Martine.26 Their lush window displays were illuminated with dramatic lighting,
framed by geometrically styled façades, reimagining the city as a cinematic set
for the performance of luxuries on display. The overall effect of the various
boutique windows when walking past was a dynamic show of colour, light and
movement – qualities which both Delaunay and Mallet-Stevens experimented
with further through the medium of film.
 Windows and screens 115

Mallet-Stevens’ experiences as a set-designer surely influenced his approach

to the boutique façade, conceiving of both forms as architectural provocations
that could educate the mass public in aesthetic modernism.27 As a pioneering
advocate for modernist design in the movies, his book Le Décor Modern au
Cinema (1928) set out his theories for screen architecture and was considered
highly influential to avant-garde cinema of the period.28 Recognizing the
possibilities of cinema in promoting modern French décor to a broad and
captivated audience, he argued that architecture in film ‘should participate
in the action – it must become an actor’ through dramatic staging.29 Mallet-
Stevens’ film sets for Marcel L’Herbier’s L’Inhumaine (The Inhuman Woman)
(1924) are considered the earliest manifestations of modernist design on screen
(Figure 5.3).30 Perhaps for the first time, viewers also became acquainted with
the trope of the modern woman character living in a stylish modern house.

Figure 5.3 Robert Mallet-Stevens’ set design for L’Inhumaine (1924). Marcel
L’Herbier (Director). Credit: Art et Decoration July 1926: 134.
116 Cinematic Style

The film’s central protagonist, Claire Lescot – a career driven opera singer, who
rejects multiple suitors – is surrounded by the rationalist machine aesthetic
of the new age. Mallet-Stevens’ geometric, monochrome building façades for
the film are indicative of his distinctive style epitomized by the Villa Noailles
(1923–7) and residences at the rue Mallet-Stevens (1927) (Figure 5.4). These
exterior architectures were integrated with interiors by Alberto Cavalcanti, and
Fernand Léger, and corresponded with costumes by Paul Poiret. As a showcase of
French modern art, fashion, design and architecture, L’Inhumaine cinematically
contrived an aesthetic that was beginning to appear in the homes of the Parisian
avant-garde, commercial contexts and design magazines. For example, the
influence of this emerging aesthetic was relayed to readers of Art et Decoration
in 1926 with an article outlining the innovations of costume and décor on
film.31 Mallet-Stevens’ set designs for L’Inhumaine alongside those for Le Vertige
(The Living Image) (1926) and Le P’tit Parigot (The Little Parisian) (1926) were
featured as examples for readers to study for inspiration. An article in the same
magazine the following year provides further insight as to how these cinematic

Figure 5.4 Robert Mallet-Stevens’ residence at rue Mallet-Stevens Paris (1927).

Photo Credit: Jess Berry.
 Windows and screens 117

effects might be translated in the home through a photographic editorial on the

director Marcel L’Herbier’s apartment. The impact of film sets on interior design
and details as to how staging and lighting can be used in at home to enhance
appearances highlight the mutually reinforcing dialogue between cinema and
consumer culture. The presence of textile designs by Sonia Delaunay, a further
reminder as to how film décor might appear in everyday contexts, given her
involvement in L’Herbier’s film Le Vertige.32
In 1926, Delaunay and Mallet-Stevens collaborated on two French avant-
garde silent films, Le Vertige and Le P’tit Parigot. This collaboration may well
have stemmed from an aesthetic understanding of the visual correspondences
between their approach to surface and design. The aforementioned Place
du Public which housed the Boutique Simultanée is not the only time that
Delaunay’s and Mallet-Stevens’ work were seen side by side during this period.
During the 1925 Exposition des Arts Decoratifs Sonia Delaunay’s fashions and
co-ordinating automobile were modelled against the backdrop of Robert Mallet-
Stevens’ Tourism Pavilion. Here modern geometric forms were multiplied
across different surfaces and spaces to create a correspondence between fashion
and architecture that highlights the photogenic qualities of both, so creating
an image through which women might be compelled by the phantasmagoric
dreamworld of the commodity. The relationship established between Delaunay’s
textiles and Mallet-Stevens’ architecture as fashionable images of modern
lifestyles on display that had been well publicized at the 1925 exhibition, was an
entirely suitable mise-en-scène for the films that they would work on together
the following year.
Interestingly, René Somptier’s Le P’tit Parigot and L’Herbier’s Le Vertige might
be seen as catalysts for the representation of male and female types against the
backdrop of modernism that have dominated twentieth-century film. As I have
outlined in Chapter 1, the modernist house as the domain of the emancipated
modern woman was a familiar trope that may have some antecedence in Le
P’tit Parigot (Figure 5.5). The film features a number of dance scenes dedicated
to the modern woman depicting her freedom of movement, made possible by
her short skirts and patterned catsuits designed by Delaunay. The modernist
set designs by Mallet-Stevens, in conjunction with Delaunay’s costumes, convey
frenetic action, extending the animation of the screen surface. Mallet-Stevens’
photogenic architecture in Le P’tit Parigot casts the interior as a fashionable
character attuned with the modern woman’s lifestyle of increased physical,
social, cultural and professional mobility. Accordingly, the lead character of Le
Vertige appears somewhat akin to the playboy dandy discussed in Chapter 3.
118 Cinematic Style

Figure 5.5 Interior design by Robert Mallet-Stevens and Sonia Delaunay, Le P’tit
Parigot (1926). Credits: René Le Somptier (Director), Luminor (Film Production).
Photo Credit: ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images.

While Henri de Cassel (Jaque Catelain) wears slim fit suits for most of the film,
his appearance in Delaunay’s striking dressing robe in her signature abstract
patterning, perfectly matched to the soft furnishings she designed for the film’s
interiors underscores the character’s dandy image. As a sophisticated consumer
of modern aesthetics on the body and in the home, Cassel’s character as seducer
and object of desire is further reinforced. While black-and-white film stock
cannot do justice to the colours of Delaunay’s designs, their geometric patterns
reverberate in dynamic ways. These elements complimented Mallet-Stevens’ set
designs which bear resemblance to images of the architect’s own apartment. A
comparison between the staircase and windows surrounding the doorway of
Cassel’s cinema house appears very similar to the vestibule of Maison Mallet-
Stevens built in 1927.33 A fitting analogy given Mallet-Stevens’ reputation as the
‘dandy architect’.34 Certainly, the film demonstrates the architect’s concern for
‘photogenic’ styling both on and off screen.35
Through his collaborations with haute couturiers including Paul Poiret, Jeanne
Paquin, Jacques Doucet and Sonia Delaunay, Mallet-Stevens was acutely aware of
 Windows and screens 119

how architecture could be made into a fashionable image and that both the silver
screen and photography could provide an added layer of allure to his buildings.
His work on set designs, coupled with the multitude of fashion photographs
taken by Thérèse Bonney of his architecture, attests to the movie star-like
qualities of Mallet-Stevens designed residences and commercial spaces.36 As art
historian Richard Becherer argues, photographs of Mallet-Stevens’ architecture
evidence that these buildings appear to be designed like movie sets, dramatically
posed and artificially lit for cinematic effect.37 In fact, the architecture of rue
Mallet-Stevens features in the Josephine Baker film La Sirène des Tropiques
(Siren of the Tropics) (1927) where we once again witness modern architecture
and the interior as backdrops to the performance of modern lifestyles. However,
this cinematic quality and its links to style and glamour led the architectural
critic Sigfried Giedion to denounce Mallet-Stevens’ architecture as the epitome
of surface fashion design.38
It is possible to speculate that through his collaboration with Sonia Delaunay
on these films and other projects, Mallet-Stevens was able to mobilize the
fashion image as a way of translating his ideals of architecture from the screen
to real life, where modern women would move from imagining dreamworlds
and spaces to the possibility of embodying them. As such, I propose that Mallet-
Stevens’ architecture of appearances was entirely appropriate for the context of
the boutique façade, presenting an opportunity to provide a modern image for
the city streetscape. The inter-relationship between fashion, architecture and
film that appears to underpin so many of Mallet-Stevens’ buildings culminate
in his boutique designs for the Bally shoe company, consisting of three stores in
Paris (1928), Lyons (1930), Rouen (1934) and Algiers (1937). The first of these at
the boulevard de la Madeleine employed a cinematic series of eye-level window
boxes, framed with chrome that protruded onto the street front inviting close
inspection of the shoes on display. Illuminated at night by a cantilevered lighting
strip, Mallet-Stevens’ aim was to make the illusionary world of film tangibly
available to passing customers. As with his film set work, Mallet-Stevens wrote
a series of articles that promoted the shopfront as a new experimental space
for architecture and advocated for collaboration with lighting engineers.39
Recognizing the relationship between cinema, retail space and advertising, he
promoted modern shop design that highlighted the products on display where:
‘It is the passer by, enthusiastic about the shops, who will produce the most
effective propaganda for modern building.’40
Mallet-Stevens’ innovations in retail design should be considered within
the context of an enthusiasm for boutique shopfronts and window display
120 Cinematic Style

as the art gallery of the street.41 The design magazine Art et Decoration
praised the involvement of architects and designers including Mallet-Stevens,
Francis Jourdain, René Herbst and Le Corbusier in revolutionizing the shop
window in the post-war period (Figure 5.6). Credited for developing a sense of
mise-en-scène in window display casting objects as ‘actors’ within the frame, the
article espouses numerous references to the cinema in the ways that lighting,
movement and colour have been used to create a sensation to seduce the
consumer. Outlining the influence of the 1925 Exposition des Arts Decoratifs,
and collaboration between modern architects and fashion designers, it is clear
that the synergies between these fields were recognized by design critics of the
era for their important contribution to visual merchandising, but also to the
beautification of the streets of Paris.42
The relationship between cinema and shopping that Mallet-Stevens cultivated
through his architectural approach to the boutique window should not be
underestimated. His cinematic style was very likely the antecedent to much
of Cedric Gibbons’ work for MGM, which, as Esperdy has argued, was highly
influential in cultivating a reciprocity between film and consumer culture.43 As

Figure 5.6 René Herbst, Hall of Windows, Studio Siegel. Photographer uncredited.
Art et Decoration 1927: 199.
 Windows and screens 121

discussed in Chapter 1, the pronounced impact of the Paris Exposition des Arts
Decoratifs in 1925 on Gibbons’ set design brought Art Deco to the American
public. In addition, Becherer makes the carefully argued point that Greta
Garbo’s modernist home in The Kiss was directly copied by Cedric Gibbons from
photographs of the Maison Mallet-Stevens’ living room and hallway that he had
seen published in Francis Jourdain’s book Intérieurs (1929) held in the MGM art
library.44 As such, it is not inconceivable that Gibbons was also inspired by Mallet-
Stevens’ acumen in bringing together screen and window in ways that had the
ability to cultivate consumers. Certainly, MGM studio publicists had an inkling
of the potential for silver screen tie-ins. As Esperdy contends, photographs
of Gibbons’ set designs from The Wizard of Oz were sent to architecture and
decorating magazines in the hope that the dreamworlds of the cinema might
enter the reality of American homes.45 From ‘The Carol Lombard in Macy’s
Window’ to ‘Queen Christina Tie-ups’, the relationship between Hollywood
cinema and consumer culture has been well documented, and the examples of
window displays in department stores and boutiques that have made reference to
film sets to promote fashions and other products are numerous. Mass-produced
copies of garments seen on screen and sold in ‘Cinema Shops’ and in-store
concessional spaces, often designed by Hollywood costumers such as Orry-Kelly
were advertised in fan magazines such as Photoplay as studio styles worn by the
stars.46 However, the synergy between screen and window is not just a matter
of selling remakes of film costumes as fashionable dress to consumers. The
proliferation of fashionable images mobilized through cinema and advertising
made luxury seemingly more accessible and desirable, and was compounded by
the effect of glamorous settings in the cinema theatre, the department store and
the boutique.

The glamour of surfaces

The sociologist, Mike Featherstone argues that ‘both the cinema and the
department store fostered dreams of luxury lifestyles’ transforming the surfaces
of things through glamour, where ‘glamour operates as a force that can make
things appear more alluring and splendid, better than they really are’.47 For
Featherstone, glamour is transformative. Unlike beauty which is perceived as
inherent, glamour is an image that can be cultivated, and a veneer that can be
attached to objects and people.48 The screen and the shop window then, provide
this glamorous surface to fashion, offering an intensified aesthetic experience
122 Cinematic Style

through distance – the boundary between self and desired object is mediated by
a surface that is, in itself, glamorous. The shimmering qualities of light amplified
by screen and glass window cultivate the allure of products on display. The
implication being, that when consumers engage with these beguiling objects
through purchasing and bodily interaction, a new sensory experience will be
produced, one which goes beyond a simple engagement with image and surface,
transforming the consumer into a more alluring version of the self.
This idea is clearly encapsulated through the reciprocal relationship between
cinema, department store and the Ziegfeld showgirl type of Busby Berkeley’s
films of the 1930s and 1940s. As identified in Chapter 4, the Follies showgirl
was a spectacle of extravagant fashion and set design that produced a fantasy
of glittering transformation, where working-class shop girls became stars. Press
releases relating to the theatre showgirls, which could be equally applied to their
role on film, described the Follies as ‘life’s show windows … the glorified girls,
the galaxy of stars, and the marvellous scenic effects and costumes, we hold up
to the world all the elaborateness and beauty that are to be associated with the
shop window of life’.49 The spectacular synergy between set design and costume
of the Follies shows was due to the vision of architect Joseph Urban. Dramatic
lighting, elaborate decorative surfaces and grand scale proscenium framing were
developed by Urban as shared strategies between sites of consumption. Lavish
display underpins his oeuvre which includes Ziegfeld Follies productions (1914–
1932), film sets for The Young Diana (1922) and Under the Red Robe (1923), and
proposed designs for the Bedell Store façade, New York (1928) and Kaufmann’s
Department store, Pittsburg (1928) as well as the ostentatious resort Mar-a-Lago
(1924–1927).
The commodification of showgirl style went beyond the theatre stage
and the cinema screen and was promoted in department store displays and
themed windows that appropriated the Follies exotic dream-like scenes to
enhance the appearance of fashion items.50 For example, photographer Sam
Hood’s image of a display window featuring MGM Ziegfeld Girl promotional
material from 1941, situated alongside ready-to-wear fashion garments, and
a suggested home dressmaking project provides consumers with instruction
in how to achieve glamorous transformation in everyday life (Figure 5.7). The
translation from screen to window and possible purchase illustrated here is
not achieved through the shimmering sequins and ostentatious feathers of
Hollywood costume. Rather, the association between screen-style and the
staged vitrine makes more affordable interpretations of fashion appear as a
fantasy within reach. While the store window might be understood here as yet
 Windows and screens 123

Figure 5.7 Sam Hood, Ziegfeld Girl display window using MGM promotional
material (1941). Photo Credit: State Library of New South Wales.

another example of how cinema and fashion commoditises women’s bodies

through the construction of glamorous surfaces, it also makes visible the ways
in which the cinema and the department store made fashion, glamour and
luxury ‘comparably more attainable and democratic’ feeding aspirations of
social mobility.51
The shop girl turned showgirl narrative that Ziegfeld Girl portrayed can be
understood within the broader context of a range of films that play into working-
class women’s fantasies of socio-economic ‘rags to riches’ fashion transformation.
The department store as transitional space for the shop girl to become model,
designer, or attract the attentions of wealthy romantic interest was frequently
portrayed in depression era films such as Mannequin (1937) and The Women
(1939). The cliché of this storyline has rendered it open to alternative and
ironic interpretations. For example, Jacques Demy’s musical Les parapluies de
Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) (1964) takes the shop girl romance as
its premise, yet throughout highlights the hyper-artificial nature of the genre
through the aesthetic of the highly saturated, stylized surfaces of the shop
interiors and costumes. Catherine Deneuve as shop girl Genevivèe inhabits the
124 Cinematic Style

space of the shop window. Her dress in this scene harmonizes with the wallpaper
that surrounds her so that we are at once aware of her glamorous façade, but also
the blatant falsity of the situation. The narrative that emerges is an unwanted
pregnancy to her lover and subsequent marriage to a rich older man whom
she doesn’t love. The fairy tale ending is incomplete, while she lives a luxurious
lifestyle the waning of her desire lingers – perhaps not unlike the purchase of the
commodity and the sheen of glamour that disappears once it leaves the shop. A
more recent example of the subverted shop girl narrative is the queer love story
portrayed in Carol (2015) discussed in Chapter 3. Clearly the currency of the
department store and boutique as transformative space still holds currency.

Display and digital fashion futures

Fashion-focused films such as The Great Gatsby at Harrods and Tiffany & Co
(2013) (Figure 5.8), James Bond at Harrods (2012) and The Grand Budapest
Hotel at Prada (2014) are examples of how film tie-ins and display windows
continue to operate in contemporary contexts. Film directors and production

Figure 5.8 Baz Luhrmann (Director) and Catherine Martin (Production Designer)
at the unveiling of Tiffany’s Fifth Avenue windows inspired by their adaptation of The
Great Gatsby (2013). Photo Credit: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for Tiffany & Co.
 Windows and screens 125

designers with recognizable cinematic styles have also been invited to conceive
of window displays that bring their aesthetic vision to the street, with Baz
Luhrmann and Catherine Martin creating ‘Baz Dazzled’ Christmas windows
for Barneys in 2014, and Nitin Desai’s makeover of Selfridges to replicate the
exotic and spectacular world of Bollywood in 2002. Drawing on the aesthetic
of films such as Hum Dil De Chuke Sena (1999), in addition to store windows
Desai designed a dancefloor made with marigolds in Selfridges Atrium,
peacocks and garlands covering the main entrance, and redecorated the Food
Hall with Persian carpets, life-size pieces of tropical fruit and decorative
canopies. Film-screenings, fashion-shows and in-store performances of Indian
dance and music were also part of this marketing strategy aimed at engaging
London’s large Hindi community.52 Beyond these traditional forms of visual
merchandising, short fashion films, the digital mainstay of contemporary
fashion advertising have further entrenched the relationship between shop
window and screen.
The intersection between digital fashion film and retail display can be found
in collaborations between SHOWstudio and department stores. In 2000, the
British fashion photographer Nick Knight launched the digital platform to
showcase fashion as a performative moving image. SHOWstudio was conceived
as a creative space outside the constraints of traditional advertising and print
media. The fashion films that were produced in the early years of the website
were abstract and experimental, focusing on how techniques such as slow
motion and montage editing might create sensorial representations of fashion.53
Highlighting the materiality of fashion and the flow of fabric as a haptic visual
experience activated by the motion of the body, films such as those by Ruth
Hogben for Gareth Pugh Pitti Immagine in 2011, or more recently Nick Knight
for Valentino F/W 2021 Of Grace and Light, have their origins in the early ‘cinema
of attractions’.54 In particular, Loie Fuller in the Danse Serpentine – a hand-
painted film depicting the dancer’s swirling fabric movements by the Lumière
Brothers from 1896 – appears to be an inspiration for many of the SHOWstudio
films which attempt to convey fashion collections as visual spectacles of light,
colour, texture and movement. The SHOWstudio approach to the presentation
of fashion has in many ways supplanted the traditional catwalk show as a vehicle
for promotion with its ability to infiltrate social media and video streaming sites
to reach a vast global audience. In addition to being the first platform to live
stream a runway show – with Alexander McQueen’s Spring/Summer 2020 Platos
Atlantis collection – it has been at the forefront of innovating new modes of
fashion display through the moving image.
126 Cinematic Style

Consumer interest in fashion films, such as those by SHOWstudio, and

more obviously branded content by luxury labels, should be understood within
the context of immaterial consumption. That is, the increasing consumption
of images of fashion mediated through screens, facilitated by the internet and
mobile devices. In addition, the windows of computers and mobile screens have
replaced the store front of shopping experiences, where the digital flâneur of the
virtual shop window is provided with an inexhaustible array of products to behold,
anywhere, at any time. As Featherstone argues, 24/7 consumption has changed
the rhythms of everyday life and social behaviour. The seductive pleasures of
screen browsing have replaced in-store bricks and mortar experiences for many
consumers, algorithms designed to curate consumption to individual tastes, and
habits influence decisions and as a result, reduce opportunity for contemplation
and reflection.55 In this way the screen window obscures the mirror effect of the
shop window, the invitation for consumers to look and consider ‘is this me?’
is supplanted by data gathering devices that offer continuous affirmations to
consumers that ‘this is you’.
Recognizing the potential to disrupt traditional approaches to window display
and reach a wider audience both Selfridges and Harrods have collaborated with
SHOWstudio to produce digital content fashion films that intersect with their
displays. The first of these collaborations was with Selfridges on The Masters
project in 2014. Showcasing capsule collections by fashion designers including
Stella McCartney, Jean Paul Gaultier, Yoji Yamamoto, Roberto Cavalli and Paul
Smith among others, each was celebrated in a dedicated Oxford street window
display inspired by a different film genre. For example, Cavalli’s fashions as
the master of glamour appeared in the context of a 1930s woman’s film, and
Yamamoto’s clothes were displayed in a sci-fi setting reminiscent of Blade
Runner (1982). In conjunction with the store windows, SHOWstudio’s Marie
Schuller produced a promotional fashion film stylistically encapsulating the
work of each of the designers that screened in the department store’s cinema.56
Selfridges’ creative director Linda Hewson described the relationship between
the department store and cinema, where: ‘Shopping is a fun form of escape, so
to offer our customers access to the escapist power of cinema within Selfridges
makes for a great combination.’57 The success of this approach and the increasing
need for fashion retailers to act as content producers saw Selfridges launch
Hot Air, its own broadcasting channel for film. Selfridges’ resident film maker
Katherine Ferguson has explored themes such as unconventional beauty, non-
binary ways of dressing, ethical fashion consumption and radical luxury to
produce striking visual content for the department store’s platform.58
 Windows and screens 127

The possibilities for digital technology and film to provide new innovative
retail experiences are explored in SHOWstudio x Harrods ‘Future of Fashion’
project for Spring/Summer 2021. This programme of events included online
content streaming the season’s latest fashions; virtual panel discussions via
zoom to examine how fashion has been transformed by the digital revolution;
and street-level display windows showcasing a series of SHOWstudio curated
installations. As Knight explains, the digital imperatives of fashion’s future have
become increasingly clear: ‘Fashion is going through total and long overdue
change, and our planet demands that fashion must be sustainable.’59 The digital
activation of fashion required due to the 2020 global pandemic necessitated new
approaches to fashion consumption, opening up yet further opportunities for
the fashion film, yet as the Harrods windows imply the physical activation of
space still has its place.
While the fashion media has become increasingly saturated with digital
content, the narrative abilities of display windows still remain an important part
of retail branding. As will be discussed further in Chapter 6, many luxury fashion
brands have undergone an ‘artification’ process, where by collaborations with
contemporary artists, architects, designers and film makers have contributed
to the cultural capital of brand identities. Shop windows have been a key site
for this process to be made visible to consumer audiences. Louis Vuitton have
been pioneers in the field of luxury branded artistic collaboration, with notable
examples including Dan Flavin’s minimalist neon lights in 2011, Yayoi Kusama’s
coloured dot patterns obliterating the surfaces of window displays in 2012,
and Jeff Koons’ inflatable bunny replicas and stainless-steel balloon versions
of the LV logo in 2017. These artists share attention to surface and effect in
common. Their approach is akin to the surface spectacle of pop art rather
than deeply conceptual concerns, so suited to these commercial contexts. The
department store Selfridges has also engaged with a range of artists to produce
window displays for their London store. While many of their store windows
displays have been artistic interpretations of branded fashions, in the spirit of
the suffragette windows of the early 1900s, political content has also featured.
Twenty-first century issues are explored with displays devoted to the scourge
of ocean plastics, sustainable fashion and the possibilities of genderless fashion.
In this way, contemporary store windows not only invite consumption but
also offer the possibility for contemplation beyond the imperative to buy. The
physical properties of spectacular window display still appear to be important
in engaging consumers. Mediatecture, interactive, touchscreen and hologram
display windows are increasingly infiltrating retail environments. However,
128 Cinematic Style

the prevalence of fantastical visual merchandising that employs the traditional

methods of lighting and tableaux styling to enhance the dramatic presentation
of fashion and everyday consumer objects suggests the interface between the
glass front and the just out of reach commodity continues to create the necessary
mise-en-scène for cultivating desire. As Featherstone contends, ‘consumer
culture constantly seeks to transcend the sensational and banal image overload’
employing experiential techniques that promise ‘sensory fulfilment’ where ‘the
promise of luxury goods merges with that of works of art’.60 As I have outlined
here, the window display is capable of mirroring the aesthetics of avant-garde
art forms, and the experience of cinematic movement and narrative, these
immersive qualities become even more pronounced in the interiors of fashion
flagships – as will be the focus of the next chapter.
 6

Dream spaces: Film sets as fashion flagships

and experiential retail environments

Experiential consumption is central to the luxury brand model of retail,

whereby the consumer is invited to engage with shopping practices alongside
contemporary art and architecture. Fashion retail environments are spaces
where real-world consumption intersects with fantasy to create symbolic value
for goods. Sensory, emotional, interpersonal and aesthetic experiences are just
as important to the consumer as the tangible purchase. In this context, the mise-
en-scène of film provides narrative associations and cultural capital for fashion
and lifestyle items that appeal to consumer affirmations of identity. Drawing
on the sociologist, Gilles Lipovetsky’s concept of aesthetic capitalism, this
chapter examines how fashion brands have adopted scenographic style. That is,
the staged space of retail interiors and architecture are similar to cinematic set
design, facilitating brand storytelling through framing, and display to spatially
reinforce marketable brand identities.1
The commodification of history and nostalgia through film tie-ins has
become an integral part of luxury brand strategies of ‘artification’. Brands
including Prada, Fendi, Gucci and Ralph Lauren have not only provided
costumes for cinema, and created their own short fashion films, they have
also incorporated the spectacular staging techniques of the cinema to enhance
fashion flagships and brand extension retail spaces. These brands construct a
contemporary language of nostalgia for past moments in time, reproducing
heritage indicators mediated through cinematic mise-en-scène to create
innovative retail environments. As such they offer consumers the ultimate
imaginary film experience, spatially reconfiguring nostalgia through the
layering of cinematic references, styles and surfaces.
130 Cinematic Style

Brand heterotopias: Storytelling through interior design

Visual storytelling is essential to developing immaterial value for luxury

fashion brands. The experience of fashion spaces through an ecology of images
and films produces narrative appeal, where real and fictive spaces collide.
Innovative retail spaces are not just the backdrop to fashion, they are essential
to creating luxury brand mythologies and meanings that can be understood
within the context of this glamorous architecture. As Lipovetsky and Veronica
Manilow argue, the ‘artification’ of retail space enables consumers to see
shopping as an aesthetic encounter, a culturally edifying pleasure in which
‘the shopper feels improved by the experience’.2 While haute couture has
engaged with cultural experiences including art, theatre, film, performance
and architecture since its beginnings in the mid-nineteenth century, these
practices have become increasingly important to the development of luxury
fashion brand identities. The ‘democratisation’ of luxury – that is, the
availability of luxury in broad socio-economic contexts – along with the
aestheticization of everyday life has led luxury brands to adopt increasingly
spectacular differentiation techniques in order to construct themselves as
exclusive and desirable.3 In addition, e-commerce has challenged luxury
brands to create increasingly distinctive and atmospheric entertainment
experiences for consumers in bricks-and-mortar spaces. Fashion historians
Peter McNeil and Giorgio Riello suggest that providing a unique experience
in the acquisition of luxury has become just as important as the object itself.
Luxury brands are
[i]nvesting more in highly visible retail spaces … the ‘luxury element’ comes
from the experience of having purchased the good from a luxury shop … an
experience which is worth as much if not more than the product itself.4

As such luxury brands participate in what economists B. Joseph Pine and

James Gilmore define as the experience economy – in which retailers attempt
to fulfil feeling, sensation and self-realization needs through escapist, aesthetic
and entertainment experiences. For Pine and Gilmore, ‘an experience occurs
when a company intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as props, to
engage consumers in a way that creates a memorable event’.5 Fashion flagship
stores, along with their interconnected branded cultural spaces – art galleries,
museums, cafés and restaurants – allow consumers to interact with the brand on
a multi-sensory level that goes beyond simply shopping in the boutique. These
brand extension spaces often operate to reinforce luxury fashion brand heritage.
 Dream spaces 131

This aspect of brand identity is multifaceted. It can include authentic narratives

that develop around the origin story of the brand, its history and values, but
can also extend more broadly to ‘borrowed’ heritage – for example ‘country-
of-origin’ effects, collaboration with cultural producers, or architectural spaces
that lend their heritage stories to the brand by association.6 As Uche Okonkwo
argues, ‘most luxury brands are built on a foundation of history and heritage.
However, the evolving luxury market requires an adaptation of the traditional
outlook of luxury brands to a modern stance’.7 ‘Artification’ strategies provide
this further layer of heritage, where cultural producers become part of the value
chain and renew the brand’s image by imparting creative credibility.8 It is clear
that contemporary art is the dominating field of aesthetic stimulation for luxury
brand conglomerates to ensure differentiated positioning within the market.
Numerous scholars have recognized that flagship stores have engaged with
the display techniques of museums and art galleries to sanctify the shopping
experience, and have reinforced this relationship by expanding this analogy
to also include contemporary art within the retail environment and affiliated
art foundations.9 However, within this context, there is scarce scholarship on
the influential role of cinematic experiences in retail environments, despite a
long-standing association.10 Here, I am interested in the ways in which luxury
fashion brands adopt cinematic references as heritage indicators, borrowing
stylistic qualities of film to enhance retail experiences.
It is useful to consider fashion film retail environments in the context of what I
term ‘brand heterotopias’. As introduced in Chapter 3, Michel Foucault’s concept
of a ‘heterotopia’ is a space that deviates from the ordinary spaces we inhabit
through a disruption in time and place. Foucault identifies theatres and cinemas
as heterotopias, ‘capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces,
several sites that are in themselves incompatible’.11 By extrapolation, flagship
stores which adopt cinematic references in the staging of their fashions can be
seen to combine different spaces and times. They do this in ways that merge past
and present – through heritage indicators in contemporary collections; are both
isolated but penetrable – in their exclusivity and differentiation from everyday
shopping contexts; and juxtapose illusion with the real – through the evocation
of fantasy film narratives in bricks-and-mortar stores. Extending this concept,
‘brand heterotopias’ are places where luxury brands create their own fantastical
worlds of experience that are heavily reliant on ‘inter-spatial’ layering – the film
set, cinematic narrative, art gallery, café, heritage collection, archive and fashion
boutique meld together to create a unique cultural consumption environment
available to a limited elite audience.
132 Cinematic Style

The recent trend of creating brand heterotopias by incorporating intimate size

cinemas in luxury retail stores is just one example of how film has increasingly
infiltrated the shopping experience. For example, Gucci Garden in Florence,
Italy provides shoppers with a range of inter-spatial experiences dedicated to
promoting the Gucci brand’s luxury heritage. Housed in the historic Palazzo
della Mercanzia, Gucci Garden opened in 2018 as a concept space with multiple
branded cultural contact points to engage with. In addition to the ground floor
boutique, there is a museum display of the Gucci leather and garment archive
harking back to the 1920s, a series of exhibition spaces for the presentation of
rotating contemporary art, a restaurant presided over by three-Micheline-star
chef Massimo Bottura, and a cinema auditorium. As a Gucci Garden didactic
describes of the Galleria: it ‘is above all a place combining the real with the
imaginary … embracing history, objects, anecdotes and geography … ready to
be reactivated in constellations rich with future in which past meets present’.12
Through this statement Gucci’s multifaceted approach to heritage is made clear,
where both authentic and borrowed indicators are activated. For example, Gucci
Garden’s presence in a Palazzo just a stone’s throw from the Medici residence
suggests the brand’s deep Florentine roots and patronage of the arts.13 In fact, the
brand was established in 1921 and their artification strategy began in 2015. The
boutique – which features antique furniture, and vintage–inspired wall paper
styled on Gucci’s floral scarf designs from the 1960s – reinterprets previous
aesthetic cues as the backdrop to contemporary collections. The museum adopts a
similar approach, displaying the archive thematically to reiterate the relationship
between the past and present. Through this array of heritage indicators Gucci
celebrates the mythology of their origin story, and their relationship to Italian
style and craftsmanship updating these elements to connect with more current
cultural products.
In this context, the thirty-seat Cinema da Camera – a plush red-velvet lined
auditorium – is suggestive of a contemporary interpretation of past movie theatres,
providing audiences with an experience of exclusivity and glamour (Figure 6.1).
The films on show are generally examples of Italian art house cinema such as
Marco Ferreri’s La Donna Scimmia (1964), or more recent experimental film –
such as Josh Blaaberg’s Distant Planet: The Six Chapters of Simona (2019) about
the world of Italo disco. In this way, the brand attempts to connect its existent
heritage indicators with Italian cinematic heritage, in order to provide consumers
with unique, immersive cultural experiences that are suggestive of long-lasting
values and timeless appeal. Gucci Gardens is part of the brand’s ‘artification’
strategy. Since the appointment of Alessandro Michele as creative director in
 Dream spaces 133

Figure 6.1 Cinema da Camera, Gucci Gardens, Florence. Photo Credit: Jess Berry
(2019).

2015, Gucci has attempted to enhance the symbolic and aesthetic attributes of the
brand through a range of artistic endeavours including collaborations with artists
Trouble Andrew and Daito Manabe, sponsored exhibitions, and patronage of
women in the film industry. This strategy has proved to be incredibly successful,
with Gucci holding the place of most valuable Italian fashion brand in 2019.14 I
contend that Gucci’s appropriation of cinema as a heritage indicator within retail
design is indicative of an approach to history and nostalgia that has been adopted
by a range of luxury brands. This approach is similar to cinema’s treatment
of heritage as a style. As discussed in Chapter 3, heritage cinema ‘savours the
qualities and presence of dwellings, costumes, artworks, objects’, as Richard Dyer
adeptly explains, ‘history is a discipline of enquiry into the past; heritage is an
attitude towards the legacy of the past’.15 With this in mind, I argue that luxury
fashion brands reinterpret history as heritage and nostalgia and treat these as
stylish surfaces where past and present, real and imaginary spatial experiences
are manipulated for aesthetic, entertainment and escapist effects.
134 Cinematic Style

Cinemas in flagship stores, as heritage branded attractions appear to be

an emerging trend. Louis Vuitton’s Maison Etoile (2012) is housed in Rome’s
first cinema. The nineteen-seat screening room is dedicated to the history
of Cinnecita film studios and also displays the collection of trunks made for
Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited (2007). Shanghai Tang’s refurbishment
of Cathay Theatre Hong Kong (2013) is an original Art Deco cinemas still
in operation that also displays fashion apparel arranged to represent movie
scenes. The movie theatre as an entertaining flagship artification strategy can
be understood more broadly as a form of in-store exhibition. In the case of
Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Shanghai Tang cinematic heritage is a somewhat
tenuous link, a symbolic borrowing of style through association rather than
deeply embedded in the brand’s history. Conversely, the museum at the
Salvatore Ferragamo flagship store in Florence, Italy draws on the country-of-
origin effect of ‘Made in Italy’ branding, in conjunction with the fashionable
symbolic economy of the city, and history of cinematic collaboration to develop
an ‘authentic’ situated heritage experience.
Salvatore Ferragamo began his career in Hollywood with the ‘Boot Shop’
he opened in 1923 where he provided footwear for a number of movie stars
including Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson. Having established his expertise
within the film industry, in 1927 he moved to Florence to rebrand his business
based on the city’s historical reputation of fine leather craftsmanship, opening
a store in the medieval building Palazzo Spini Feroni. From this location
Ferragamo was able to continue his work with Hollywood through the Rifreddi
studios in Florence, and the Cinecitta studios in Rome, where a number of
Hollywood blockbusters and Italian productions were made. As ‘shoemaker
to the stars’ Ferragamo made custom footwear for actresses including Marilyn
Monroe, Audrey Hepburn and Sofia Loren cementing the brand’s stylish
cinematic heritage.16 The Salvatore Ferragamo brand has continued this
association, producing shoes for films including Evita (1996), Ever After: A
Cinderella Story (1998) and Australia (2008).
Exhibitions at the museum have reinforced this cinematic heritage since its
opening in 1995 including ‘Cinderella: The Shoe Rediscovered’ (1998), ‘Audrey
Hepburn. A Woman. The Style’ (1999), ‘Shoes and Famous Feet’ (2000), ‘Australia:
Behind the Scenes’ (2009), ‘Greta Garbo’ (2010) and ‘Marilyn’ (2013).17 The
museum’s exhibitions as brand extension strategy within the fashion flagship
create a rich visual experience for consumers to engage with the brand’s extensive
archive, enriching their understanding of the brand’s history, artisanal qualities
and cinematic ties. For example, the museum’s most recent cinema exhibition
 Dream spaces 135

‘Italy in Hollywood’ (2018–19) connects the Salvatore Ferragamo brand

mythology to the broader narrative, celebrating the influence of Italian creatives
on the American film industry during the early twentieth century (Figure 6.2).
The shoemaker’s impact on Hollywood costume is positioned alongside the work
of screen stars such as Lina Cavalieri and Rudolph Valentino. The culmination of
the exhibition is an array of Ferragamo shoes displayed against the backdrop
of striking black-and-white stills that create the atmosphere of a film set,
immersing audiences in Ferragamo’s cinematic heritage.18 To coincide with the
exhibition the brand produced a capsule collection of shoes based on those worn
by Mary Pickford, Gloria Swanson, Joan Crawford and Rudolph Valentino so
that consumers might personally experience the style of these fashionable screen

Figure 6.2 Italy in Hollywood exhibition Museum Salvatore Ferragamo (2018).

Photo Credit: Jess Berry.
136 Cinematic Style

stars. In this way the museum, in concert with the flagship store creates a brand
heterotopia where historical archive, cinematic dream-space, nostalgic revelry
and boutique shopping come together. The past is made present through this
inter-spatial layering, bestowing heritage as a desirable immaterial value that has
continuity in the here-and-now.
Incorporating entertainment experiences in the form of the movie theatre or
film costume exhibition is not the only way that fashion flagships have engaged
with the spatial possibilities of cinema. Lipovetsky and Manilow illuminate this
relationship: ‘long-time luxury blends with the rhythm of the screen, the logic of
heritage combines with the extreme mobility of images, and brand’s lastingness
fuses with the mind set of a Hollywood movie.’19 Inspiration from set design
and cinematic scenography is even more prevalent within the fashion flagship
store heritage paradigm, providing consumers with highly engaging immersive
experiences.

Film sets as fashion flagships, experiential retail spaces and the

commodification of history and nostalgia

Ralph Lauren’s Rhinelander Mansion refurbished by Naomi Leff in 1986 was

the first flagship store to actively engage with filmic fantasy as a whole of brand
merchandising strategy. Throughout his career, Lauren’s collections have been
influenced by cinema – think English sportswear from Chariots of Fire (1981),
the preppy look of Dead Poets Society (1989) or safari inspiration from Out of
Africa (1985). As Vogue fashion journalist Joan Juliette Buck explains:
The clothes of Ralph Lauren are a form of cinema; they fulfil the private function
known in movies as the backstory – telling you who you are, and who you were,
and where you come from – and the public function of demonstrating these
things to other people.20

Of the many cinematic collections the brand has produced, The Great Gatsby
has endured as an ongoing aesthetic style in garments, interior design and
advertising.21 The designer’s involvement in creating Jay Gatsby’s (Robert Redford)
suits and shirting for Jack Clayton’s 1974 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby has
consistently underpinned the brand’s identity. As Ralph Lauren describes:
I was doing Gatsby long before The Great Gatsby came out. That’s what I did. It
was glamorous. When people couldn’t understand what I did I would talk about
Gatsby – it was the era of the jackets with belted backs, of flannel suits.22
 Dream spaces 137

Apart from a signature style that fit neatly with the film’s affluent aesthetic,
the designer’s origin story seemed to mirror the Gatsby mythology. Lauren’s
transformation from Ralph Lifshitz – the son of a Russian Jewish émigré who
grew up in the Bronx – to the all-American, entrepreneur of a multi-billion-dollar
fashion empire is the personification of the American dream of self-made success
that underpins the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. While Jay Gatsby’s fate is a tragic
one, and ultimately a story of disillusionment with conspicuous consumption
and the underlying problems of economic and social inequity, Ralph Lauren’s
appropriation of the Gatsby identity focuses on stylish glamour, wealth and the
possibility of making one’s dreamworld a reality. Like Chanel – who epitomized
her brand identity and the modern woman lifestyle through her persona, fashion
and the retail experiences of her salon interiors – Ralph Lauren has composed
a consistent image of aspirational success. This image of wealth and privilege
germinated in the 1970s when he convinced the department store Bloomingdale’s
to place all of his merchandise together in the mode of mise-en-scène, rather
than dispersed in separate departments. The concession was decorated with
accoutrements such as walking sticks, chesterfield sofas and alligator skin luggage,
creating a version of the gentleman’s club as retail environment.23 Lauren would go
onto exploit these lifestyle branding strategies and ready-made heritage indicators
even further with the Rhinelander Mansion flagship store.
The Rhinelander Mansion, commissioned in 1895 by Gertrude Rhinelander-
Waldo, was a large private residence designed in French Renaissance and Gothic
revival styles by Kimball and Thompson architects.24 Leff ’s renovation of the
American pedigree site maintained many of its original features and combined these
with cinematic styling to create an image of an aristocratic manor house. Mahogany
wood panelling, moulded ceilings and chandeliers are accented by velvet drapery,
period furnishings, equestrian scenes in gilt frames, Persian rugs and leather sofas.
These sumptuous surroundings are the backdrop to Ralph Lauren menswear,
accessories and homewares (Figure 6.3). As Lauren describes of the store: ‘I am not
just selling clothes. I am selling a world, a notion of style. I’m offering a philosophy
of life.’25 The world that Lauren is selling is the American dream of aspirational
luxury. Through reference to Gatsby set decorations, Ralph Lauren constructed a
heritage for the brand, simulating an aristocratic lifestyle of a bygone era. Adapting
cinematic narrative for brand storytelling purposes is inherent to the Ralph Lauren
experience and promotional strategy, as described in branded content:
For Ralph it was all about the environment, we were providing the context, the
movie that was in his head … No expense was spared on evocative window
displays and cinematically staged interiors … Ralph Lauren never really thought
138 Cinematic Style

Figure 6.3 Bedroom decorated by Ralph Lauren as part of his new Home
Collection New York. LIFE 1986. Photo Credit: Dirck Halstead/The LIFE Images
Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images.

of himself as a designer, but as someone who tells stories through his clothes.
And he never thought of the mansion on 72nd street as a store. It was an
environment, a club and an atmosphere that created context around his brand,
allowing him to tell a story in a clearer and more powerful way.26

The aesthetically refined heritage cues inherent throughout the store, coupled
with the Gatsby references are a savvy strategy that appeals to Ralph Lauren’s
aspirational luxury for upper-middle-class consumers. The scenography
of the Rhinelander Mansion is ultimately the story of upward social and
economic mobility, bringing the accoutrements of the aristocracy within
perceptible reach for the nouveaux riches. The styling of Ralph Lauren ‘looks’
as complete ensembles, enhanced by the atmospheric settings of branded
homewares, and accented by vintage props, creates a ready-made lifestyle
of intergenerational wealth. Ralph Lauren European Creative Director, Ann
Boyd explains that:
People wanted to put entire room sets on their charge cards, and just pantechnicon
everything to their home counties, from the Edwardian-style bathrooms that
look as though the Windsors have just popped out, to bedrooms Biggles would
be happy to crash into.27
 Dream spaces 139

Ralph Lauren is not the only fashion brand to benefit from The Great Gatsby’s
heady aesthetic of 1920s glamour redefined for contemporary tastes. Director Baz
Luhrmann’s 2012 adaptation was heralded as a fashion and style extravaganza,
with evening dresses designed by Miuccia Prada and men’s tailoring by Brooks
Brothers.28 Prada’s costume designs for The Great Gatsby are in line with the
brand’s larger marketing strategy of artistic patronage and development of short
film advertisements to enhance fashion’s immaterial value. Prada’s designs for
the film were derived from the brand’s 2010 and 2011 archive. They appealed
to costume production director Catherine Martin as fashionable garments that
were not historically accurate, yet were coherent with the 1920s era – so fitting
with the film’s overall mise-en-scène. In this instance, fashion and the interior are
treated as glamorous and alluring surfaces and the 1920s as a lavish and dazzling
fantasy world of consumption. Martin provides insight into this collaboration,
expounding that: ‘Baz [Luhrmann] and Miuccia [Prada] have always connected
on their shared fascination with finding modern ways of releasing classical and
historical references from the shackles of the past.’29 This treatment of the past
is typical of fashion, which constantly seeks to reinterpret previous styles for
contemporary audiences, empty of historical meaning. The Prada gowns, along
with production stills and sketches, were exhibited on the staircase at the Prada
Epicentre, New York as part of the flagship store’s cultural programme in 2012,
so incorporating the film into the brand’s heritage of cultural capital achieved
through cinematic reference (Figure 6.4).
In addition to fashion commodity tie-ins, Luhrmann’s Gatsby also produced
a range of interior design furnishings. Based on the lavish Art Deco style staging
of the film, Martin collaborated with Designer Rugs to create a series of lush
graphic hand-knotted floor-coverings, as well as a range of geometric wallpapers
and fabrics for Mokum. Presumably, consumers could re-create the Gatsby
aesthetic and experience in their own homes in much the same way that Art Deco
cinema of the 1920s and 1930s promoted interior design innovations to women
audiences, as described in Chapter 1. Martin’s refurbishment of the Fitzgerald
Suite at The Plaza Hotel, New York included examples of these commercially
designed furnishings, creating a further layer of intertextual referencing where
The Plaza featured as one of the film’s locations. Martin’s Fitzgerald Suite might
be understood as a brand hererotopia in the same way as the Ralph Lauren
Gatsby inspired flagship store. Through the contemporary referencing of past
historic styles, mediated through cinematic set design, and combined with a
mythologizing narrative of a glamorous character, an illusory ‘dream-space’ is
made a tangible experience for consumers. This type of inter-spatial layering of
140 Cinematic Style

Figure 6.4 Catherine Martin and Miuccia Prada Dress Gatsby at Prada Epicentre,
New York (2013). Photo Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Prada.

retail environments, that rely on cinematic references to create experiences that

intersect the real and the fictitious have become an increasingly prevalent brand
strategy for luxury fashion that extend beyond traditional boutiques.
Perhaps the most obvious example of this idea is Wes Anderson’s Bar
Luce (2015), at Fondazione Prada, Milan (Figure 6.5). Expanding Prada’s
universe of artistic patronage, the foundation is the culmination of the brand’s
image consisting of: spectacular ‘starchitect’ designed space – Rem Koolhaas
transformed the former distillery with a new architecture that interacts with
existing buildings; engagement with contemporary art and film as brand aligned
cultural capital – including permanent exhibitions by Robert Gober, Louise
Bourgoise and Jean-Luc Godard; and celebration of auteur cinema directors –
 Dream spaces 141

Figure 6.5 Wes Anderson, Bar Luce at Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo Credit: Jess
Berry (2018).

including Wes Anderson, Roman Polanski and Steve McQueen. In this context,
Bar Luce is a reminder of Prada’s engagement with digital fashion film as a
branded cultural product. Wes Anderson short films Prada Candy (with Roman
Coppola in 2013) and Castello Cavalcanti (2013) are just two examples of a suite
of Prada branded content by auteur directors, including examples by Roman
Polanski, Yang Fudong and Ridley Scott.
The Bar Luce, like Anderson’s films, is rich with intertextual references,
the most obvious being the retro 1950s style of Castello Cavalcanti, the story
of an America racing car driver (Jason Shwartzman) who crashes his vehicle
in a tiny Italian village that happens to be his ancestral home. The Prada
produced short film, in which nothing of significance occurs, appears to be as
much about the aesthetic experience of the café – with its nostalgic Formica
142 Cinematic Style

table-tops and palate of pastel green, bright red and yellows – as it is a homage
to Federico Fellini’s Amarcord (1973) and La Dolce Vita (1960). Bar Luce plays
on these nostalgic references along with Milanese style – pale pink terrazzo
floors, seating arrangements of pale green upholstery, Gio Ponti coffee machine,
wood panelling and Formica counter. Wallpaper depicting the Galleria Vittorio
Emanuele shopping arcade makes reference to Prada’s origins and their
restoration of Milanese architectural heritage. A Cavalcanti pin-ball machine,
situated along the back wall of the café, is a nod to the director’s previous
Prada collaborations and the aesthetic inspiration for the décor. Another game,
dedicated to Steve Zizzou of Anderson’s The Life Aquatic (2004), is suggestive of
his broader cinematic oeuvre. Anderson’s signature aesthetic – highly stylized
sets, fashion conscious wardrobes and carefully curated props – makes his film’s
nostalgic spectacles rich in surface detail. Anderson’s cinema is abundant with
memorable fashion ensembles, such as: Margo Tenenbaum (Gwyneth Paltrow)
wearing a Fendi fur coat, Lacoste tennis dress and Hermès Birkin bag in The
Royal Tenenbaums (2001); The Life Aquatic’s Steve Zizzou’s (Bill Murray) Adidas
Sneakers; the Louis Vuitton custom-monogrammed luggage of The Darjeeling
Limited; and Prada designed luggage for Tilda Swinton’s Madame D. along
with coats worn by Willem Dafoe and Ralph Fiennes in The Grand Budapest
Hotel (2014). This proliferation of luxury fashion references contributes to
Anderson’s style-conscious resume, making him a suitable auteur director for
commercial fashion film. Anderson’s attention to spatial details in these films is
similarly highly stylized and atmospheric. Intense colour schemes, vintage style
furniture and decorative features combine to create a highly artificial aesthetic
of nostalgia. For example, the pink, purple and red colour scheme, and Art Deco
ornamentation of the Grand Budapest Hotel in its 1930s incantation, recalls the
department stores, café’s, hotels and other glamorous spaces of the era.
With its candy-tone hues and elaborate architecture it appears much like
a cake – not dissimilar to the Mendl’s patisseries that form part of the plot.
The aesthetic is based on an invented history and idea of Europe, which has
resonance in reality but also conveys a dream-like quality. Production designer
Adam Stockhausen articulates this process:
We were trying to make the most of the architecture that was around us … we
used an existing shell of a department store … to become the hotel. Then we put
a set dressing on top of that, and props on top of that, to draw out the specifics of
the history and period, even though, … it’s sort of an invented history. Then we
started inventing things to layer on top of that … From there the film started to
develop a richness and history of its own.30
 Dream spaces 143

This layering of surfaces to create an artificial history and nostalgia for an

imagined hotel in Anderson’s film can be compared to the atmosphere of Bar
Luce. Its intertextual cinematic references both to his own films and those of
Italian New Wave directors – Vittorio De Sica and Luchino Visconti – transport
the bar’s patrons to the fantasy world of cinematic style.31 As Anderson describes
of his interior design, ‘I do think it would make a pretty good movie set, I think it
would make an even better place to write a movie. I tried to make it a bar I would
want to spend my own non-fictional afternoons in.’32 Here, Anderson alludes
to Bar Luce as a heterotopic space situated between reality and imagination.
The everyday experience of the bar or café becomes an extraordinary evocation
of the alternative world of the silver screen and a real space where consumers
might act out their film fantasies.
Fondazione Prada’s Bar Luce is just one example of many restaurants and
cafes that have been incorporated into luxury brand heterotopias. The Gucci
Osteria, Ralph’s Coffee – the 1950s themed Ralph Lauren eatery, and Fendi café
at Harrods, are indicative of how luxury brands are attempting to create all-
encompassing lifestyle offerings. Predictably, cinematic references have found
their place in this context as well. For example, India Mahdavi’s pastel-hued
interior designs for Laudrée appear to be based on Sofia Coppola’s version of
Marie Antoinette (2006). Perhaps even more evocative than being able to devour
macaroons surrounded by the twenty-first-century aesthetic equivalent to the
patisserie loving French queen’s boudoir, is the possibility to eat breakfast at
Tiffany’s. The Blue Box Café at Tiffany & Co flagship store New York provides
consumers with an imaginary and immersive experience of the 1961 film
Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Eating in-store was not a real possibility for Holly Golightly
(Audrey Hepburn). Instead, her breakfast was alfresco – a take-away coffee and
croissant while perusing the store windows, dressed in a Givenchy black gown
and layers of pearls, wistfully dreaming of what might be. The Blue Box café
offers a more gourmet selection of food than the film – smoked salmon, lobster
salad and petit fours, consumed while surrounded by the brand’s trademark
blue décor and tableware available through the Tiffany’s homeware collection.
These elements combine to create a luxury branded experience of the New
York highlife that Holly Golightly dreamed of. Similar to Bar Luce, this brand
heterotopia exemplifies how the imaginary worlds of cinema are exploited by
luxury brands through borrowed heritage indicators.
As these examples show, consumer experiences of these spaces do not need to
be true to an original film scene, rather, they need only be indicative of cinematic
style, providing a compelling image that is ‘Instagrammable’ so that visitors can
144 Cinematic Style

display their conspicuous consumption through social media. In this way, brand
extension into café, bar, cinema and gallery spaces provide ‘non-traditional
consumers of the brand’ with opportunities to engage with luxury fashion at
a more affordable price-point.33 Like flagship stores, these experiential retail
environments become tourist destinations, accessible to a broader demographic
of aspirational luxury consumers. Furthermore, cinematic spatial references
offer an approachable entry point to these consumers. As popular mass-media
entertainment, film is arguably a more readily available cultural experience than
contemporary art. In addition to the inter-spatial layering of film scenography
with brand identity markers, these brand extension environments also benefit
from a ‘country-of-origin-effect’ whereby the cultural mythologies of fashion
cities – for example, Milan in the case of Bar Luce, and New York in the case of
the Blue Box Café – are also embedded within brand heterotopias.
The aforementioned examples: Prada, Gucci and Salvatore Ferragamo all
use Italian taste, craft tradition, historic architecture and cinematic heritage
as iconic elements to leverage brand identity and cultural capital in ways that
are both ‘authentic’ and ‘borrowed’. Through this process, cultural products
can be subsumed by the luxury brand in ways that can obscure the cultural
work’s original intent. Take for example the case of Ralph Lauren’s borrowing
of the Gatsby narrative, where the text’s original critique of the empty pursuit
of pleasure is transformed into a glamorous image of conspicuous consumption
through luxury branding. This is not a new mode of operation for the fashion
system, which consistently appropriates cultures, images and styles for its own
purposes, emptying them of their original meaning and transposing them into
the dreamworld of surface glamour. In recent decades fashion brands have
been held to account for their misinterpretation and disregard for appropriated
cultures and the exploitative power differentials that are at play within this
system.34 Within this context it is important to consider the ways that fashion
brands use the glamour of film to obfuscate history through their appropriation
of contentious heritage sites as well as the philanthropic role they can play in
preserving heritage.
Since 2012, the Italian government has sought patronage from luxury fashion
brands to provide the funds for the maintenance and restoration of the country’s
civic monuments.35 Examples of this in Rome alone include Tod’s cleaning of the
Colosseum, Bulgari’s restoration of the Spanish Steps and Gucci’s restyling of
the Tarpeian Rock. The benefits of heritage patronage for luxury fashion brands
are emblematic – association with historical sites of cultural importance lends
prestige through values of distinction, timelessness, exclusivity and classical
 Dream spaces 145

aesthetics. For governments and local economies, this type of patronage helps
to keep investment, employment, craftsmanship and tourism within the city or
country through the preservation of culture. Fendi’s patronage and restoration of
the Trevi Fountain (2013–15), Palazzo Civiltà Italiana (2013–15) the site of Fendi
headquarters, and a seventeenth-century Palazzo in Rome to house its flagship
store are examples of a philanthropic strategy that traverses both preservation
and problematic appropriation of contentious heritage. In the case of Fendi’s
involvement in the restoration of the Trevi Fountain and Palazzo Civiltà Italiana,
these sites have further layers of symbolic value as images of glamour due to
their presence in Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960), and the Boccaccio ‘70
(1962) episode ‘The Temptation of Dr Antonio’ (Figure 6.6).
According to fashion historian Eugenia Paulicelli, Fellini’s films helped shape
Rome, and Italy as a ‘laboratory of style, aesthetics and creative innovation’.36
Costume and set-designer Piero Gherardi styled La Dolce Vita like a series of
fashion photographs that accentuate Italian glamour. For example, the journalist

Figure 6.6 Anita Eckberg on the set of Boccaccio ’70 segment ‘Le tentazioni del
dottor Antonio’ (1961) against the backdrop of Palazzo Civiltà Italiana, directed by
Fedrico Fellini. Photo Credit: Vittoriano Rastelli/Corbis via Getty Images.
146 Cinematic Style

Marcello Rubini’s (Marcello Mastrioianni) alluring masculinity is accentuated

through a series of tailored slim-fit suits accessorized with dark sunglasses. Sylvia
(Anita Ekberg) equals his erotic appeal dressed in a black strapless gown that
clings provocatively to her voluptuous body as she takes a sensual bath in the Trevi
Fountain. Ekberg’s look is copied in Boccaccio ’70 in which she wears a similar
figure-hugging evening gown embellished with sparkling gems while walking
the streets in front of Palazzo Civiltà Italiana haunting Dr Antonio’s dreams.
Fendi is among numerous fashion brands including Dolce & Gabbana, Prada
and Valentino who have found inspiration in La Dolce Vita, the Trevi Fountain
and Ekberg’s velvet gown. However, Fendi’s branding strategy of drawing on
the cultural capital of cinematic Rome through the patronage of Trevi Fountain
and Palazzo Civiltà Italiana has embedded these associations within the brand’s
heritage to the extent that it might lay special claim to classic Italian cinema.
Widely reported in the fashion press with reference to La Dolce Vita, in
July of 2016 a glass catwalk was installed over the Trevi Fountain’s waters to
perform a spectacular fashion show in celebration of Fendi’s 90th anniversary
and the completion of the restoration of the monument.37 Fendi’s claim to the
iconic cinematic style of Rome is further encapsulated in the brand’s recasting
of Palazzo Civiltà Italiana (also known as Colosseo Quadrato) from Fascist
monument to fashionable image.38 In 2017, Fendi cemented the relationship
between the brand, Palazzo Civiltà Italiana and cinema with the opening
of a year-long exhibition ‘Fendi Studios’ dedicated to showcasing the brand’s
appearance in films such as And the Ship Sails On (1983), The Grand Budapest
Hotel and I Am Love. Other exhibitions at Palazzo Civiltà Italiana including ‘A
New Rome’ (2016) and ‘The Artisans of Dreams’ (2016) have similarly presented
the brand’s relationship to Roman architecture and film.39 More recently, the
brand’s Roman Holiday collection (2019) advertising campaign referenced the
Audrey Hepburn 1953 film as well as Fellini’s cinema, with a short fashion-film
featuring Kiernan Shipka and Christian Coppola romping around the arches and
steps of Palazzo Civiltà Italiana and against the backdrop of the Trevi fountain.
Fendi’s restyling of Palazzo Civiltà Italiana through its association with film can
be understood within the context of other fashion brands who have rebranded
historic buildings within the frame of architectural luxury.
Fendi has sought to de-couple Palazzo Civiltà Italiana from its roots in Fascist
architectural propaganda by highlighting the building’s aesthetic appeal. Initially
commissioned by Mussolini, the monument was designed by Giovanni Guerrini,
Ernesto L. Padula and Mario Romano, as the centrepiece to the 1942 world fair
which never eventuated. It was to serve as a symbolic image of Mussolini’s ‘new
 Dream spaces 147

Roman Empire, the present and the future legitimised by the past, and for both
imperial Rome’s “empire” signified order, authority, civilisation’.40 The building has
featured as a metaphor for these same conservative and oppressive social values
in Roberto Rossellini’s Roma Città Aperta (1945), the aforementioned Boccaccio
’70, Bernado Bertolucci’s Il Conformista (1970) and Peter Greenaway’s The Belly
of an Architect (1987) among others. While Fendi celebrated these films as part
of the building’s cinematic heritage in exhibitions and publications, it has glossed
over Palazzo Civiltà Italiana’s rationalist glorification of a dictatorship to focus
purely on the building as an emblem of the brand’s ties with Rome. In a statement
that should be understood as a different form of propaganda, the brand claims
that, for Italians the building is ‘completely deloaded, empty of any significance of
that period’.41 Certainly Fendi went about ‘deloading’ the building from its Fascist
heritage by seamlessly integrating its classical Roman arches and modernist
geometric structure into a reoccurring fashionable image. The arches of Palazzo
Civiltà Italiana, in marble sculptural relief, accent the red marble staircase at the
Palazzo Fendi flagship store in Rome, and have appeared in various incantations
in Fendi flagship stores globally (Figure 6.7). They have also featured as the

Figure 6.7 Fendi New York Flagship Boutique, Madison Aveue (2015).
Photo Credit: Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Images via Getty Images.
148 Cinematic Style

backdrop to fashion shows, window displays and advertising campaigns. As

former creative director Karl Lagerfeld explained of Fendi’s 2014/2015 advertising
campaign: ‘I chose Palazzo Civiltà Italiana because it is one of the most graphic
buildings in the world and one of the most famous buildings of modern Rome.
This campaign expresses what Fendi is about … It is very Roman, it is luxurious
but at the same time it has a modern and young approach.’42
Just as Mussolini appropriated Rome’s traditional architecture as a symbol
of his Fascist government’s political power legitimized by a perceived link to
Imperial Rome, Fendi as fashion brand employs these forms as a symbol
of its Roman heritage, imperial wealth and fashionable authority. History,
disassociated from its ugly bits, becomes a luxury commodity. The architectural
critic Owen Hatherly astutely pinpoints the problem:
Fascist architecture, fashion, Fendi, all part of a history of amoral, elite good
taste … However, to assume that this is little more than a game with aesthetics, a
play on history, is to assume that fascism is ancient, dead history in Italy. It isn’t
… its architecture should remain tainted.43

Fendi’s recasting of an architecture that might be considered to be ‘evil’ due to

its fascist heritage also sits within the context of fashion’s glamorous architecture
that is primarily in the service of spectacle. For architectural critics such as
Miles Glendinning, architecture that is in the service of capitalism and fashion
collapses boundaries of public and private, commerce and culture, where
architecture becomes a brand and is no longer built for the purposes of the social
and the civic.44 These critiques echo those aimed at the glamorous architecture
of cinema as discussed in Chapter 2.
Luxury fashion brands such as Fendi assert their constructed cultural authority
through the appropriation of heritage spaces, creating ‘improved’ versions of
the past through cinematic styling. This approach might be understood more
broadly in the context of what Lipovetsky describes as the global period of
‘cinematographization’ where nothing can escape the mediation of screens, so that
cinema remains identifiable everywhere and ‘the real world grows closer to its
celluloid image’.45 In this way cinema can be understood to orient our experience
of everyday life, providing an imaginary experience that redefines our relationship
to the real. Boutiques, ‘imitate the magic universe of the cinema. Now people go to
luxury stores to live their lives in a show or a film – just like a movie star.’46
The scenography of fashion flagship stores and brand extension spaces, in
conversation with staircases and shop windows, have been at the forefront of
cinematic styling that influences a range of other retail sectors. For example,
 Dream spaces 149

the beauty brand Aesop’s flagship store in Chelsea London is inspired by Ken
Adam’s designs for James Bond lairs while the Rome store is a collaboration with
I Am Love director Luca Guadagnino; Mak Mak restaurant in Hong Kong cites
Wes Anderson and Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love as inspiration; while
the Darial concept store in Barcelona claims the 1963 film The Leopard as its
cinematic source.47 Cinema imaginaries as retail spaces have become fashionable
to such an extent that it is now common for designers to reference the aesthetic
styles of multiple films in one-space to create cinematic mise-en-scène. Take for
example, India Mahdavi’s styling of the REDValentino flagship store in London
(2016) (Figure 6.8). Inspired by the domestic interiors of films such as Jacques
Tati’s Mon Oncle (1958) and Blake Edwards’ The Party (1968), Mahdavi’s design
for Valentino incorporates brass-rimmed circular mirrors, a graphic-patterned
floor and blush pink armchairs to function, as she describes, ‘somewhere in
between reality and fiction, function and dreams’.48 While these particular
cinematic influences may not be familiar to the Valentino consumer, the retail
space is staged like a film set to stage a brand’s transformational narrative. As
Mahdavi further explains of her approach: ‘I like to be transported. I like to feel
like I am elsewhere. That’s a strength of movies, and I like to think that’s what I
do with my work too.’49

Figure 6.8 India Mahdavi interior for RED Valentino London Flagship store, 2016.
Photo Credit: David M. Benett/Getty Images for Red Valentino.
150 Cinematic Style

In this way, we might understand brand heterotopias as layering multiple

film imaginaries, spatial typologies and time frames, to produce a dreamworld
entirely open to the shopper’s interpretation. As these spaces increasingly form
the backdrop to consumer ‘Instagrammable’ moments on social media, brand
narratives and experiences become embedded in individual histories and
memories. Brand heritage comes closer and closer to being inextricably linked
to the values and heritage of the consumer.
 Conclusion

Throughout this book, I have sought to investigate the aesthetic and conceptual
alignment of fashion, interior design and architecture as mediated through film.
This relationship has proved to be a significant component of the representation of
gender and sexual identity on screen and to have shaped consumer cultures. The
overlapping histories of these disciplines provide rich aesthetic, and sociocultural
context for understanding how these forms operate in the present moment
which is now saturated with moving images. Yet this history has many deep and
serious omissions. The under-representation of people of colour and paucity of
non-Western film examples throughout this book is a problem. It is a problem
embedded in the fashion system, which privileges white, slim, youthful bodies,
and it is a problem of Western cinema which has a similarly poor history of
racially diverse representation. Vogue magazine did not show a woman of colour
on its cover until Donyale Luna for the March 1966 British addition. With few
exceptions, the racial homogeneity of luxury fashion on runways and in magazines
was not redressed in any meaningful way until 2007 when Naomi Campbell and
Iman launched a campaign against racism in the industry.1 In 2020, 41 per cent of
catwalk models in major spring fashion shows were non-white, meaning there is
still much room for improvement.2 Given the historical lack of non-white bodies
in mainstream fashion media it is perhaps unsurprising that Hollywood cinema
has often overlooked these bodies in their representation of glamour also. While
diverse actors have become more prevalent in films since the 1980s, these are rarely
roles in which people of colour wear designer fashions in opulent surroundings.
Simply put, Western ideals of luxurious glamour are spectacularly lacking when it
comes to representing diverse bodies in cultures of fashion and space. My purpose
then in this conclusion is to signal spaces in my argument where current and
future research could address these under-represented identities.
Josephine Baker, as the first Black woman to star in a major motion
picture – Siren of the Tropics (La Sirène des Tropiques) (1927) – has been the
152 Cinematic Style

subject of much scholarship examining the entertainer’s racial representation

on screen. While fashion and architecture have often formed part of this
discourse – intriguingly, Adolf Loos imagined an unbuilt zebra-striped house
for the actress – there is scope to further examine her oeuvre.3 Take for example
Baker’s performance in Princess Tam Tam (1935), a Pygmalionesque story
that sees Baker as Alwina transformed from a poor homeless Tunisian girl to
being passed off as African royalty in Parisian society. A climactic scene set in a
luxurious nightclub sees Alwina overcome by the desire to dance to the beat of
a drum. She storms the Follies–type showgirl review that is occurring on stage,
strips off her extravagant gold-lame evening gown, races down the stage’s central
spiral staircase and proceeds to perform a frantic ‘Danse Sauvage’ that Baker
was famous for. As I argue in Chapter 4, the staircase is here again a fashionable
site for transformation. However, rather than indicating a glittering moment of
glamorous make-over leading to the transcendence of class boundaries that we
see with Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, Alwina’s undressing is portrayed as
a return to her ‘wild’ African roots. Scholar of African-American studies Anne
Anlin Cheng, makes the compelling argument that Baker’s body in this film
is represented as a surface, upon which the audience projects their primitivist
fantasies. Further, she astutely recognizes the connection between tropes of
nakedness, dress and undress that circle understandings of Baker’s performances
and the extraordinary black and white skein cladding of Loos’ Baker House.4
Baker’s films encapsulate numerous tensions regarding the representation and
stereotyping of racialized female sexuality on screen as well the ways that fashion
might be manipulated to interrogate white supremacy – themes that continue to
have resonance in contemporary contexts.
At the time of writing, the prospect of the forthcoming James Bond film No
Time to Die, due for release in October 2021 has the potential to redress some
of the tensions of gendered representation that I have exposed in relation to
spy films, as well as highlight the previous racist characterizations that have
previously plagued the franchise. British-born actress of Jamaican heritage,
Lashana Lynch, plays the role of a 007 operative Nomi, who inherits the secret
agent role while Bond (Daniel Craig) is in exile. What the Nomi character
will bring to the Bond suite of films is yet unknown. However, Lynch’s 2020
interview with Harper’s Baazar intimates that her role is ‘revolutionary’, and
that she has the opportunity to ‘challenge narratives’ regarding stereotypical
representations of race, gender and ‘toxic masculinity’.5 How fashion, interior
design and architecture will be deployed to convey her character’s interiority,
and to subvert these stereotypes by circumventing the prevailing image of the
 Conclusion 153

playboy dandyism of Bond is a question for future study. As I have argued in

Chapter 2, the dandy suit as a symbol of spy sex appeal has links to the bachelor
pads of Playboy magazine and their promotion of fashionable, luxurious and
technologically advanced consumer desires through Bond films. There appears
to be some clues to the subversion of this trope in the cinema trailer, which
portrays Nomi as fashionably clad in a safari-suit jacket. This styling opens the
possibility for fashion scholars to further consider the relationship between
colonialism and the African diaspora as a pertinent thread of the dandy suit,
and how this has been represented in cinematic contexts. As Monica L. Miller
argues, black dandyism is a subversive style that uses clothing, gesture and wit to
reimagine and manipulate the performance of racial identity.6
Miller’s analysis of Isaac Julien’s film Looking for Langston (1989), for example,
offers salient insights regarding how the queer black dandy’s self-fashioning of
the tuxedo represents a stylish and revolutionary redefinition of blackness and
masculinity. A poetic rendition of 1920s queer Harlem’s speakeasy nightclub
scene and its artistic underground, Looking for Langston’s visual stylization
resonates with my argument regarding how queer ways of seeing the surfaces
of fashion and space can produce heterotopic experiences where individuals
are free to perform gender and sexuality outside of heteronormative identities.
As Miller argues, ‘Julien’s effort to visualize a queer aesthetic of blackness is
visionary … [where costume is essential to] this beauty and its life affirming
potential.’7 As a queer heterotopia Looking for Langston’s Harlem clubs have their
present-day equivalent in the contemporary ball room scenes of Paris Is Burning
that I examine in Chapter 3. Both share the quality of creating space where queer
people of colour can perform their identities through glamorous and spectacular
fashions in ways that transcend systems of exclusion and oppression.
The representation of glamorous and fashionable racially and ethnically
diverse peoples and identities in cinema is a largely untapped lifestyle and
consumer market for luxury brands to engage. The box-office success of the
Hollywood film Crazy Rich Asians (Chu, 2018) is testament to audience’s desire
for the centring of people of colour in historically white positions of focus and
power.8 While the film has been criticized for reductive stereotyping, it is the
only US studio produced film since The Joy Luck Club (Wang, 1993) to have an
all Asian cast, that focuses on contemporary characters.9 The luxury lifestyles of
the protagonists are represented through couture wardrobes by Prada and Dior
as well as a range of South-East Asian designers including Michael Cinco, Khoon
Hooi, LORD’s Tailor and Aston Blake. Widely reported in the design press as
fashionably equivalent to Sex and the City, with settings that evoke decadent
154 Cinematic Style

Gatsbyesque glamour, Crazy Rich Asians demonstrates the transnational

mixing of styles common to globalized fashion markets.10 Interior styling of the
Singaporean homes featured throughout the film combine ornamental William
Morris wallpaper with Chinese lacquered furniture, ornate porcelain vases and
Peranakan patterned rugs. These types of decorative surfaces are often common
to films set in South East Asia. As Rosalind Galt contends, ‘pretty aesthetics’, are
a defining feature of contemporary world cinema, where decorative surfaces are
often understood within the context of colonialism, exoticism and Orientalism,
and have been denigrated in relation to modernist design aesthetics.11
Galt’s argument regarding film studies’ disavowal of surface style in relation
to certain identity positions, particularly the feminine and the queer has been
reiterated throughout this book. In particular, I have attempted to develop this
position by exposing how the relationship between fashion and spatial design
provide rich and complex insights to audience’s understandings of narrative and
character development, particularly as they relate to gender and sexuality. In
recognizing the visual pleasure associated with viewing fashion and the interior on
screen and how these surfaces might help diverse gender and sexual identities enact
forms of personal agency, this book has sought to instate the confluence between
fashion and spatial design as an integral area for design studies. With Galt’s refrain
that transnational film cultures are uniquely placed to present ‘a cinematic ethics
of worldliness through the resonance of the decorative image’ in mind, it is clear
that there is much further work that can be done to examine the ways that fashion
and the interior interact to produce racially and ethnically diverse positions on
screen.12 The Orientalist fashion and interiors of films such as Shanghai Express
(1932), Daughter of the Dragon (1931) and The World of Suzie Wong (1960) should
certainly be the topic of critical study to further expose Hollywood’s compulsion
towards exotic and erotic fantasies in the screen representation of Asian cultures.
Conversely, appreciation of the aesthetic approach taken to surface in The Scent
of Green Papaya (Mùi đu đủ xanh) (Hung, 1993) which examines the beauty of
everyday domesticity in Vietnam, or the exuberant costumes and extravagant
sets of Bollywood romances, Devdas (Sanjay Leela Bhansali, 2002) and Monsoon
Wedding (Mira Nair, 2001) amongst a multitude of others, would contribute rich
insights to this emergent field of study.13
In addition to positioning the intersection of fashion and spatial design as
culturally significant I have also examined them as a commercial phenomenon
mediated by film. By revealing how fashion, the interior and architecture work
in tandem to translate cinematic style to real-world retail contexts I have shown
how these forms acquire value and meaning through modes of consumption.
 Conclusion 155

As I have identified in Chapter 6, the commodification of history and nostalgia

through film tie-ins has become an integral ‘artification’ strategy for luxury
lifestyle brands. By introducing the concept of ‘brand heterotopias’ I have
highlighted the ways that inter-spatial layering produces past and present,
real and imaginary experiences manipulated for aesthetic, entertainment and
escapist effects. Luxury brands exploiting these qualities have the potential to
become inextricably linked to the values and heritage of the consumer.
Within this context, luxury brands have been critiqued for the appropriation of
cultural styles and histories, exploiting these forms for their own profit. For example,
Ralph Lauren’s Safari Home Collection inspired by Out of Africa produced colonial
chic Hollywood Africa through animal skin rugs and wicker chairs, displacing
diverse cultures and erasing political conflict through fashionable furniture.
Equally, global fashion conglomerates such as Chanel and Dior bring the design
homogeneity of Euro-lux minimalism to flagship stores throughout Asia and the
Middle East. While there is the opportunity to engage with localized aesthetics,
architects and designers, luxury brands appear committed to producing uniform
spaces around the globe. In light of the Crazy Rich Asians success story, surely, if
luxury brands were to adopt transnational styling that thoughtfully collaborates
with and appropriately renumerates local and traditional designers to produce
aesthetics appropriate to different cultural contexts, a lucrative new dimension to
tourist-driven flagship shopping would emerge.
There is also the possibility for retail spaces to bring politically engaged
content to their audiences. As I have argued in Chapter 5, with regard to the
relationship between shop windows and screens, while these spaces are complicit
in the commodification of bodies, they can also facilitate forms of social mobility,
participation in the urban environment and legitimize ways of looking that
have been empowering. The history of the department store window in relation
to the suffragette movement is indicative of how these spaces might produce
democratic political engagement. The fashion system is in many ways complicit
in the oppression that results from systemic racism, socio-economic inequity,
labour exploitation and gentrification through socio-spatial control. If nothing
else, the breaking of department store and luxury fashion windows by political
protesters in recent times is a powerful reminder of resistance against such
forms of systemic inequity, the analysis of which is yet to find its contemporary
fashion studies scholar.
The explosion of new media, globally circulated through social media
platforms, internet video channels and video sharing apps has made cinematic
style in the form of branded fashion entertainment and short fashion film
156 Cinematic Style

ubiquitous. Luxury fashion conglomerates, designers and traditional fashion

media are producing an inexhaustible range of digital content on screen for
consumers to engage with. The pioneering platform SHOWstudio has not
only led the way in terms of integrating fashion-film content in retail space,
and supplanting fashion catwalks with digital spectacles of fashion in motion,
they have also demonstrated dedication to creating content that includes
people of diverse racial backgrounds. By representing models such as Adwoa
Aboah, Chris Lee, Ming Xi and Jourdan Dunn in haute couture editorial
photographs and films, as well as proving discussion panel platforms to
address issues of racial equity, and showcasing the talent of diverse creatives,
SHOWstudio provides some reckoning with fashion-film’s embedded racist
structures.14
This type of fashion content has disrupted the fashion media environment
that until the beginning of the new millennium was largely dominated by
traditional fashion magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. The impact
of entertainment streaming services such as Netflix, HBO and Amazon Prime
has equally challenged Hollywood, creating film and television series as well as
showcasing world cinema to hundreds of million subscribers worldwide. The
result is more diverse content that features people from a wide range of races,
ages and sexual orientations responding to audience demand. There is much
scope within these offerings for future research to examine the intersection
between lavish interiors, luxury fashion and glamorous architecture as they
relate to diverse bodies in examples such as Bridgerton (2020), Selfmade (2020),
The Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives (2020) and The House of Flowers (2020).
It is clear that the advent of digital content has forever altered the ways that
fashion, interiors and architecture are consumed as images.
Throughout this book I have focused on examples that are largely from the
realm of luxury and designer fashion rather than that of everyday streetwear.
Similarly, examples of interiors and architecture have by and large complied with
an interest in design aesthetics and the construction of glamour. There is much
scope for future scholarship to examine quotidian examples of the intersection
between fashion and spatial design as they relate to gender and sexual identities
as performed by everyday people, documented as smartphone video and
uploaded to sites such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Around the world,
women in particular, are inviting internet strangers into their bedrooms and
bathrooms as they perform the gender rituals of styling outfits and applying
make-up. Intimate spaces are the location in which the construction of the
masquerades of feminine appearance is exposed.
 Conclusion 157

As I outline in Chapter 1, such representations can be seen to both limit

and reinforce gender roles and objectified positions. As a genre, these bodily
maintenance videos expose the labour of femininity and broadly comply with
traditional patriarchal ideals of beauty. In her analysis of the artist Cindy
Sherman’s photographic masquerade self-portraits, Susan Best provides
perceptive interpretation that might also be applied to the women performing
these make-over videos: ‘Like types in a pantomime … they are both recognisable
and exaggerated for effect … [they are] compliant and yet commanding, self-
possessed while also coming undone.’15 As she suggests, the performance
of femininity is complicated, consisting of both pleasure and pain. Internet
influencers take up the role of movie star, compelling spectators to participate in
their own objectification and commodification. Yet, just as I argue in relation to
the bedrooms and bathrooms of Dinner at Eight and The Women, these intimate
settings and fashionable performances can also provide instances that operate
outside traditional modes of regulated femininity through representations of
diverse bodies as well as through strategies of irony and parody. An example of
this is the drag queen Valentina (James Andrew Leyva), performing the six-hour
make-up ritual that it takes her to transform from Latin American man into
‘rich white woman’.16 Throughout the video Valentina advises that the secret to
beauty is ‘feeling your fantasy’ and makes a series of jokes about the constructed
nature of femininity. The sparkling white bathroom setting and slinky white
robe in which she performs this fantasy is not dissimilar to the mise-en-scène
of Hollywood films. As an advertorial for the make-up products she uses,
Valentina’s transformation video has its origins in Max Factor advertising
film tie-ins. As a glamorous performance of gender transformation by a non-
white person using fashion and the interior to frame her star image – ‘take that
Gwyneth Paltrow’ – this video is just one of many across social media that might
open up new understandings of cinematic style.
My aim with this book has been to expose the relationship between fashion,
interior design and architecture as mediated by film beyond surface style. By
closely examining how these surfaces can reveal rich and complex understandings
of the ways in which gendered identity formation intersects with the consumer
cultures of design and cinema, I have argued for their combined significance
beyond the superficial. As I have outlined here, there are many omissions in this
book, especially in relation to understanding skin as another surface that has
contributed to the representation of gendered and sexual identities in fashion
film.17 There are inevitably many more omissions that future scholarship might
contend with.
 Notes

Introduction

1 Deborah Nadoolman Landis, Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design

(New York: HarperCollins, 2007): 6.
2 For a full account of Art Nouveau design in cinema see Lucy Fischer, Cinema by
Design: Art Nouveau, Modernism and Film History (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2017).
3 Theatre magazine cited in Sumiko Higashi, Cecil B. DeMille and American Culture:
The Silent Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994): 144.
4 Louise Wallenberg, Fashion and Modernity, trans. Rune Engebretsen (London:
Bloomsbury, 2019): 83–100.
5 Rosalind Galt, Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2011): 11.
6 Ibid., 2.
7 Jess Berry, House of Fashion: Haute Couture and the Modern Interior (London:
Bloomsbury, 2018).
8 Lucy Fischer, Designing Women: Cinema, Art Deco and the Female Form (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2003).
9 See Lesley Jackson, The New Look Design in the Fifties (London: Thames and
Hudson, 1998).
10 For insightful discussion regarding the New Look silhouette in Rear Window see
Sarah Street, ‘The Dresses Had Told Me: Fashion and Femininity in Rear Window’,
in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, ed. John Belton (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000). For discussion regarding architecture in Hitchcock
films see: Steven Jacobs, The Wrong House: The Architecture of Alfred Hitchcock
(Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2007).
11 John Potvin, ‘The Velvet Masquerade: Fashion, Interior Design and the Furnished
Body’, in Fashion, Interior Design and the Contours of Modern Identity, eds. Alla
Myzelev and John Potvin (Oxon and New York: Routledge) 2016: 11.
12 Berry, House of Fashion.
13 For an historical account of the architectural emergence of interiority see Ewa
Lajer-Burcharth and Beate Söntgen, ‘Introduction: Interiors and Interiority’, in
Interiors and Interiority, eds. Ewa Lajer-Burcharth and Beate Söntgen (Berlin and
Boston: Degruyter, 2016): 1–13.
 Notes 159

14 Joan Riviere, ‘Womanliness as a Masquerade’, The International Journal of

Psychoanalysis, 10 (1929): 303–13.
15 Mary Ann Doane, ‘Film and the Masquerade: Theorising the Female Spectator’,
Screen, 23:3–4 (1982): 74–87; Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the
Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1999).
16 Penny Sparke, The Modern Interior (London: Reaktion Books, 2008).
17 For discussion of haute couture in cinema see Stella Bruzzi, Undressing Cinema:
Clothing and Identity in the Movies (London: Routledge, 1997).
18 Pamela Church Gibson, ‘The Fashion Narratives of Tom Ford: Nocturnal Animals
and Contemporary Cinema’, Fashion Theory, 21:16 (2017): 644.
19 Pamela Church Gibson, Fashion and Celebrity Culture (London: Bloomsbury, 2012).
20 Nick Rees-Roberts, Fashion Film: Art and Advertising in the Digital Age (London:
Bloomsbury, 2018).
21 For discourse on set design and art direction see Leon Barsacq, Caligari’s Cabinet
and Other Grand Illusions (New York: Little Brown, 1976); Beverly Heisner,
Hollywood Art: Art Direction in the Days of the Great Studio (London: St James
Press, 1990); Tim Bergfelder, Sue Harris and Sarah Street, Film Architecture and
the Transnational Imagination: Set Design in 1930s European Cinema (Amsterdam:
Amsterdam University Press, 2007).
22 See for example: Sarah Street, Costume and Cinema (London and New York:
Wallflower, 2001); Sarah Berry, Screen Style: Fashion and Femininity in 1930s
Hollywood (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000); Anne
Massey, Hollywood beyond the Screen (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000).
23 Adrienne Munich (ed.), Fashion in Film (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
2011); Rachel Moseley (ed.), Fashioning Film Stars: Dress Culture and Identity
(London: British Film Institute, 2005); Jane Gains and Charlotte Herzog (eds.),
Fabrications: Costume and the Female Body (London: Routledge, 1990).
24 Bruzzi, Undressing Cinema.
25 Merrill Schleier, Skyscraper Cinema: Architecture and Gender in American Film
(Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2009).
26 See for example, Katherine Shonfield, Walls Have Feelings: Architecture, Film and
the City (London: Routledge 2000); and Richard Koeck and Les Roberts (eds.), The
City and the Moving Image (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
27 David Clarke (ed.), The Cinematic City (Hoboken: Taylor & Francis, 1997); Mark
Lamster (ed.), Architecture and Film (New York: Princeton Architectural Press,
2000).
28 Pamela Robertson Wojcik, The Apartment Plot: Urban Living in American Film and
Popular Culture, 1945–1975 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010).
29 For more in the Eames’ involvement in the Moon Is Blue see Pat Kirkham, ‘Living
in a Modern Way in The Moon Is Blue: Mid-Century Modern Architecture,
Interiors and Furniture’, Interiors, 10:1–2 (2019): 103–22.
160 Notes

30 For a brief history of the professions of set design and production design see Pat
Kirkham and Sarah A. Lichtman (eds.), Screen Interiors: From Country Houses to
Cosmic Heterotopias (London: Bloomsbury, 2021). For monographs on influential
set/production designers see: Howard Gutner, MGM Style: Cedric Gibbons and
the Art of the Golden Age of Hollywood (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2019);
Christopher Frayling, Ken Adam and the Art of Production Design (London: Faber
and Faber, 2005).
31 Donald Albrecht, Designing Dreams: Modern Architecture and the Movies (New
York: Harper and Row, 1986); Fischer, Cinema by Design; Fischer, Designing
Women.
32 Kirkham and Lichtman (eds.), Screen Interiors.
33 Laura Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Screen, 16:3 (1975): 6–18;
Mary Ann Doane, Femme Fatales: Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis (London
and New York: Routledge, 1991).
34 Michel Foucault, ‘Of Other Spaces, Utopias and Heterotopias [1967]’, Architecture/
Mouvement/Continuite, 5 (October 1984): 1–9.
35 Jean Whitehead, Creating Interior Atmosphere: Mise-en-scène and Interior Design
(London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2018).
36 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of Judgement through Taste, trans.
Richard Nice (London: Routledge, 1984).
37 Mike Featherstone, ‘Luxury Consumer Culture and Sumptuary Dynamics’, Luxury:
History, Culture and Consumption, 1:1 (2015): 47–69.
38 Gilles Lipovetsky and Veronica Manlow, ‘The “Artialization” of Luxury Stores’, in
Fashion and Imagination, ed. Jo Teunissen (Arnheim: ArtEZ Press, 2007): 154–67.

Chapter 1

1 Here I use the term woman’s film loosely. For more precise definitions and
extended discussion see Jeanine Basinger, A Woman’s View: How Hollywood Spoke
to Women 1930–1960 (Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1995); Mary Ann
Doane, The Desire to Desire: The Woman’s Film of the 1940s (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1987).
2 Charles Eckert, ‘The Carole Lombard in Macy’s Window’, Quarterly Review, of Film
and Video, 3:1 (1978): 7.
3 Ibid., 5.
4 Mary Louise Roberts, ‘Samson and Delilah Revisited: The Politics of Women’s
Fashion in 1920s France’, The America Historical Review, 98:3 (1993): 684.
5 Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, 6–18.
6 Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985): 84.
 Notes 161

7 Mary Ann Doane, ‘The Economy of Desire: The Commodity Form in/of the Cinema’,
in Movies and Mass Culture, ed. John Belton (London: The Athlone Press, 1996): 121.
8 Elizabeth Wilson, Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity (London: I.B Tauris,
2003).
9 Liz Conor, The Spectacular Modern Woman: Feminine Visibility in the 1920s
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004): 29.
10 See for example: Janey Place, ‘Women in Film Noir’, in Women in Film Noir, ed.
Anne Kaplan (London: BFI Publishing, 1992); Doane, Femme Fatales.
11 Susan Best, ‘Rethinking Visual Pleasure: Aesthetics and Affect’, Theory Psychology,
17:5 (2007): 508.
12 It is important here to note that the term ‘Art Deco’ was only attributed to the
style in 1966, denoting an eclectic range of features in design and architecture that
emerged in France between the wars. A shared aesthetic of streamlining, geometric
forms, often combining elements of the classical and the modern underpins
the style that was first widely exhibited at the 1925 Parisian Exposition des Arts
Decoratifs et Industriels Moderns.
13 Fischer, Designing Women, 104–5.
14 See Kenneth A. Yellis, ‘Prosperity’s Child: Some Thoughts on the Flapper’, American
Quarterly, 21:1 (1969): 44–64; and Roberts, ‘Samson and Delilah Revisited’, 684.
15 For this extended argument refer to Berry, House of Fashion.
16 Christina Wilson, ‘Cedric Gibbons: Architect of Hollywood’s Golden Age’, in
Architecture and Film, ed. Mark Lamster (New York: Princeton Architectural Press,
2000): 103–109; Howard Mandelbaum and Eric Myers, Screen Deco (Santa Monica:
Hennessey and Ingalls, 2000).
17 Fischer, Designing Women.
18 ‘Le Pavillion d’Elegance’, L’Illustration (Juin 1925): 34. All translations are mine
unless otherwise stated.
19 Francis Jourdain cited in Jean-Pierre Berthomé, ‘Les Décorateurs du Cinema muet
en France’, 1895. Mille huite cent quatre-vingt-quinze, 65 (2011): 109.
20 See Leon Moussinac, ‘Le Décor et Le Costume au Cinema’, Art et Decoration,
50 (Juillet-Decembre 1926): 129–39; Rene Chavance, ‘Chez un Cinéaste’, Art
et Decoration, 52 (Juillet-Decembre 1927): 43–8; ‘Un décor du film de Marcel
L’Herbier’, Art et Decoration, 47 (Janvier-Juin 1925): 152–4.
21 Henri Bidou, ‘A l’Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels
Moderns. Le Décor de la vie moderne’, Vogue (France) (1 June 1925): 35.
22 Press Release Our Dancing Daughters cited in Mandelbaum and Myers, Screen
Deco, 33.
23 Cited in Heisner, Hollywood Art, 77.
24 Cedric Gibbons cited in Mayme Ober Peak, ‘Every Home’s a Stage’, Ladies Home
Journal, 50:7 (1933): 25.
162 Notes

25 Ibid.
26 ‘Miss Crawford of Hollywood Back with the Spoils of Paris’, Vogue (America) (15
October 1932): 64–5; ‘Joan Crawford’, Town & Country (November 1945): 118.
27 Hobe Erwin cited in Gutner, MGM Style, 128.
28 ‘Lingerie for a New Season’, Vogue (America) (October 1932): 98.
29 Joan Collins cited in Samantha Barbas, Movie Crazy: Fans, Stars and the Cult of
Celebrity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000): 150.
30 Hilary Hinds, A Cultural History of Twin Beds (London: Bloomsbury, 2019): 111.
31 For further discussion of Doris Day’s representation of sexuality on screen in Pillow
Talk see Tamar Jeffers McDonald, Doris Day Confidential: Hollywood, Sex and
Stardom (London: I.B. Tauris, 2013).
32 Wong Kar-Wai cited in Paul Arthur, ‘Film Reviews: In the Mood for Love’, Cineaste,
26:3 (2001): 41.
33 Anne Troutman, ‘The Modernist Boudoir and the Erotics of Space’, in Negotiating
Domesticity: Spatial Productions of Gender in Modern Architecture, eds. Hilde
Heynen and Gulsum Bayder (London and New York: Routledge, 2005): 296.
34 Ed Lilley, ‘The Name of the Boudoir’, Journal of the Society of Architectural
Historians, 53:2 (1994): 193–8.
35 Georgina Downey and Mark Taylor, ‘Impolite Reading and Erotic Interiors of
Eighteenth Century France’, in Designing the French Interior: The Modern Home and
Mass Media, eds. Anca I. Lasc, Georgina Downey and Mark Taylor (London and
New York: Bloomsbury, 2015).
36 Troutman, ‘The Modernist Boudoir and the Erotics of Space’, 301.
37 Emmanuelle Dirix, ‘Birds of Paradise: Feathers, Fetishism and Costume in Classical
Hollywood’, Film, Fashion and Consumption, 3:1 (2014): 24.
38 See for example: Helena Leigh, ‘The Cosmetic Urge’, Harper’s Bazaar (August 1931):
114, 116, 118,120; Helena Leigh, ‘The Cosmetic Urge’, Harper’s Bazaar (July 1930):
100, 102, 104–5; Helena Leigh, ‘The Cosmetic Urge’, Harper’s Bazaar (February
1932): 86, 88, 94.
39 Paul Iribe, ‘The Audacious Note of Modernism in the Boudoir’, Vogue (America)
(15 June 1919): 58–9.
40 Helen Appleton Read, ‘Twentieth Century Decoration’, Vogue (America) (19
January 1929): 76–7, 100, 106.
41 ‘The Rising Tide of White Decors: Lace and Linen in the Boudoir’, Harper’s Bazaar
(August 1931): 74–5.
42 Michael Adcock, ‘Remaking Urban Space: Baron Haussmann and the Rebuilding
of Paris, 1851–1870’, University of Melbourne Library Journal, 2:2 (1996): viewed on
13 January 2020, https://museumsandcollections.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/
pdf_file/0008/1624850/adcock.pdf
43 For a more nuanced discussion of nineteenth-century bathing scenes in painting
see Georgina Downey, ‘Bathrooms: Plumbing the Canon- the Bathtub Nudes
 Notes 163

of Alfred Stevens, Edgar Degas and Pierre Bonnard Reconsidered’, in Domestic

Interiors, ed. Georgina Downey (London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2013).
44 Cecil B. DeMille cited in Virginia Postrel, The Power of Glamour: Longing and the
Art of Visual Persuasion (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013): 188.
45 Cecilia de Mille Presley and Mark A. Vieira, ‘The Wickedest Movie in the World:
How Cecil B. DeMille made The Sign of the Cross’, Bright Lights Film Journal
(18 December 2014): viewed on 8 January 2020, https://brightlightsfilm.com/
wickedest-movie-world-cecil-b-demille-made-sign-cross/#.XhZ9RpIzaS4
46 Anthea Callen cited in Downey, ‘Bathrooms: Plumbing the Canon’, 120.
47 Christian Esquevin, Adrian: Silver Screen to Custom Label (New York: Monacelli
Press, 2008).
48 Simone de Beauvoir, ‘Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome’, Esquire (August
1959): 36.
49 Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, 11.
50 Ginette Vincendeau, ‘The Old and the New: Bridget Bardot in 1950s France’,
Paragraph, 15:1 (1992): 89.
51 Mari Ruti, Feminist Film Theory and Pretty Woman (London and New York:
Bloomsbury, 2016): 148.
52 Hilary Radner, Neo-Feminist Cinema: Girly Films, Chick Flicks and Consumer
Culture (London: Routledge, 2010): 33.

Chapter 2

1 Robert Mallet Stevens cited in Bergfelder, Harris and Street, Film Architecture and
the Transnational Imagination, 58.
2 Alice T. Friedman, American Glamour and the Evolution of Modern Architecture
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010).
3 Joseph Rosa, ‘Tearing Down the House: Modern Homes in the Movies’, in
Architecture and Film, ed. Mark Lamster (New York: Princeton Architectural Press,
2000): 159.
4 Steve Cohan, Masked Men: Masculinity and the Movies in the Fifties (Indiana:
Indiana University Press, 1997); Yvonne Tasker, Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre
and the Action Cinema (London: Routledge 1993).
5 Steve Neale, ‘Masculinity as Spectacle: Reflections on Men and Mainstream
Cinema’, Screen, 24:6 (1983): 2–16.
6 Stella Bruzzi, Men’s Cinema: Masculinity and Mise-en-Scene in Hollywood
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013).
7 Berry, House of Fashion.
8 Joel Sanders, ‘Introduction’, in Stud: Architectures of Masculinity, ed. Joel Sanders
(New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996): 11–25.
164 Notes

9 Adolf Loos cited in Beatriz Colomina, ‘The Split Wall: Domestic Voyeurism’, in
Sexuality and Space, ed. Beatriz Colomina (New York: Princeton Architectural
Press, 1992): 90.
10 Friedman, American Glamour and the Evolution of Modern Architecture, 6.
11 George Wagner, ‘The Lair of the Bachelor’, in Architecture and Feminism, eds.
Debra Coleman, Elizabeth Danze and Carol Henderson (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press, 1996): 185.
12 For discussion regarding the contradictory nature of modernism as a
stereotypically ‘masculine’ architecture see Joel Sanders (ed)., Stud: Architectures of
Masculinity (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996); Mark Wigley, White
Walls, Designer Dresses: The Fashioning of Modern Architecture (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 1995).
13 Robert Boyle cited in Jacobs, The Wrong House, 310.
14 Adolf Loos, ‘Ornament and Crime [1908]’, in Adolf Loos Ornament and Crime:
Selected Essays, ed. Adolf Opel (California: Ariadne Press, 1998).
15 See Janet Stewart, Fashioning Vienna: Adolf Loos’s Cultural Criticism (London:
Routledge, 2000); Beatriz Colomina, ‘Sex, Lies and Decoration: Adolf Loos and
Gustav Klimt’, Thresholds, 37 (2010): 70–81.
16 Adolf Loos cited in Rebecca Houze, ‘From Weiner Kunst im Hause to the Wiener
Werkstätte: Marketing Domesticity with Fashionable Interior Design’, Design Issues,
8:1 (2002): 22.
17 Adolf Loos cited in Beatriz Colomina, ‘The Split Wall: Domestic Voyeurism’, 94.
18 The general understanding of the dandy figure is often equated with foppish
extravagant dress. However, in fashion history the dandy is understood as having
reformed male attire in the 1800s by wearing the precursor to suiting – buck-
skin trousers, white linen and a dark frock coat. This approach to men’s dress was
reserved, practical and understated compared to the peacocks and macaronis of
the Regency period. See Christopher Breward, The Suit: Form Function and Style
(London: Reaktion, 2016); Wilson, Adorned in Dreams; Ellen Moers, The Dandy:
Brummell to Beerbohm (London: Secker and Warburg, 1960).
19 Doane, ‘Film and the Masquerade’, 82.
20 Butler, Gender Trouble.
21 Anne Hollander, Sex and Suits: The Evolution of Modern Dress (London:
Bloomsbury, [1994] 2016): 64.
22 Johnathan Faiers, Dressing Dangerously: Dysfunctional Fashion in Film (New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 2013): 227.
23 Ulrich Lehmann, ‘Language of Pursuit: Cary Grant’s Clothes in Alfred Hitchcock’s
North by Northwest’, Fashion Theory, 4:4 (2000): 467–85.
24 Todd McEwen, ‘Cary Grant’s Suit’, Granta: The Magazine of New Writing, 94 (2006):
119.
 Notes 165

25 Ibid., 123.
26 Andrew Spicer, ‘Sean Connery: Loosening his Bonds’, in British Stars and Stardom:
From Alma Taylor to Sean Connery, ed. Bruce Babbington (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2001): 220–1.
27 Everett Mattlin, ‘Off the Cuff ’, GQ: Gentleman’s Quarterly, 36:3 (1966): 8, 12, 14, 18,
28. 12
28 See for example: ‘Trevor Howard: Operation Savile Row’, GQ: Gentleman’s
Quarterly, 36:1 (1966): 96–7; ‘Monte Christo Advertisement’, GQ: Gentleman’s
Quarterly, 35:1 (1965): 51; ‘Stetson Shoe Advertisement’, GQ: Gentleman’s Quarterly,
37:4 (1967): 128.
29 Pamela Church Gibson, ‘From Style Icon to Fashion Victim: Masculinity and
Spectacle in the James Bond Franchise’, Vestoj: The Platform for Critical Thinking on
Fashion, 7 (2017): viewed on 5 December 2018, http://vestoj.com/from-style-icon-
to-fashion-victim/
30 Ibid.
31 Tom Ford cited in Llewella Chapman, ‘Fitting Fleming’s Hero like a Savile Row Suit:
The Tailoring of James Bond’, in From Bloefeld to Moneypenny: Gender in James
Bond, ed. Steven Gerrard (Bingley: Emerald Publishing, 2020): 69.
32 Viki Karaminas and Adam Geczy, Fashion and Masculinities in Popular Culture
(London: Routledge, 2007): 38.
33 A.M. Marple, ‘The Impassioned Palate of James Bond’, GQ: Gentleman’s Quarterly,
33:5 (1963): 36, 40, 78, 80, 162.
34 Becky Conekin, ‘Fashioning Playboy: Messages of Style and Masculinity in the
Pages of Playboy Magazine, 1953–1963’, Fashion Theory, 4:4 (2000): 459.
35 ‘The Progressive Dinner Party’, Playboy (January 1965): 107.
36 Pam Cook and Claire Hines, ‘Sean Connery is James Bond: Re-Fashioning British
Masculinity in the 1960s’, in Fashioning Film Stars: Dress, Culture, Identity, ed.
Rachel Moseley (London: British Film Institute, 2005).
37 Reyner Banham cited in Bill Ogersby, ‘The Bachelor Pad as Cultural Icon’, Journal of
Design History, 18:1 (2005): 99.
38 Sparke, The Modern Interior.
39 For an account of women’s influence on modernist architecture see Alice T.
Friedman, Women and the Making of the Modern House (New York: Abrams, 1998).
40 John Potvin, Bachelors of a Different Sort: Queer Aesthetics, Material Culture and the
Modern Interior in Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014): 13.
41 ‘Playboy’s Penthouse Apartment’, Playboy, 3:10 (October 1956): 54.
42 Wojcik, The Apartment Plot, 92–4.
43 Ibid., 96.
44 ‘Playboy’s Penthouse Apartment’, 59.
45 Susan R. Henderson, ‘Bachelor Culture in the Work of Adolf Loos’, Journal of
Architectural Education, 55:3 (2002): 125.
166 Notes

46 Ibid., 130.
47 Colomina, ‘Sex, Lies and Decoration: Adolf Loos and Gustav Klimt’, 79.
48 Walter Benjamin. ‘Paris: Capital of the Nineteenth Century’ [1939], Perspecta, 12
(1969): 163–72.
49 Steve Rose, ‘James Bond: The Enemy of Architecture’, The Guardian (4 November
2008): viewed on 22 May 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/
nov/04/james-bond-architecture
50 Frayling, Ken Adam, 175.
51 ‘A Playboy Pad: Pleasure on the Rocks, review of John Lautner, Elrod House’,
Playboy, 18:11 (November 1971): 151–1, 208.
52 Sigfried Giedeon, Space, Time and Architecture (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1967): xxxii.
53 Lehmann, ‘Language of Pursuit: Cary Grant’s Clothes in Alfred Hitchcock’s North
by Northwest’, 467–85.
54 Robertson Wojcik, The Apartment Plot, 133.
55 R.W Connell cited in Potvin, Bachelors of a Different Sort, 29.
56 Colomina, ‘Sex, Lies and Decoration: Adolf Loos and Gustav Klimt’, 77; regarding
Loos homophobia see Beatriz Colomina, Privacy and Publicity: Modern
Architecture as Mass Media (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
57 See Richard Dyer, The Culture of Queers (New York: Routledge, 2001) regarding
style as a queer survival strategy.

Chapter 3

1 Throughout this chapter I deploy ‘queer’ as a term that can encapsulate identities
that resist traditional heteronormative categories, where appropriate specific
identities, for example lesbian, gay, trans are used.
2 Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin, Queer Images: A History of Gay and Lesbian
Film in America (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006): 66.
3 For a comprehensive discussion on definitions of Camp see Fabio Cleto,
‘Introduction: Queering the Camp’, in Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing
Subject, ed. Fabio Cleto (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1999): 1–42.
4 Susan Sontag, ‘Notes on Camp [1964]’, in Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the
Performing Subject, ed. Fabio Cleto (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press,
1999): 55.
5 Jack Babuscio, ‘Camp and the Gay Sensibility’, in Queer Cinema, the Film Reader,
ed. Harry Benshoff and Sean Griffin (London: Routledge, 2004).
6 Mark Booth, Camp (London and New York: Quartet, 1983).
 Notes 167

7 Janet Jakobsen, ‘Queer Is? Queer Does? Normativity and the Problem of Resistance’,
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 4:4 (1998): 511–36.
8 Svetlana Boym, ‘Nostalgia and Its Discontents’, The Hedgehog Review, 9:2 (2007): 7.
9 Tamara de Szegheo Lang, ‘The Demand to Progress: Critical Nostalgia in LGBTQ
Cultural Memory’, Journal of Lesbian Studies, 19:2 (2015): 230–48.
10 For a comprehensive overview of queer representation in film see Benshoff and
Griffin, Queer Images: A History of Gay and Lesbian Film in America.
11 Richard Dyer, The Culture of Queers (London and New York: Routledge, 2002): 205,
211.
12 Gilad Padva, Queer Nostalgia in Cinema and Pop Culture (Hampshire and New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
13 Allain Daigle, ‘Of Love and Longing: Queer Nostalgia in Carol’, Queer Studies in
Media & Popular Culture, 2:1 (2017): 199–211 makes a similar argument; however,
I extend this to focus specifically on how the relationship between fashion and the
interior in queer film creates a heterotopic space.
14 Christopher Reed, ‘Imminent Domain: Queer Space in the Built Environment’, Art
Journal, 55:4 (1996): 69.
15 See David Ansen, ‘Gucci Goo’, Newsweek (7 December 2009): 23, 68; Naomi Fry,
‘Surface Matters: Todd Haynes’s Carol Mistakes Aesthetics for Meaning’, The New
Republic (13 November 2015): viewed on 5 December 2018, https://newrepublic.
com/article/123221/todd-hayness-carol-mistakes-aesthetics-meaning; Peter
Bradshaw, ‘Laurence Anyways- Review’, The Guardian (30 November 2012): viewed
on 13 January 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/nov/29/drama-
transgender
16 Todd Haynes cited in Benshoff and Griffin, Queer Images: A History of Gay and
Lesbian Film in America, 204.
17 Haynes director’s commentary 2002 cited in Nishant Shahani, Queer
Retrosexualities: The Politics of Reparative Return (Maryland: Lehigh University
Press, 2011): 65.
18 For further discussion regarding the relationship between Modernism, film, colour
and decorative surface see Rosalind Galt, Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image; and
David Bachelor, Chromophobia (London: Reaktion, 2000).
19 Kirsten Moana Thompson, ‘Falling in (to) Colour: Chromophilia and Tom Ford’s A
Single Man (2009)’, The Moving Image, 15:1 (2015): 75.
20 Brett Farmer, Spectacular Passions: Cinema, Fantasy, Gay Male Spectatorships
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2000): 175.
21 Potvin, Bachelors of a Different Sort, 17.
22 Ibid., 23.
23 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1990): 70.
168 Notes

24 Aaron Betsky, Queer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire (New York: William
Morrow and Company, 1997): 16–17.
25 Foucault, ‘Of Other Spaces, Utopias and Heterotopias’, 1–9.
26 Angela Jones, ‘Queer Heterotopias: Homonormativity and the Future of Queerness’,
Interalia: A Journal of Queer Studies, 4 (2009):1–20.
27 Phyllis Nagy interviewed by Terry Gross, ‘Carol, Two Women Leap into an Unlikely
Love Affair’, NPR Movie Interviews (6 January 2016): viewed on 2 November 2018,
https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=462089856
28 Victoria L. Smith, ‘The Heterotopias of Todd Haynes: Creating Space for Same Sex
Desire in Carol’, Film Criticism, 42:1 (2018): viewed on 2 November 2018, https://
quod.lib.umich.edu/f/fc/13761232.0042.102?view=text;rgn=main I extend Smith’s
argument to consider other encounters with mirrors.
29 Foucault, ‘Of Other Spaces, Utopias and Heterotopias’, 4.
30 Betsky, Queer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire, 17.
31 Fabio Cleto, ‘The Spectacles of Camp’, in Camp: Notes on Fashion, ed. Andrew
Bolton (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019): 17.
32 I refer here to Laurence with female pronouns in accordance with the film’s position
that she has always identified as woman.
33 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York:
Routledge, [1990] 1999).
34 Nick Rees-Roberts, ‘Fade to Grey: Dolan’s Pop Fashion and Surface Style’, in
ReFocus: The Films of Xavier Dolan, ed. Andre Lafontaine (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2019): 220.
35 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (New York:
Routledge, 1993): 137.
36 Paris Is Burning has been screened at multiple Fashion Film festivals and
programmes including Fashion On Film, ACCMI Melbourne 2018; Fashion and
Film Festival Arnhem 2007, Copenhagen Fashion Film 2016 amongst others. It has
also frequently featured in fashion media such as Dazed, Vogue and Vanity Fair.
37 Paris Is Burning has been the subject of widespread critical debate. See bell hooks,
Black Looks: Race and Representation (New York and London: Routledge, 2015);
Butler, Bodies That Matter; Lucas Hilderbrand, Paris Is Burning: A Queer Film
Classic (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2013).
38 Foucault, ‘Of Other Spaces, Utopias and Heterotopias’, 3.
39 For thorough analysis of ballroom culture see Marlon M. Bailey, Butch Queens:
Gender, Performance and Ballroom Culture in Detroit (Ann Arbor: The University
of Michigan Press, 2013).
40 Other examples include a fashion feature in New York lifestyle magazine Details,
and a 1989 Thierry Mugler Paris runway show incorporating voguers. See
Hilderbrand, Paris Is Burning: A Queer Film Classic.
 Notes 169

41 Church Gibson, Fashion and Celebrity Culture.

42 Ibid., 99.
43 See Church Gibson, Fashion and Celebrity Culture; Rees-Roberts, Fashion Film.
44 Dyer, The Culture of Queers, 206.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid., 217–18.
47 Sarajane Hoare, ‘Actors Tweeds’, Vogue (Britain) (November 1987): 270–6.
48 Rees-Roberts, ‘Fade to Grey: Dolan’s Pop Fashion and Surface Style’, 217.
49 Shayne Leverdière and Xavier Dolan, ‘Xavier Dolan’, L’Uomo Vogue, 456 (December
2014): viewed on 1 July 2020, https://www.vogue.it/en/uomo-vogue/cover-
story/2014/12/dolan
50 Alasdair McLellan, Xavier Dolan for Louis Vuitton Mens Summer 2016 short film,
viewed on 20 October 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfxGl_JfPuw
51 Hannah Rochelle and Lucy Pavia, ‘What’s Now: Big Screen Chic’, Instyle (December
2015): 171–2.
52 Robert Sullivan, ‘Dramatic Effect: Reel Talk’, Vogue (December 2015): 180, 182.
53 Diane Waldman, ‘From Midnight Shows to Marriage Vows’, Wide Angle, 6:2
(1984): 48.
54 Jane Gaines, ‘The Queen Christina Tie-ups: Convergence of Show Window and
Screen’, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 11:1 (1989): 43.
55 Ibid., 50.

Chapter 4

1 Gilles Lipovetsky, The Empire of Fashion: Dressing Modern Democracy, trans.

Catherine Porter (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 1994): 26.
2 Ibid., 29.
3 See Rosalind Williams, Dream Worlds: Mass Consumption in Late Nineteenth
Century France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); Caroline Evans,
Fashion at the Edge: Spectacle, Modernity and Deathliness (New Haven and London:
Yale University Press, 2003).
4 Berry, Screen Style: Fashion and Femininity in 1930s Hollywood; Caroline Evans, The
Mechanical Smile: Modernism and the First Fashion Shows in France and America,
1900–1929 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013); Charlotte
Herzog, ‘Powder Puff Promotion: The Fashion Show-in-the-Film’, in Fabrications:
Costume and the Female Body, eds. Jane Gains and Charlotte Herzog (London:
Routledge, 1990).
5 Tamar Jeffers McDonald, Hollywood Catwalk: Exploring Costume and
Transformation in American Film (New York: I.B Tauris, 2010), also makes the case
170 Notes

for staircases as sites of transformation however her argument does not extend
to recognizing the fashionable iconicity of staircases in photography and retail
environments as I do here.
6 See Nancy J Troy, Couture Culture: A Study in Modern Art and Fashion
(Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003); Evans, The
Mechanical Smile.
7 Lady Duff Gordon, Discretions and Indiscretions (New York: Frederick A Stokes, 1932).
8 Joel H. Kaplan and Shiela Stowell, Theatre and Fashion: Oscar Wilde to the
Suffragettes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994): 119.
9 Duff Gordon, Discretions and Indiscretions, 78.
10 Berry, Screen Style: Fashion and Femininity in 1930s Hollywood, 47.
11 Robert Forest Wilson, ‘The House of Nicole Groult’, Vogue (America) (January 15
1927): 20, 116, 120.
12 Robert Forest Wilson, ‘The House of Lucien Lelong’, Vogue (America) (October
15 1925): 33–6; Robert Forest Wilson, ‘The House of Bechoff ’, Vogue (America)
(February 15 1927): 23–4, 136; ‘The House of Jean Magnin’, Vogue (America)
(March 15 1927): 52, 170.
13 Troy, Couture Culture.
14 Evans, The Mechanical Smile, 247.
15 A selection of these films can be viewed online ‘Paris Fashions’, British Pathé (1909):
viewed on 20 July 2020, https://www.britishpathe.com/video/paris-fashions-4
16 Troy, Couture Culture, 228.
17 Berry, House of Fashion.
18 Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of Judgement through Taste.
19 ‘Leading Stores Exploit Fashions from Roberta’, The Film Daily (15 March 1935): 16.
20 Herzog, ‘Powder Puff Promotion: The Fashion Show-in-the-Film’, 154–5.
21 For an extensive discussion Berry, House of Fashion. Here I focus on and develop
the analysis of the staircase.
22 Gabrielle Chanel cited in Lisa Chaney, Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life (New York:
Penguin, 2011): 202.
23 ‘L’Escalier des Glaces Chez Chanel’, Vogue (France) (1 August 1931): 41; Francois
Kollar, ‘Escalier chez Chanel’ (1937) (Photograph); ‘Chanel-Her Famous New
Dinner Pyjamas’, Vogue (America) (15 November 1965): 116–17.
24 Evans, The Mechanical Smile, 129.
25 ‘The Debut of the Winter Mode’, Vogue (America) (October 1926): 69.
26 Karl Lagerfeld, ‘Karl Chats with Coco’, Harper’s Bazaar (March 2003): 226.
27 Karl Lagerfeld (photographs), ‘La Reign Victoria’, Elle (France) October 2012, 167.
28 Steff Yotka, ‘Sofia Coppola Goes behind the Scenes at Chanel in a New
Documentary’, Vogue (10 July 2020): viewed on 20 July 2020, https://www.
vogue.com/article/sofia-coppola-goes-behind-the-scenes-at-chanel-in-a-new-
documentary
 Notes 171

29 Gabrielle Chanel cited in Justine Picardie, Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life
(London: HarperCollins, 2010): 1.
30 John Templar, The Staircase: History and Theory (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1998): x.
31 Edward Steichen’s first fashion photographs illustrated in Paul Cornu, ‘L’Art de la
Robe’, Art et Decoration (Avril 1911): 103–7.
32 Margaret Maynard, ‘The Fashion Photograph: An Ecology’, in Fashion as
Photograph, ed. Eugenie Shinkle (London: I.B Tauris, 2010): 55.
33 André Leon Tally, The Chiffon Trenches (London: HarperCollins, 2020, e-book
location 1911).
34 Universal Studios press cited in Barbara Klinger, Melodrama and Meaning: History,
Culture and the Films of Douglas Sirk (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press, 1994): 60.
35 Herzog, ‘Powder Puff Promotion: The Fashion Show-in-the-Film’, 137.
36 New York Times cited in John Loring, Joseph Urban (New York: Abrams, 2010): 31.
37 Gaylyn Studlar, ‘Chi-Chi Cinderella: Audrey Hepburn as Couture Countermodel’,
in Fabrications: Costume and the Female Body, eds. Jane Gains and Charlotte
Herzog (London: Routledge, 1990): 165.
38 Original emphasis, Doane, The Desire to Desire, 136.
39 Ibid., 33.
40 Ibid.
41 Hilary Radner, ‘Transnational Celebrity and the Fashion Icon: The Case of Tilda
Swinton Visual Performance Artist at Large’, European Journal of Women’s Studies,
23:4 (2016): 401.
42 Meredith L. Clausen, ‘The Department Store: Development of the Type’, Journal of
Architectural Education, 39:1 (1985): 20–9, 24.
43 Giles Lipovetsky, ‘On Artistic Capitalism’, Crash Magazine, 65 (3 April 2015):
viewed on 3 August 2020, https://www.crash.fr/on-artistic-capitalism-by-gilles-
lipovetsky-crash-65/
44 Laura Hawkins, ‘Step Up: Dolce & Gabbana’s Staircase is Ahead of the Curve’,
Wallpaper* (11 January 2018): viewed on 3 August 2020, https://www.wallpaper.
com/fashion/dolce-and-gabbana-marble-design-awards-2018
45 Friedman, American Glamour and the Evolution of Modern Architecture, 6.
46 The term ‘starchitect’ is used commonly to refer to famous architects of signature
buildings, for example Frank Gehry, and Rem Koolhaas. See Adam Shar, ‘Libeskind
in Las Vegas: Reflections on Architecture as a Luxury Commodity’, in Critical
Luxury Studies: Art, Design and Media, eds. John Armitage and Joanne Roberts
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016): 151–76.
47 Kazyz Varnelis, ‘Prada and the Pleasure Principle’, Log, 6 (2005): 129–36.
48 Alice T. Friedman, ‘American Glamour 2.0: Architecture, Spectacle and Social
Media’, Consumption, Markets and Culture, 20:6 (2017): 575.
49 Annette Condello, The Architecture of Luxury (Surrey: Ashgate, 2014).
172 Notes

50 Marcus Fairs, ‘Armani 5th Avenue by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas Architects’,
Dezeen (23 February 2009): viewed on 10 August 2020, https://www.dezeen.
com/2009/02/23/armani-5th-avenue-by-massimiliano-doriana-fuksas-architects/;
James Tarmy, ‘The Stair Master: How Peter Marino Turns Simple Steps into Amazing
Art’, Bloomberg (23 November 2016): viewed 10 August 2020, https://www.bloomberg.
com/news/articles/2016-11-22/amazing-staircase-designs-in-peter-marino-art-
architecture; Dan Howarth, ‘David Chipperfield’s Valentino Flagship Store Opens
in New York’, Dezeen (11 September 2014): viewed on 10 August 2020, https://www.
dezeen.com/2014/09/11/david-chipperfield-valentino-flagship-store-fifth-avenue-
new-york/; Joyce Caruso, ‘Gehry Downtown’, Artnet (8 July 2001): viewed on 10
August 2020, http://www.artnet.com/magazine/news/caruso/caruso8-7-01.asp

Chapter 5

1 Eckert, ‘The Carol Lombard in Macy’s Window’, 4.

2 See Anne Friedberg, Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1994); Doane, The Desire to Desire; Lauren
Rabinovitz, For the Love of Pleasure: Women, Movies and Culture in Turn-of-the
Century Chicago (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1998).
3 David Clark, ‘The Shop Within?: An Analysis of the Architectural Evidence for
Medieval Shops’, Architectural History, 43 (2000): 58–87.
4 See Claire Walsh, ‘Shop Design and the Display of Goods in Eighteenth Century
London’, Journal of Design History, 8:3 (1995): 157–76; Anca I Lasc, ‘The Traveling
Sidewalk: The Mobile Architecture of American Shop Windows at the Turn of the
Twentieth Century’, Journal of Design History, 31:1 (2018): 24–45.
5 Lasc, ‘The Traveling Sidewalk’.
6 L. Frank Baum, The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows and Interiors (Chicago:
Show Window, 1900): 146.
7 Stuart Culver, ‘What Manikins Want: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the Art of
Decorating Dry Goods Windows’, Representations, 21 (Winter 1988): 97.
8 Ibid., 98.
9 L. Frank Baum cited in Rabinovitz, For the Love of Pleasure, 78.
10 T. Friedelson, ‘Selfridges by Night’, 20 March 1909, advertisement reproduced in
Erika D. Rappaport, ‘A New Era of Shopping: The Promotion of Women’s Pleasure
in London’s West End, 1909–1914’, in Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life,
eds. Leo Charney and Vanessa Schwartz (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1995): 141.
11 Jane Chapman, ‘The Argument of the Broken Pane: Suffragette Consumerism and
the Newspapers’, Media History, 21:3 (2015): 238–51.
 Notes 173

12 Doane, The Desire to Desire.

13 Rabinovitz, For the Love of Pleasure, 79.
14 Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin
(Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1999); see also Susan
Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project
(Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 1991).
15 Walter Benjamin, ‘Paris: Capital of the Nineteenth Century’, Perspecta, 12 (1969
[1935]): 163–72.
16 Ibid., 172.
17 Friedberg, Window Shopping, 68.
18 Ibid., 147.
19 Mike Featherstone, ‘The Flâneur, the City and Virtual Public Life’, Urban Studies,
35:5/6 (1998): 919
20 Ibid., 909–25.
21 Williams, Dream Worlds, 70.
22 I have also outlined the cinematic experience of window displays created by Sonia
Delaunay and Robert Mallet-Stevens in Berry, House of Fashion. Here, I revisit this
material to focus more specifically on the pair’s film collaborations and the possible
inter-relationship with their store designs.
23 Robert Delaunay cited in Arthur Cohen (ed.), The New Art of Colour: The Writings
of Robert and Sonia Delaunay, trans. David Schapiro and Arthur Cohen (New York:
Viking Press, 1978): 140.
24 Radu Stern, Against Fashion: Clothing as Art (Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2004).
25 Henri Clouzot cited in Tag Gronberg, Designs on Modernity: Exhibiting the City in
1920s Paris (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1998): 88.
26 See my previous analysis in Berry, House of Fashion, 138–44.
27 Bergfelder, Harris and Street, Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination, 58.
28 Robert Mallet-Stevens, Le Décor Modern au Cinema (Paris: Charles Massin, 1928).
29 Robert Mallet-Stevens, ‘Le Cinema et les arts: L’Architecture’, Les Cahiers du Mois
Cinema, 16–17 (1925): 95 cited in Richard Becherer, ‘Past Remembering: Robert
Mallet-Stevens’s Architecture of Duration’, Assemblage, 31 (1996): 16.
30 Barsacq, Caligari’s Cabinet and Other Grand Illusions, 43.
31 Moussinac, ‘Le Décor et le Costume au Cinema’, 129–39.
32 Rene Chavance, ‘Chez un Cineaste’, Art et Decoration (Juillet–Decembre 1927):
43–8.
33 Photographs of Mallet-Steven’s home feature in Leon Werth, ‘L’Architecture
Intérieure et Mallet Stevens’, Art et Decoration (Janvier–Juin 1929): 177–88.
34 Helmut Weismann, ‘Let Architecture Play Itself: A Case Study’, in The City and the
Moving Image, eds. Richard Koeck and Les Roberts (London: Palgrave Macmillan,
2010): 253–70.
174 Notes

35 See Richard Becherer, ‘Picturing Architecture Otherwise: The Voguing of the

Maison Mallet-Stevens’, Art History, 23:4 (2000): 559–98.
36 For more extensive discussion regarding the role of Therese Bonney in producing
fashionable images of interior design in the 1920s see Berry, House of Fashion.
37 Becherer, ‘Picturing Architecture Otherwise: The Voguing of the Maison Mallet-
Stevens’.
38 Sigfried Giedion’s critiques of Mallet-Stevens’ architecture as cited in Wigley, White
Walls Designer Dresses, 75.
39 See Robert Mallet-Stevens, Le Décor de la rue, les magazines, les étalages, les stands
d’exposion, les éclairages (Paris: Les Éditions de Parade, 1927); Robert Mallet-
Stevens, ‘L’éclairage et l’architecture modern’, Lux (Janvier 1928): 6–9.
40 Robert Mallet-Stevens, Le Décor de la rue, les magazines, les étalages, les stands
d’exposion, les éclairages, 3.
41 For discussion on of boutique shopfronts as the art of the street see Louis
Cheronnet, ‘Boutiques Nouvelles A Paris’, Art et Decoration (Juillet–Decembre
1928): 113–20.
42 Pierre Migennes, ‘De L’Étalage’, Art et Decoration (Juillet–Decembre 1929): 97–111.
43 Gabrielle Esperdy, ‘From Instruction to Consumption: Architecture and Design
in Hollywood Movies of the 1930s’, The Journal of American Culture, 30:2 (2007):
198–211.
44 Becherer, ‘Picturing Architecture Otherwise: The Voguing of the Maison Mallet-
Stevens’, 562.
45 Esperdy, ‘From Instruction to Consumption’.
46 See Eckert, ‘The Carol Lombard in Macy’s Window’; Gaines, ‘The Queen Christina
Tie-ups’; Esperdy, ‘From Instruction to Consumption’.
47 Mike Featherstone, ‘Luxury Consumer Culture and Sumptuary Dynamics’, Luxury:
History, Culture and Consumption, 1:1 (2015): 52.
48 Ibid., 47–69.
49 Pictorial Review (May 1925): 13 cited in Linda Mizejewski, Ziegfeld Girl: Image and
Icon in Culture and Cinema (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999), 101.
50 Ibid.
51 Massey, Hollywood beyond the Screen, 41.
52 Hannah Booth, ‘Shopping in Bollywood’, Design Week (2 May 2002): 19–23.
53 See Rees-Roberts, Fashion Film for further discussion regarding the influence of
SHOWstudio on digital fashion film.
54 Cinema of attractions is the term used to describe early silent cinema that focused
on illusion and abstraction rather than narrative. See Tom Gunning, ‘The Cinema of
Attraction: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde’, in Early Cinema: Space,
Frame, Narrative, ed. Thomas Elsaesser (London: BFI, 1990): 56–62; Ruth Hogben,
Gareth Pugh Pitti Immagine #79 2011 (13 January 2011): viewed on 3 October 2020,
https://www.showstudio.com/projects/gareth_pugh_pitti_immagine_79_2011;
 Notes 175

Nick Knight, Valentino Haute Couture F/W 2021: Of Grace and Light (22 July 2020):
viewed on 3 October 2020, https://www.showstudio.com/projects/of-grace-and-
light/fashion-film?autoplay=1
55 Mike Featherstone, ‘Consumer Culture and Its Futures: Dreams and Consequences’,
in Approaching Consumer Culture, ed. Evgenia Krasteva-Blagoeva (Cham: Springer,
2018): 1–46.
56 Marie Schuller, SHOWstudio x Selfridges – The Maters (21 August 2014): viewed on
3 October 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbsN4lv8Uaw
57 Jacob Stolworthy, ‘Selfridges to Open in Store Cinema’, The Telegraph (4 September
2014): viewed on 28 September 2018, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/
film-news/11075378/Selfridges-to-open-in-store-cinema.html
58 Selfridges Hot Air, viewed on 3 October 2020, https://www.selfridges.com/AU/en/
features/welove/
59 ‘SHOWstudio and Harrods Present the Future of Fashion’, (18 September 2020):
viewed on 3 October 2020, https://www.showstudio.com/news/showstudio-and-
harrods-present-future-fashion
60 Featherstone, ‘Luxury Consumer Culture and Sumptuary Dynamics’, 59.

Chapter 6

1 Whitehead, Creating Interior Atmosphere.

2 Lipovetsky and Manlow, ‘The “Artialization” of Luxury Stores’, 165.
3 See Lipovestky, The Empire of Fashion regarding the democratization of the fashion
system; Jean Baudrillard, Simulations (New York: Semiotext(e), 1983) for discussion
on the aestheticization of everyday life.
4 Peter McNeil and Giorgio Riello, Luxury: A Rich History (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2016): 237.
5 B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, ‘Welcome to the Experience Economy’,
Harvard Business Review (July–August 1998): viewed on 20 August 2020, https://
hbr.org/1998/07/welcome-to-the-experience-economy
6 Floriana Iannone and Francesco Izzo, ‘Salvatore Ferragamo: An Italian Heritage
Brand and its Museum’, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 13:2 (2017): 163–75;
Uche Okonkwo, Luxury Fashion Branding (London: Palgrave, 2007).
7 Okonkwo, Luxury Fashion Branding, 109.
8 Jean-Noël Kapferer, ‘The Artification of Luxury: From Artisans to Artists’, Business
Horizons, 57 (2014): 371–80.
9 See Louise Crewe, The Geographies of Fashion: Consumption, Space and Value
(London: Bloomsbury, 2017); Silvano Mendes and Nick Rees-Roberts, ‘New French
Luxury: Art, Fashion and the Re-Invention of a National Brand’, Luxury, 2:2 (2015):
53–69.
176 Notes

10 See Lipovetsky and Manlow, ‘The “Artialization” of Luxury Stores’, 154–67, who
identify the emergence of the ‘cinematographization’ of retail space as a relationship
that deserves to be pursued further.
11 Foucault, ‘Of Other Spaces, Utopias and Heterotopias’, 6.
12 Wall text for Gucci Garden Galleria, Gucci Garden, Florence, Italy.
13 The Medici family patronage of the arts is recognized for being responsible for the
majority of Florintine art during the Renaissance.
14 Gioria Sepe and Alessia Anzivino, ‘Guccification: Redefining Luxury through
Art – the Gucci Revolution’, in The Artification of Luxury Fashion Brands (Cham:
Palgrave, 2020): 89–112.
15 Dyer, The Culture of Queers, 206.
16 Maria Carmela Ostillio and Sarah Ghaddar, ‘Salvatore Ferragamo: Brand Heritage
as Main Vector of Brand Exension and Internationalization’, in Fashion Branding
and Communication, eds. Byoungho Jin and Elena Cedrola (New York: Palgrave,
2017): 73–99.
17 ‘Previous Exhibitions’, Museo Salvatore Ferragamo (2020): viewed on 20 August
2020, https://www.ferragamo.com/museo/en/usa/exhibitions/archive/
18 ‘Italy in Hollywood’, Museo Salvatore Farragamo, curated by Giuliana Musico and
Steffania Ricci, 24 May 2018–10 March 2019.
19 Lipovetsky and Manlow, ‘The “Artialization” of Luxury Stores’, 165.
20 Joan Juliette Buck, ‘Everybody’s All-American’, Vogue (America) (February 1992):
203.
21 See collections for spring/summer 2012, spring/summer 2019; ‘Ralph Lauren
Advertisement’, Vogue (America) (October 2010): C2 1–7.
22 Ralph Lauren cited in Kathleen Baird-Murray, Vogue on Ralph Lauren (New York:
Abrams, 2015): 41.
23 Teri Agins, The End of Fashion (New York: HarperCollins, 2009): 87.
24 Christopher Gray, ‘From a Mysterious Mansion to a Ralph Lauren Store’, The New
York Times (7 October 2010): viewed on 19 August 2020, https://www.nytimes.
com/2010/10/10/realestate/10scapes.html
25 Ralph Lauren cited in Jon Roth, ‘Dream House: How Ralph Lauren Created a Retail
Revolution on Maddison Avenue’, Ralph Lauren: viewed on 19 August 2020, https://
www.ralphlauren.com.au/en/style-guide/dream-house
26 Ibid.
27 Ann Boyd cited in Baird-Murray, Vogue on Ralph Lauren, 84.
28 Tom Shone, ‘Great Expectations’, Vogue (America) (May 2013): 246–55, 314.
29 Emma Ciufo, ‘Miuccia Prada Unveils Great Gatsby Costumes’, Harper’s Bazaar
(22 January 2013): viewed on 20 August 2020, https://www.harpersbazaar.com.au/
fashion/miuccia-prada-unveils-great-gatsby-costumes-7451
30 Adam Stockhausen cited in Matt Zoller Seitz, The Wes Anderson Collection: Grand
Budapest Hotel (New York: Abrams, 2015): 160.
 Notes 177

31 Wes Anderson, ‘Bar Luce’, in Quaderno Fondazione Prada #8 (Milan: Fondazione

Prada, 2016): 48.
32 Ibid.
33 Karinna Nobbs, Christopher Moore and Mandy Sheridan, ‘The Flagship Format
within the Luxury Fashion Market’, International Journal of Retail & Distribution
Management, 40:12 (2012): 923.
34 Susan B. Kaiser, Fashion and Cultural Studies (London and New York: Bloomsbury,
2012).
35 Coral Moera Hernandez, ‘Patronage, Public Relations and Philanthropy: Fendi for
Fountains Case Study’, Revista de Communication Vivat Academia, 18:133 (2015):
80–124.
36 Eugenia Paulicelli, ‘Reframing History: Federico Fellini’s Rome, Fashion and
Costume’, Film, Fashion and Consumption, 8:1 (2019): 72.
37 Lauren Alexis Fisher, ‘Inside Fendi’s Breathtaking Couture Show at Rome’s Trevi
Fountain’, Harper’s Bazaar (8 July 2016): viewed on 24 August 2020, https://www.
harpersbazaar.com/fashion/fashion-week/news/a16573/fendi-couture-show-at-
trevi-fountain/; Nicole Phelps, ‘Fall 2016 Fendi’, Vogue (8 July 2016): viewed on 24
August 2020, https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2016-couture/fendi
38 See Paola Somma, ‘The Palazzo Civiltà Italiana: From Fascism to Fashion’, in The
Routledge Companion to Italian Fascist Architecture: Reception and Legacy, eds.
Kay Bea Jones, Stephanie Pilat (Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2020): 79–91; and
Jena Loncar, ‘F is for … Fluctuating Symbolism: The Palazzo Civiltà Italiana and
its Shifting Meaning’, in The Routledge Companion to Italian Fascist Architecture:
Reception and Legacy, eds. Kay Bea Jones, Stephanie Pilat (Oxon and New York:
Routledge, 2020): 92–110. While both of these chapters make similar arguments,
they do not examine its presence in film as here.
39 ‘Fendi Studios Exhibition Celebrates Close Bond between Fendi and the Cinema’,
LVMH (30 October 2017): viewed on 20 August 2020, https://www.lvmh.com/
news-documents/news/fendi-studios-exhibition-celebrates-close-bonds-between-
fendi-and-the-cinema/
40 Philip Morgan, Italian Fascism: 1915–1945 (London: Palgrave McMillan, 2004):
143.
41 Fendi CEO Pietro Beccari cited in Somma, ‘The Palazzo Civiltà Italiana: From
Fascism to Fashion’, 79.
42 Karl Lagerfeld cited in Loncar, ‘F is for … Fluctuating Symbolism: The Palazzo
Civiltà Italiana and Its Shifting Meaning’, 99.
43 Owen Hatherly, ‘Fendi Vidi Vici: When Fashion Flirts with Fascism’, The
Architectural Review (3 March 2015): viewed on 20 August 2020, https://www.
architectural-review.com/essays/fendi-vidi-vici-when-fashion-flirts-with-fascism
44 Miles Glendinning, Architecture’s Evil Empire: The Triumph and Tragedy of Global
Modernism (London: Reaktion, 2010).
178 Notes

45 Lipovetsky and Manlow, ‘The “Artialization” of Luxury Stores’, 165. See also Giles
Lipovetsky and Jean Serroy, L’Ecran Global: Culture-médias et Cinéma à l’âge
Hypermoderne (Paris: Seuil, 2007).
46 Lipovetsky and Manlow, ‘The “Artialization” of Luxury Stores’, 165.
47 Elise Romano, ‘Aesop Channels Bond in London’s Most Instagrammable Store’,
DMARGE (18 November 2017): viewed on 4 September 2020, https://www.dmarge.
com/2017/11/aesop-london-flagship.html; Alice Morby, ‘NC Design & Architecture
Hides Hong Kong Restaurant behind Grocery Stall’, Dezeen (17 February 2016):
viewed on 4 September 2020, https://www.dezeen.com/2016/02/17/nc-design-
architecture-mak-mak-hong-kong-restaurant-hidden-behind-thai-grocery-stall/;
Ali Morris, ‘Gold Palm Trees Adorn the Monochromatic Interior of Darial Concept
Store in Barcelona’, Dezeen (25 November 2019): viewed on 4 September 2020,
https://www.dezeen.com/2019/11/25/darial-store-barcelona-djaba-diassamidze/
48 India Mahdavi, ‘REDValentino Sloan Street London’, indiamahdavi.com (2016):
viewed on 4 September 2020, https://india-mahdavi.com/project/red-valentino-
sloan-street/
49 India Mahdavi cited in Fiona McCarthy, ‘Shared Vision’, Wish: The Australian
Magazine (March 2020): 46.

Conclusion

1 Brandi Thompson Summers, ‘Race as Aesthetic: The Politics of Vision, Visibility

and Visuality in Vogue Italia’s “A Black Issue”’, QED: A Journal in QLBTQ
Worldmaking, 4:3 (2017): 81–108.
2 Morgan C. Schimminger, ‘Report: Racial Diversity Ticks Up Slightly, Size, Age and
Gender Representation all Drop for Fashion Month Spring 2021’, The Fashion Spot
(19 October 2020): viewed on 5 January 2021, https://www.thefashionspot.com/
runway-news/858789-diversity-report-fashion-month-spring–2021/
3 For discussion on Josephine Baker and fashion see: Jennifer Sweeny-Risko,
‘Fashionable “Formation”: Reclaiming the Sartorial Politics of Josephine Baker’,
Australian Feminist Studies, 33:98 (2018): 498–514; Benneta Jules-Rosette,
‘Spectacular Dress: Africanisms in the Fashions and Performances of Josephine
Baker’, in African Dress: Fashion, Agency, Performance, eds. Karen Tranberg Hansen
and D. Soyini Madison (London: Bloomsbury, 2013). For discussion on Loos
Baker House imagined for the entertainer see: Colomina, ‘The Split Wall: Domestic
Voyeurism’, 73–130; Anne Anlin Cheng, Second Skin: Josephine Baker and the
Modern Surface (London: Oxford, 2011).
4 Anne Anlin Cheng, ‘Skin Fashion: Josephine Baker and Dressing Race’, Nka:
Journal of Contemporary African Art, 37 (2015): 6–15.
 Notes 179

5 Yrsa Daly-Ward, ‘Women of the Year: Lashana Lynch on Making History as

the First Black Female 007’, Harper’s Bazaar (3 November 2020): viewed on 23
November 2020, https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/culture-news/
a34517814/lashana-lynch-black-female-007-interview/
6 Monica L. Miller, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black
Diasporic Identity (Durham and London: Durham University Press, 2009).
7 Ibid., 228.
8 Lori Kindo Lopez, ‘Racism and Mainstream Media’, in Race and Media: Critical
Approaches, ed. Lori Kindo Lopez (New York: New York University Press, 2020):
13–26.
9 Olivia Khoo, ‘Writing about Transnational Cinema: Crazy Rich Asians,’ in Writing
About Screen Media, ed. Lisa Patti (Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2020): 75–8.
10 Jasmine Ariel Ting, ‘The Crazy Rich Style of Crazy Rich Asians,’ Vanity Fair
(14 August 14 2018): viewed on 23 November 2020, https://www.vanityfair.
com/style/2018/08/the-crazy-rich-style-of-crazy-rich-asians; Cathy Whitlock,
‘Here’s Why all the Sets in Crazy Rich Asians Look so Authentic and, Well Rich’,
Architectural Digest, 9 August 2018, available 23 November 2020, https://www.
architecturaldigest.com/story/crazy-rich-asians-sets
11 Galt, Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image.
12 Ibid., 304.
13 For discussion of Bollywood costume and fashion see Deepsikha Chatterjee and
Cheri Vasek, ‘Bollywood: Cross Pollination between Film Costumes and Fashion’,
Fashion Practice, 12:2 (2020): 219–44.
14 See for example SHOWStudio, ‘Rejecting the White Gaze: Black Photographers in
Fashion’, (31 October 2020): viewed on 5 January 2020, https://www.showstudio.
com/projects/black-history-month/panel-discussion-the-future-of-fashion-
photography?autoplay=1; ‘A Certain Romance’ (24 October 2019): viewed on 5
January 2020, https://www.showstudio.com/projects/certain-romance; ‘Tino Kamal
Cry’ (16 November 2019): viewed on 5 January 2020, https://www.showstudio.com/
projects/cry
15 Susan Best, ‘From Representation to Affect: Beyond Postmodern Identity Politics
in Feminist Art’, in A Companion to Feminist Art, eds. Hillary Robinson and Maria
Elena Buszek (New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, 2019): 415.
16 Valentina, ‘How Valentina from RuPaul’s Drag Race Becomes Fabulous’, (23 June
2017): viewed on 5 January 2020, https://www.vogue.com/article/valentina-
rupauls-drag-race-hair-makeup
17 See Anlin Cheng, Second Skin for an excellent treatise on skin as a cinematic
surface.
 Filmography

In accordance with the content of the book the filmography lists production designers/
art directors, set designers and costume designers.

A Single Man. Dir. Tom Ford. Prod Des. Dan Bishop. Set. Amy Wells. Cos. Arianne
Phillips. Perf. Colin Firth, Julianne Moore. Fade to Black, 2009.
Adam’s Rib. Dir. George Cukor. Art Dir. Cedric Gibbons, Hobe Erwin. Cos. Walter
Plunkett. Perf. Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy. MGM, 1949.
All That Heaven Allows. Dir. Douglas Sirk. Set. Russel A. Gausman, Julia Heron. Cos. Bill
Thomas. Perf. Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson. Universal International Pictures, 1955.
Amarcord. Dir. Federico Fellini. Prod. Des. Danilo Donati. Cos. Danilo Donati. Perf.
Magali Noel, Bruno Zanin. F.C. Produzioni, 1973.
American Gigolo. Dir. Paul Schrader. Set. George Gaines. Cos. Giorgio Armani,
Bernadene C. Mann. Perf. Richard Gere, Lauren Hutton. Paramount Pictures, 1980.
And the Ship Sails On. Dir. Federico Fellini. Prod Des. Dante Ferretti. Set. Francesca Lo
Schiavo. Cos. Maurizio Millenotti. Perf. Fressie Jones, Barbara Jefford. Rai 1, 1983.
Au Bonheur des Dames. Dir. Julien Duvivier. Set. Christian Jaque, Fernand Delattre.
Cos. Gerlaur Marthe Pinchard. Perf. Dita Parlo, Ginette Maddie. Le Film d’Art, 1930.
Australia. Dir. Baz Luhrmann. Prod Des. Catherine Martin. Set. Beverly Dunn. Cos.
Catherine Martin (Salvatore Ferragamo). Perf. Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman.
Twentieth Century Fox, 2008.
Barbarella. Dir. Roger Vadim. Prod. Des. Mario Garbuglia. Cos. Jacques Fonteray, Paco
Rabanne. Perf. Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law. Marianne Productions and Dino de
Laurentis Cinematografica, 1968.
Belle de Jour. Dir. Luis Bunuel. Set Robert Clavel. Cos Helene Nourry (Yves Saint
Laurent). Perf. Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel. Paris Film Productions, 1967.
Blade Runner. Dir. Ridley Scott. Art Dir. David L. Snyder. Set. Linda DeScenna. Cos.
Michael Kaplan, Charles Knode. Perf. Harrison Ford, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah.
Warner Bros., 1982.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Dir. Blake Edwards. Set. Sam Comer, Ray Moyer. Cos. Hubert de
Givenchy, Edith Head. Perf. Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard. Jurow-Shepherd, 1961.
Boccaccio ’70- ‘Le Tentazioni del Dottor Antonio’ (The Temptation of Dr Antonio)
(episode). Dir. Federico Fellini. Prod Des. Piero Zuffi. Cos. Piero Zuffi. Perf. Anita
Ekberg, Peppino De Filippo. Cineriz, 1962.
Call Me by Your Name. Dir. Luca Guadagnino. Art Dir. Roberta Federico. Set. Muriel
Chinal, Sandro Piccarozzi, Violante Visconti di Modrone. Cos. Giulia Piersanti. Perf.
Arnie Hammer, Timothee Chalamet. Frenesy Film Company, 2017.
 Filmography 181

Camille. Dir. Ray Smallwood. Art Dir. Natacha Rombova. Cos. Natacha Rombova. Perf.
Rudolph Valentino, Alla Nazimova. Nazimova Productions, 1921.
Carol. Dir. Todd Haynes. Art Dir. Jesse Rosenthal. Prod Des. Judy Becker. Set. Heather
Loeffler. Cos. Sandy Powell. Perf. Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara. The Weinstein
Company, 2015.
Casino Royale. Dir. Martin Campbell. Prod. Des. Peter Lamont. Cos. Brioni, Lindy
Hemming. Perf. Daniel Craig, Eva Green. Eon Productions, Columbia Pictures,
2006.
Castello Cavalcanti (short). Dir. Wes Anderson. Prod Des. Stefano Maria. Set. Cristina
Onori. Cos. Milena Canonero. Perf. Jason Schwartzman, Giada Colagrande. Prada,
2013.
Chariots of Fire. Dir. Hugh Hudson. Art Dir. Jonathan Amberston. Cos. Milena
Canonero. Perf. Ben Cross. Enigma Productions, 1981.
Cléo de 5 à 7 (Cléo from 5 to 7). Dir. Agnes Varda. Art Dir. Bernard Evans. Cos. Alyette
Samazeuilh. Perf. Corinne Marchand. Cine-Tamaris, 1962.
Crazy Rich Asians. Dir. Jon M. Chu. Prod. Des. Nelson Coates. Set. Andrew Baseman.
Cos. Mary E. Vogt. Per. Constance Wu, Henry Golding. Warner Bros., 2018.
Dames. Dir. Ray Enright, Busby Berkeley. Art Dir. Robert Haas. Cos. Orry-Kelly. Perf.
Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler. Warner Bros., 1934.
Dangerous Liasons. Dir. Stephen Frears. Art Dir. Gavin Bocquet, Gerard Viard. Set.
Gerard James. Cos. James Acheson. Perf. Glenn Close, John Malkovich. Lorimar
Film Entertainment, Warner Bros., 1988.
Danse Serpentine (Serpentine Dance). Dir. Louis Lumiere. Perf. Lois Fuller. Lumiere,
1896.
Daughter of the Dragon. Dir. Lloyd Corrigan. Cos. Edith Head. Perf. Anna May Wong,
Warner Oland. Paramount Pictures, 1931.
Dead Poets Society. Dir. Peter Weir. Prod. Des. Sandy Veneziano. Set. John Anderson.
Cos. Nancy Konrardy. Perf. Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard. Touchstone
Pictures, 1989.
Devdas. Dir. Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Prod. Des. Nitin Chandrakant Desi. Cos. Abu Jani,
Sandeep Khosla, Neeta Lulla. Perf. Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Red
Chillies Entertainment, Mega Bollywood, 2002.
Diamonds Are Forever. Dir. Guy Hamilton. Prod. Des. Ken Adam. Set. John Austin,
Peter Lamont. Cos. Anthony Sinclair, Donfeld. Perf. Sean Connery, Jill St. John,
Charles Gray. Eon Productions, 1971.
Dinner at Eight. Dir. George Cukor. Art Dir. Cedric Gibbons, Hobe Erwin. Cos. Adrian.
Perf. Jean Harlow, John Barrymore. MGM, 1933.
Distant Planet: The Six Chapters of Simona (Documentary). Dir. Josh Blaaberg. Prod.
Jaqueline Edinbrow, James Galey. Frieze and Gucci, 2019.
Dr. No. Dir. Terrance Young. Prod. Des. Ken Adam. Cos. Anthony Sinclair, Tess
Prendergast. Perf. Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman. Eon
Productions, 1962.
182 Filmography

Dynamite. Dir. Cecil B. DeMille. Art Dir. Cedric Gibbons, Mitchell Leisen. Cos. Adrian.
Perf. Kay Johnson, Conrad Nagel. MGM, 1929.
Ever After: A Cinderella Story. Dir. Andy Tennant. Set. Judy Farr. Cos. Jenny Beavan
(Salvatore Ferragamo). Perf. Drew Barrymore, Anjelica Huston. Twentieth Century
Fox, 1998.
Evita. Dir. Alan Parker. Set. Philippe Turlure. Cos. Penny Rose (Salvatore Ferragamo).
Perf. Maddona. Hollywood Pictures, 1996.
Far from Heaven. Dir. Todd Haynes. Art Dir. Peter Rogness. Prod Des. Mark Friedberg.
Set. Ellen Christiansen. Cos. Sandy Powell. Perf. Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid.
Focus Features, 2002.
Funny Face. Dir. Stanley Donen. Art Dir. George W. Davis. Set. Sam Comer. Cos.
Edith Head, Hubert De Givenchy. Perf. Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire. Paramount
Pictures, 1957.
Gareth Pugh Pitti Immagine #79 (short). Dir. Roth Hogben. SHOWstudio, 2011.
Gilda. Dir. Charles Vidor. Art Dir. Stephen Goosson, Van Nest Polglase. Set. Robert
Priestly. Cos. Jean Lois. Perf. Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford. Columbia Pictures, 1946.
Gold Diggers of 1933. Dir. Mervyn LeRoy. Art Dir. Anton Grot. Cos. Orry-Kelly. Perf.
Joan Blondel, Aline Macmahon, Warren William. Warner Bros., 1933.
Goldfinger. Dir. Guy Hamilton. Prod Des. Ken Adam. Cos. Anthony Sinclair, Elsa
Fennell. Perf. Sean Connery, Honor Blackman, Gert Frobe. Eon Productions, 1964.
Gone with the Wind. Dir. Victor Flemming. Art Dir. Lyle R. Wheeler. Set. Howard
Bristol. Cos. Walter Plunkett. Perf. Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable. Metro-Goldwyn-
Mayer, 1939.
Grand Hotel. Dir. Edmund Goulding. Art Dir. Cedric Gibbons. Cos. Adrian. Perf. Greta
Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford. Metro Goldwyn Mayer, 1932.
Heartbeats. Dir. Xavier Dolan. Art Dir. Xavier Dolan. Set. Delphine Gelinas. Cos. Xavier
Dolan. Perf. Monia Chokri, Niels Schneider, Xavier Dolan. Mifilifilms, 2010.
How to Marry a Millionaire. Dir. Jean Negulesco. Art Dir. Leland Fuller, Lyle R.
Wheeler. Set. Stuart A. Reiss, Walter M. Scott. Cos. Travilla. Perf. Marilyn Monroe,
Betty Grable, Lauren Bacall. Twentieth Century Fox, 1953.
Hum Dil De Chuke Sena. Dir. Sanjay Leela Bahnsali. Art Dir. Nitin Desai. Cos. Shabina
Khan, Neeta Lulla. Perf. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Salman Khan. Bhansali Films,
1999.
I Am Love (Io sonno l’amore). Dir. Luca Guadagnino. Prod. Des. Francesca Di Mottola.
Set. Monica Sironi. Cos. Antonella Cannarozzi. Perf. Tilda Swinton, Flavio Parenti.
First Sun, 2009.
Il Conformista (The Conformist). Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci. Prod. Des. Ferdinando
Scarfiotti. Set. Maria Paola Maino. Cos. Gitt Magrini. Perf. Jean-Louis Trintignant,
Stefania Sandrelli. Mars Film, 1970.
In the Mood for Love (Fa yeung nin wah). Dir. Wong Kar-Wai. Prod. Des. William
Chang. Cos. William Chang. Perf. Maggie Cheung, Tony Chiu-Wai Leung. Block 2
Pictures, 2000.
 Filmography 183

L’Atalante. Dir. Jean Vigo. Art Dir. Francis Jourdain. Perf. Dita Parlo, Jean Daste.
Gaumont-Franco Film-Aubert, 1934.
La Dolce Vita. Dir. Federico Fellini. Prod. Des. Piero Gherardi. Cos. Piero Gherardi.
Perf. Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg. Riama Film, 1960.
La Donna Scimmia (The Ape Woman). Dir. Marco Ferreri. Art Dir. Mario Garbuglia.
Set. Ferdinando Giovannoni. Cos. Vera Marzot, Piero Tosi. Perf. Ugo Tognazzi,
Annie Giardot. Compagnia Cinematografica Champion, 1964.
La Femme de Nulle (The Woman from Nowhere). Dir. Louis Delluc. Art Dir. Francis
Jourdain. Perf. Eve Francis, Gine Avril. Cosmograph, 1922.
La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game). Dir. Jean Renoir. Prod. Des. Max Doy. Cos.
Coco Chanel. Perf. Marcel Dalio, Nora Gregor. Nouvelles Editions de Films, 1939.
La Sirène des Tropiques (Siren of the Tropics). Dir. Henri Étiévant and Mario Nalpas.
Prod. Des. Eugène Carré and Pierre Schild. Perf. Josephine Baker, Pierre Batcheff. La
Centrale Cinématographique, 1927.
La Sirène du Mississippi (Mississippi Mermaid). Dir. Francois Truffaut. Set. Claude
Pignot. Cos. Yves Saint Laurent. Perf. Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Belmondo. Les
Films du Carrosse, Les Productions Artistes Associes, 1969.
Laurence Anyways. Dir. Xavier Dolan. Art Dir. Colombe Raby. Prod. Des. Anne
Pritchard. Cos. Francois Barbeau, Xavier Dolan. Perf. Melvil Poupaud, Suzanne
Clement. Lyla Films, 2012.
L’Elegance (short). Prod. Sonia Delaunay. Cos. Sonia Delaunay. 1926.
Le Double Amour (Double Love). Dir. Jean Epstein. Art Dir. Pierre Kefer. Cos. Charles
Drecoll, Paul Poiret. Films Albatros, 1925.
Le P’tit Parigot (The Little Parisian). Dir. René Le Somptier. Prod. Des. Robert Delaunay,
Robert Mallet-Stevens. Cos. Sonia Delaunay. Perf. Marcel Archad, Marquisette
Bosky. Luminor, 1926.
Le Vertige (The Living Image). Dir. Marcel L’Herbier. Prod. Des. Pierre Chareau, Robert
Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, Jean Lurcat, Robert Mallet-Stevens. Cos. Jacques Manuel,
Sonia Delaunay. Perf. Jaque Catelain, Emmy Lynn. Cinegraphic, 1926.
Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg). Dir. Jaques Demy. Prod. Des.
Bernard Evin. Cos. Jacqueline Moreau. Perf. Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo.
Parc Film, 1964.
Letty Lynton. Dir. Clarence Brown. Art Dir. Cedric Gibbons. Cos. Adrian. Perf. Joan
Crawford, Robert Montgomery. MGM 1932.
L’Inhumaine (The Inhuman Woman). Dir. Marcel L’Herbier. Art Dir. Claude Autant
Lara, Alberto Cavalcanti. Set. Robert Mallet-Stevens (arch), Cos. Paul Poiret. Perf.
Georgette Leblanc, Jaque Catelain. Cinegraphic, 1924.
Looking for Langston. Dir. Isaac Julien. Art Dir. Derek Brown. Cos. Robert Worley. Perf.
Ben Ellison, Matthew Baidoo, Akim Mogaji. British Film Institute and Sankofa Film
and Video, 1989.
Male and Female. Dir. Cecil B. DeMille. Art Dir. Wilfred Buckland. Cos. Paul Iribe,
Clare West. Perf. Gloria Swanson, Thomas Meighan. Paramount Pictures, 1919.
184 Filmography

Mannequin. Dir. Frank Borzage. Art Dir. Cedric Gibbons. Cos. Adrian. Perf. Joan
Crawford, Spencer Tracey. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1937.
Marie Antoinette. Dir. Sofia Coppola. Prod. Des. K.K. Barrett. Set. Veronique Melery.
Cos. Milena Canonero. Perf. Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman. Columbia Pictures,
2006.
Maurice. Dir. James Ivory. Art Dir. Peter James, Brian Savegar. Prod. Des. Brian
Ackland-Snow. Cos. Jenny Beaven, John Bright, William Pierce. Perf. James Wilby,
Hugh Grant, Rupert Graves. Merchant Ivory Productions, 1987.
Metropolis. Dir. Friz Lang. Art Dir. Otto Hunte. Cos. Aenne Willkomm. Perf. Brigitte
Helm, Alfred Abel. Universum Film, 1927.
Mommy. Dir. Xavier Dolan. Prod. Des. Colombe Raby. Set. Jean-Charles Claveau,
Pascale Dechenes. Cos. Francoise Barbeau, Xavier Dolan. Perf. Anne Dorval,
Susanne Clement, Antoine Olivier Pilon. Les Films Seville, 2014.
Mon Oncle. Dir. Jacques Tati. Prod. Des. Henri Schmitt. Set. Henri Schmitt. Cos. Jacques
Cottin. Perf. Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie. Specta Films, 1958.
Monsoon Wedding. Dir. Mira Nair. Prod. Des. Stephanie Carroll. Cos. Arjun Bhasin.
Perf. Naseeruddin Shah, Lillete Dubey. IFC Productions, 2001.
My Fair Lady. Dir. George Cukor. Art Dir. Cecil Beaton. Cos. Cecil Beaton. Perf. Audrey
Hepburn, Rex Harrison. Warner Bros., 1964.
North by Northwest. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Prod. Des. Robert Boyle. Set Henry Grace,
Frank McKelvy. Cos. French Klingour, Harry Cress Stanbury. Perf. Cary Grant, Eva
Marie Saint, James Mason. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1959.
Our Dancing Daughters. Dir. Harry Beaumont. Art Dir. Cedric Gibbons. Cos. David
Cox. Perf. Joan Crawford, Nils Asther, Johnny Mack Brown. MGM, 1928.
Out of Africa. Dir. Sydney Pollack. Prod. Des. Stephen B. Grimes. Set. Josie MacAvin.
Cos. Milena Canonero. Perf. Meryl Streep, Robert Redford. Mirage Enterprises,
1985.
Paris Is Burning (Documentary). Dir. Jennie Livingston. Cast. Venus Xtravaganza,
Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, Willi Ninja. Art Matters, 1990.
Pillow Talk. Dir. Michael Gordon. Art Dir. Richard H. Riedel. Set. Russell A.
Gausman, Ruby R. Levitt. Cos. Bill Thomas. Perf. Doris Day, Rock Hudson. Arwin
Productions, 1959.
Playtime. Dir. Jacques Tati. Prod. Des. Eugene Roman. Cos. Jacques Cottin. Perf.
Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek. Specta Films, 1967.
Prada Candy (short). Dir. Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola. Cos. Prada. Perf. Peter
Gadiot, Lea Seydoux. Prada, 2013.
Pretty Woman. Dir. Garry Marshall. Prod. Des. Albery Brenner. Art Dir. Davis M.
Haber. Set. Garrett Lewis. Cos. Marilyn Vance. Perf. Julia Roberts, Richard Gere.
Touchstone Pictures, 1990.
Princess Tam-Tam. Dir. Edmond T. Gréville. Set. Guy de Gastyne. Cos. Gaston, Philippe
Zanel. Perf. Josephine Baker, Albert Préjean. Productions Arys, 1935.
 Filmography 185

Quantum of Solace. Dir. Marc Forster. Prod. Des. Dennis Gassner. Set. Anna Pinnock.
Cos. Tom Ford, Louise Frogley. Perf. Daniel Craig. Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu
Amalric. Eon Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Columbia Pictures, 2008.
Queen Christina. Dir. Rouben Mamoulian. Art Dir. Alexander Toluboff. Set. Edwin B.
Willis. Cos. Adrian. Perf. Greta Garbo, John Gilbert. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1933.
Rain. Dir. Lewis Milestone. Art Dir. Richard Day. Cos. Milo Anderson. Perf. Joan
Crawford, Walter Hudson. Lewis Milestone Production, 1932.
Rear Window. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Art Dir. Joseph McMillan Johnson, Hal Pereira.
Set. Sam Comer, Ray Moyer. Cos. Edith Head. Perf. James Stewart, Grace Kelly.
Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions, 1954.
Red-Headed Woman. Dir. Jack Conway. Art Dir. Cedric Gibbons. Cos. Adrian. Perf.
Jean Harlow, Chester Morris. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1932.
Roberta. Dir. William A. Seiter. Art Dir. Van Nest Polglasse. Cos. Bernard Newman.
Perf. Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers. RKO Radio Pictures, 1935.
Roma Città Aperta (Rome, Open City). Dir. Roberto Rossellini. Prod. Des. Rosario
Megna. Perf. Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani. Excelsa Film, 1945.
Rope. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Art Dir. Perry Ferguson. Set. Howard Bristol, Emile Kuri.
Perf. James Stuart, John Dall, Farley Granger. Warner Bros., 1948.
Sabrina. Dir. Billy Wilder. Art Dir. Hal Pereira. Cos. Hubert De Givenchy. Per. Audrey
Hepburn, Humphery Bogart. Paramount Pictures, 1954.
Salome. Dir. Charles Bryant. Art Dir. Natacha Rombova. Cos. Natacha Rombova. Perf.
Alla Nazimova. Nazimova Productions, 1923.
Sign of the Cross. Dir. Cecil B. DeMille. Art Dir. Mitchell Leisen. Cos. Mitchell Leisen.
Perf. Claudette Colbert, Fredric March. Paramount Pictures, 1929.
Shanghai Express. Dir. Josef von Sternberg. Art Dir. Hans Dreier. Cos. Travis Banton.
Perf. Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, Clive Brook. Paramount Pictures, 1932.
Skyfall. Dir. Sam Mendes. Prod. Des. Dennis Gassner. Set. Anna Pinock. Cos. Tom
Ford, Jany Temime. Perf. Daniel Craig, Naomie Harris, Javier Bardem, Judi Dench.
Eon Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 2012.
Skyscraper Souls. Dir. Edgar Selwyn. Art Dir. Cedric Gibbons. Perf. Warren William,
Maureen O’Sullivan. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1932.
Spectre. Dir. Sam Mendes. Prod. Des. Dennis Gassner. Cos. Tom Ford, Jany Temime.
Perf. Daniel Craig, Lea Seydoux, Christoph Waltz. Eon Productions, Columbia
Pictures, 2015.
Stolen Holiday. Dir. Michael Curtiz. Art Dir. Anton Grot. Cos. Orry-Kelly. Perf. Kay
Francis, Claude Rains. Warner Bros., 1937.
Swing Time. Dir. George Stevens. Art Dir. Van Nest Polglase. Cos. Bernard Newman.
Perf. Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers. RKO Radio Pictures, 1936.
The Affairs of Anatol. Dir. Cecil B. DeMille. Art Dir. Paul Iribe. Cos. Paul Iribe, Clare
West. Perf. Gloria Swanson, Wallace Reid. Famous Players-Lasky, 1921.
The Belly of an Architect. Dir. Peter Greenaway. Prod. Des. Ben van Os. Cos. Maurizio
Millenotti. Perf. Brian Dennehy, Chloe Webb. Callendar Company, 1987.
186 Filmography

The Best of Everything. Dir. Jean Negulesco. Set. Stuart A. Reiss, Walter M. Scott.
Cos. Adele Palmer. Perf. Suzy Parker, Hope Lange, Joan Crawford. Jerry Wald
Productions and The Company of Artists, 1959.
The Big Sleep. Dir. Howard Hawkes. Art Dir. Carl Jules Weyl, Max Parker. Set. Fred M.
Maclean. Cos. Leah Rhodes. Perf. Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall. Warner Bros.,
1946.
The Darjeeling Limited. Dir. Wes Anderson. Art Dir. Aradhana Seth. Set. Suzanne
Caplan Merwanji, Aradhana Seth. Cos. Milena Canonero (Louis Vuitton). Perf.
Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2007.
The Favourite. Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos. Art Dir. Caroline Barclay. Set. Alice Felton. Cos.
Sandy Powell. Perf. Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weiz. Fox Searchlight
Pictures, 2018.
The Fountainhead. Dir. King Vidor. Art Dir. Edward Carrere. Set. William L. Kuehl.
Cos. Milo Anderson. Perf. Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal. Warner Bros., 1949.
The Grand Budapest Hotel. Dir. Wes Anderson. Prod. Des. Adam Stockhausen. Set.
Anna Pinnock. Cos. Milena Canonero. Perf. Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham. Fox
Searchlight Pictures, 2014.
The Great Gatsby. Dir. Jack Clayton. Prod. Des. John Box. Set. Peter Howitt, Herbert
F. Mulligan. Cos. Theoni V. Aldredge (Ralph Lauren). Perf. Robert Redford, Mia
Farrow. Paramount Pictures, 1974.
The Great Gatsby. Dir. Baz Luhrmann. Prod. Des. Catherine Murphy. Set Michelle
Costello. Cos. Catherine Murphy (Prada, Brooks Brothers). Perf. Leonardo di
Caprio, Carey Mulligan, Toby Maguire. Warner Bros., 2013.
The Joy Luck Club. Dir. Wayne Wang. Prod. Des. Donald Graham Burt. Set. Jim Poynter.
Cos. Lydia Tanji. Perf. Tamlyn Tomita, Rosalind Chao, Kieu Chinh. Hollywood
Pictures, 1993.
The Kiss. Dir. Jacques Feyder. Art Dir. Cedric Gibbons. Cos. Adrian. Perf. Greta Garbo,
Anders Randolf, Conrad Nagel. MGM, 1929.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Dir. Wes Anderson. Prod. Des. Mark Friedberg.
Set. Gretchen Rau. Cos. Milena Canonero. Perf. Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Cate
Blanchett. Touchstone Pictures, 2004.
The Moon is Blue. Dir. Otto Preminger. Art Dir. Nicolai Remisoff. Set. Edward G. Boyle.
Cos. Don Loper. Perf. William Holden, Maggie McNamara. Otto Preminger Films,
1953.
The Royal Tenenbaums. Dir. Wes Anderson. Prod. Des David Wasco. Set. Sandy
Reynolds-Wasco. Cos. Karen Patch. Perf. Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston.
Touchstone Pictures, 2001.
The Scent of Green Papaya (Mùi đu đủ xanh). Dir. Tran Anh Hung. Prod. Des.
Alain Nègre. Cos. Jean-Philippe Abril. Perf. Nu Yên-Khê Tran, Man San Lu. Les
Productions Lazennec, 1993.
The Single Standard. Dir. John S. Robertson. Art Dir. Cedric Gibbons. Cos. Adrian. Perf.
Greta Garbo, Nils Asther. MGM, 1929.
 Filmography 187

The Wizard of OZ. Dir. Victor Fleming. Art Dir. Cedric Gibbons. Set. Edwin B. Willis.
Cos. Adrian. Perf. Judy Garland, MGM, 1939.
The Women. Dir. George Cukor. Art Dir. Cedric Gibbons, George Gibson. Cos. Adrian.
Perf. Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford. MGM, 1939.
The World of Suzie Wong. Dir. Richard Quine. Set. Roy Rossotti. Cos. Betty Adamson.
Perf. Nancy Kwan, William Holden. World Enterprises, 1960.
The Young Diana. Dir. Albert Capellani, Robert G. Vignola. Art Dir. Joseph Urban. Cos.
Joseph Urban. Perf. Marion Davies, Maclyn Arbuckle. Cosmopolitan Productions,
1922.
Tonight or Never. Dir. Mervyn LeRoy. Cos. Coco Chanel. Perf. Gloria Swanson, Melvyn
Douglas. The Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1931.
Top Hat. Dir. Mark Sandrich. Art Dir. Van Nest Polglase. Cos. Bernard Newman. Perf.
Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers. RKO Radio Pictures, 1935.
Twin Beds. Dir. Tim Whelan. Art Dir. John Du Casse Schultz. Set. Edward Boyle. Cos.
Rene Hubert. Perf. Joan Bennet, George Brent. Edward Small Productions, 1942.
Under the Red Robe. Dir. Alan Crosland. Art Dir. Joseph Urban. Cos. Gretl Urban. Perf.
Robert Mantell, Alma Rubens. Cosmopolitan Productions, 1923.
Une Parisienne. Dir. Michel Boisrond. Prod. Des. Jean Andre. Art Dir (set). Pierre
Charron. Cos. Pierre Balmain, Pierre Nourry. Perf. Brigitte Bardot, Charles Boyer,
Henri Vidal. Les Films Ariane, 1957.
Valentino Haute Couture F/W 2021: Of Grace and Light (short). Dir. Nick Knight. Set.
Andrew Tomlinson. Cos. Valentino. Perf. Erika Lemay, Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe.
SHOWstudio, 2020.
Vertigo. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Art Dir. Henry Bumstead, Hal Pereira. Set. Sam
Comer, Frank McKelvy. Cos. Edith Head. Perf. James Stewart, Kim Novak.
Vogues of 1938. Dir. Irving Cummings. Art Dir. Alexander Toluboff. Cos. Helen Taylor.
Perf. Joan Bennett, Warner Baxter. Walter Wagner Productions, 1937.
Way Down East. Dir. D.W. Griffith. Art Dir. Clifford Pember. Cos. Henri Bendel,
O’Kane Conway, Lady Duff Gordon, Madame Lisette. Perf. Lillian Gish, Richard
Barthelmess. D.W.Griffith Productions, 1920.
Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? Dir. William Klein. Art Dir. Bernard Evein. Cos. Janine
Klein. Perf. Dorothy McGowan, Jean Rochefort. Delpire Productions, 1966.
Written on the Wind. Dir. Douglas Sirk. Art Dir. Robert Clatworthy, Alexander
Golitzen. Set. Russell A. Gausman, Julia Heron. Cos. Bill Thomas. Perf. Lauren
Bacall, Rock Hudson. Universal International Pictures, 1956.
You Only Live Twice. Dir. Lewis Gilbert. Prod. Des. Ken Adam. Cos. Anthony Sinclair,
Eileen Sullivan. Perf. Sean Connery, Mie Hamma, Tetsuro Tanba. Eon Productions
1967.
Ziegfeld Girl. Dir. Robert Z. Leonard, Busby Berkeley. Art Dir. Cedric Gibbons. Set.
Edwin B. Willis. Cos. Adrian. Perf. Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr, Lana Turner. MGM,
1941.
 Bibliography

Adcock, Michael. ‘Remaking Urban Space: Baron Haussmann and the Rebuilding of
Paris, 1851–1870’. University of Melbourne Library Journal 2:2 (1996): viewed on
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 Index

Note: page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.

Adam, Ken 7, 57, 58, 149 Babuscio, Jack 63–4

Adam’s Rib 22 Bacall, Lauren 31
Adcock, Michael 33 bachelor
Adrian, Gilbert 3, 18, 21, 35–6, 63, 84, character 24
88, 97 dandy 48–53, 60
advertising 14, 18, 31, 50, 53, 80–4, 108–9, pad 24, 53–60, 153
114, 121, 148, 157 queer 69–72
short-film 8, 27, 81, 83, 87–8, 139, Baker, Josephine 119, 151–2
141–2, 146 ballroom subculture 78–80
see also window shopping Bally (shoe company) 119
Affairs of Anatol, The (1921) 1, 32 Balmain 36
Agent Provocateur 93 Banham, Reyner 53
All that Heaven Allows (1955) 32, 68 Bar Luce 140–3, 141, 144
Amarcord (1973) 142 Barbarella (1968) 4
American audiences 14, 19, 20 Bardot, Brigitte 36–7
American consumers 34, 43–4, 60 Barneys 125
American Gigolo (1980) 6 The Bath (painting, Stevens, 1873–1874)
And the Ship Sails On 146 33
Anderson, Wes 82–3, 134, 140–3, 141, 149 bathrooms 13, 14, 18, 33–9, 42–3, 75, 138,
arcades 108, 111–12, 142 156–7
Armani 82, 105 Bauhaus 47
Art Deco Baum, L. Frank 108–9
definition 161 n.12 Beaton, Cecil 90, 96
denigration of 17–18, 43, 65 Becherer, Richard 119
furniture 7 Bechoff, House of 87
interiors 3, 16, 19, 20, 37–8, 38, 42–3, Becker, Judy 66
89, 121, 134, 139, 142 Beckham, Victoria 91
Art et Decoration (magazine) 20, 92, 116, Bedell Store 122
120 bedrooms 1, 8, 13, 14, 16–28, 39, 42–3, 54,
art house cinema 8, 13–14, 27, 132 55, 56, 59, 76, 138, 156–7
Art Nouveau 1, 3, 7, 55 Beer, Maison 86
artification 11, 127, 129, 130, 132–3, 134, Belle de Jour (1967) 5
155 Belly of an Architect, The (1987) 147
Astaire, Fred 98 Benjamin, Walter 57, 111
Au Bonheur des Dames (The Ladies Benshoff, Harry, and Sean Griffin 63
Paradise) (1884) 112 Berkeley, Busby 63, 95, 96, 97, 122
Australia (2008) 134 Berry, Sarah 85, 86
avant-garde cinema 11, 19, 41, 64, 81, 107, Bertolucci, Bernardo 147
112, 115–17, 128, 174 n.54 Best, Susan 16, 157
Avedon, Richard 92 Betsky, Aaron 71, 75
204 Index

Big Lebowski, The (1998) 58 Casino Royale (2006) 51, 61

Big Sleep, The (1946) 30 Castello Cavalcanti (2013) 141
Blade Runner (1982) 7, 126 Catelain, Jaque 118
Blake, Aston 153 catwalk 10, 77, 79, 83, 89, 125, 146, 151,
Blanchett, Cate 65, 66, 67, 73, 74 156
Block, Pierre 18–19 Cavalcanti, Alberto 116, 142
Bloomingdale’s 137 Cavalli, Roberto 126
Boccaccio ’ 70 (1962) 145, 146, 147 celebrity architects see starchitects
Body Double (1984) 58 Chanel, Gabrielle (Coco) 5, 90, 91–2, 137
Bollywood 125, 154, 156 Chanel, House of 11, 81, 89–91, 101, 105,
Bon Marche, Le 101–2, 102 155
Bond, James 9, 41–2, 50–3, 51, 52, 55, Chariots of Fire (1981) 136
57–9, 60, 61, 69, 124, 149, 152–3 Cheng, Anne Anlin 152
Bonney, Thérèse 119 cheongsam 26–7
boudoirs 1, 8, 13, 16, 18, 21, 24, 28–33, 34, Cheung, Maggie 26
39, 42–3, 54, 143 Chipperfield, David 105
Bourdieu, Pierre 11, 88, 89 Church Gibson, Pamela 5, 51, 81
Bourgoise, Louise 140 Cinderella 92, 96, 99, 134
boutiques 4, 103, 107, 112, 113–21, 131, Cinecitta studios 134
132, 136, 147, 148 cinema of attractions 125, 174 n.54
see also Fendi class distinction 7, 11, 41, 43, 48, 60, 89,
Boutique Simultanée 113, 113–14, 117 94–5, 96, 102, 111, 123, 138, 152,
Boyd, Ann 138 155
Boyle, Robert 44, 45 Clausen, Meredith 102
Boym, Svetlana 64 Clement, Suzanne 75
brand Cléo de 5 à 7 (Cléo from 5 to 7) (1962)
heritage 81, 91–2, 129, 130–50 111–12
heterotopia 11, 130–6, 143–4, 150, 155 Cleto, Fabio 75
luxury 11, 28, 102, 127, 129, 130–1, Colomina, Beatriz 43, 56–7
132, 143–4, 153, 155 Comer, Sam 3–4
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) 107, 143 commodification
Brioni 51 of bodies and spaces 11, 80, 155
Brooks Brothers 139 of history and nostalgia 11, 129,
Brosnan, Pierce 51 136–50, 155
Browne, Thom 83 of women 15, 38–9, 110, 122, 157
Brummell, Beau 47, 50 Condello, Annette 105
Bruzzi, Stella 6, 42 Conekin, Becky 53
Buck, Joan Juliette 136 Connery, Sean 42, 50, 51
Bulgari 144 Conor, Liz 15
Burberry 83 consumer culture
Butler, Judith 4, 10, 48, 77, 78–9 and men 9, 42, 53–60
reciprocity between cinema and 1, 2–3,
Callen, Anthea 34 6, 113, 117, 120–1
Call Me by Your Name (2017) 7 and sexuality 8, 9, 80–2, 84
Callot Soeurs 87 and women 1, 9, 13, 14–15, 18, 25,
Camille (1921) 1 38–9, 84, 109–11
camp 63–4, 68, 75–9, 83 see also boutiques; department stores;
Campbell, Naomi 94, 151 flagship stores; window shopping
Carol (2015) 9, 64, 65–7, 72–4, 80, 83, Coppola, Francis Ford 82–3
84, 124 Coppola, Roman 141
 Index 205

Coppola, Sofia 82–3, 91, 143 Dior, Christian

cosmetics 14, 27–8, 31–2, 34, 109 brand 11, 27, 81, 92–3, 93, 94, 101,
costume dramas 32–3 153, 155
Craig, Daniel 51–2, 52, 152 New Look 3, 37
Crawford, Joan 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 31, 34, Tulip-Line 3
35, 35–6, 39, 63 Dirix, Emmanuelle 30
Crazy Rich Asians (2018) 153–4, 155 display see boutiques; department stores;
Cukor, George 21, 29, 34, 35, 88 Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et
Culver, Stuart 108–9 Industriels Moderns; flagship stores;
stage, the; window shopping
Dafoe, Willem 142 Distant Planet: The Six Chapters of Simona
Dalton, Timothy 51 (2019) 132
Dames (1934) 96 Doane, Mary Ann 4, 9, 15, 48, 98–9
dandy, the 47–52, 53, 60, 117–18, 153, Doisneau, Robert 90
164n18 Dolan, Xavier 65, 75, 76, 77–8, 77–9, 83
Dangerous Liaisons (1989) 33 Dolce & Gabbana 103, 146
Danse Serpentine (1896) 125 domestic space 7, 8, 13, 14, 18, 41, 55–6,
Darjeeling Limited, The (2007) 134, 142 72, 149
Daughter of the Dragon (1931) 154 see also bathrooms; bedrooms;
Day, Doris 23, 23–4 boudoirs
De Beauvoir, Simone 37 Doucet, Jacques 118
Dead Poets Society (1989) 136 Dr No (1962) 50, 51, 57–8
décor 1, 7, 18, 19, 35, 41, 46, 87, 115–17, drag 77, 77–9, 78, 157
142 Drecoll, Charles 19, 87
and femininity 24, 27, 30–1, 54, 89 Duchamp, Marcel, Nude Descending a
and masculinity 24, 54 Staircase, No. 2 (1912) 91, 93
and queer sensibility 9, 60, 63–5, 70 Duff Gordon, Lady (Lucile) 86, 88, 95–6,
decoration 95
as feminine 1–2, 48, 68 Dufrêne, Maurice 18–19
and masculinity 53, 57, 61 Dulac, Germain 19
Delaunay, Robert 113 Duvivier, Julien 112
Delaunay, Sonia 11, 100, 107, 113, 113–14, Dyer, Richard 65
117–19, 118 Dynamite (1929) 34
Delluc, Louis 7, 19
DeMille, Cecil 1, 32, 33–4 Eames, Charles and Ray 7, 55
Demy, Jacques 123 Edwards, Blake see Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Deneuve, Catherine 5, 123–4 Ekberg, Anita 146
department stores see Barneys; Bedell; Eckert, Charles 14, 107
Bloomingdale’s; Le Bon Marche; Elle (magazine) 36, 91
Galeries Lafayette; Harrods; Elrod, Arthur 58
Kaufmann; Macy’s; Printemps; Elrod House 58–9, 59, 69
Samaratain; Selfridges Epstein, Jean 19
Desai, Nitin 125 Erlich, Leandro 102
Designer Rugs 139 Erwin, Hobe 21
Devdas (2002) 154 Esperdy, Gabrielle 120, 121
Devil Wears Prada, The (2006) 89 Esquevin, Christian 36
Diamonds Are Forever (1971) 57, 58, Evans, Caroline 85, 87, 90–1
59, 69 evening gowns 3, 21, 25, 30, 35, 77, 88, 90,
Dinner at Eight (1933) 8, 13, 21–2, 29, 30, 98, 100, 139, 146, 152
36, 157 Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998) 134
206 Index

Evita (1996) 134 Ford, Tom 51–2, 52, 60, 65, 68, 69–71,
experience economy, definition of 130 80–1, 82, 83
Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Forster, E.M. 82
Moderns (1925) 18–19, 20, 89, 113, Foucault, Michel 9, 72, 74, 79, 131
117, 120, 121, 161 n.12 Fountainhead, The (1949) 6–7
Friedman, Alice 43–4, 103, 104–5
Faiers, Jonathan 48–9 Fudong, Yang 81, 141
Fallingwater 44, 58, 60 Fuksas, Massimiliano and Doriana 105
Far from Heaven (2002) 67 Fuller, Loie 125
Farmer, Brett 68 Funny Face (1957) 11, 96, 97, 98, 99
Favourite, The (2018) 33
Featherstone, Mike 11, 108, 121, 126, 128 Gaines, Jane 84
Fellini, Federico 142, 145, 146 Galeries Lafayette 18, 102
female Galleria Vittorio Emanuele 142
autonomy 9, 22–3, 33 Galliano, John 94
pleasure 16, 30, 33, 37, 39, 157 (see also Galt, Rosalind 2, 154
Carol) Garbo, Greta 17, 17–18, 31, 63, 84, 121, 134
spectatorship 15–16, 28, 98–9, 110 (see Garcia house 58
also window shopping) Garland, Judy 96, 97, 109
femininity Gassner, Dennis 57
as mask 4, 37, 48 Gaultier, Jean Paul 126
performance of 4, 16, 76–7, 157 Gehry, Frank 105, 171 n.46
traditional 16, 30–1 gender, performance of 4, 10, 16, 31–2, 48,
femme fatale 1, 15, 25, 30–1, 31, 39 63–4, 72–8, 153, 156–7
Fendi 11, 99, 129, 142, 143, 145, 146–8, see also femininity; masculinity
147 gender roles 15, 14, 77–8, 83–4, 101, 157
Ferreri, Marco 132 see also femininity; masculinity
Fiennes, Ralph 142 Gere, Richard 37, 38
Figgis, Mike 93 Gherardi, Piero 145
Firth, Colin 68, 69, 70, 71, 80 Gibbons, Cedric 3, 7, 16, 18–19, 20, 36,
Fitzgerald Suite, The Plaza Hotel, New 120–1
York 139 Giedion, Sigfried 60–1, 119
Fitzgerald, F. Scott 137 Gilda (1946) 30–1, 31
flagship stores 4, 11, 101, 128, 130–1, 155 Givenchy 94, 96, 97–8, 107, 143
Aesop 149 glamour
Fendi 145, 147–8, 147 architecture and 10, 43–4, 60–1, 99,
Prada Epicentre 103–4, 104, 139, 140 103–4, 118–19, 156
RED Valentino 149 fashion and 5, 21, 31, 81, 88
Rhinelander Mansion (Ralph Lauren) of surfaces 11, 121–4
136, 137–8 see also bathrooms; bedrooms;
Salvatore Ferragamo 134–5 boudoirs; staircases
staircases in 103–5 Glendinning, Miles 148
Tiffany & Co 143 Godard, Jean-Luc 140
flânerie 111–12 Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) 30, 96
flâneur 111–12, 126 Goldfinger (1964) 57–8
flapper 14, 15, 16 Goldfinger, Erno 57
Flavin, Dan 127 Gone with the Wind (1939) 94
Fleming, Ian 53, 57 GQ: Gentleman’s Quarterly (magazine) 50
see also Bond, James Grand Budapest Hotel, The (2014) 124,
Fondazione Prada see under Prada (brand) 142, 146
 Index 207

Grand Hotel (1932) 3 interiors in 3, 14, 16–17, 19, 21–2, 25,

Grant, Cary 42, 44, 48–9, 49, 50 32, 33–4, 37–8
Grant, Hugh 82 and the Production Code 22, 23, 34,
Graves, Rupert 82 60, 63
Great Gatsby, The (1974) 124, 136–7, 138, and representation of non-white
139–40, 140, 144, 153–4 bodies, 151–6
Greenaway, Peter 147 and representation of queer characters
Gronberg, Tag 114 60–1, 65, 69
Groult, Nicole 86–7 Hood, Sam 122, 123
Guadagnino, Luca 99, 100, 149 Hope, Frederic 21
Gucci 11, 129, 132–3, 133, 134, 143, 144, Hoult, Nicholas 70, 71, 81
176 n.13 How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) 31
Gucci Garden 132–3, 133 Hoyningen-Huene, George 92
Hudson, Rock 23–4, 53
Harlow, Jean 21, 29, 36, 39 Hum Dil De Chuke Sena (1999) 125
Harper’s Bazaar (magazine) 14, 31–2, 90, Hung, Tran Anh 154
97, 152, 156
Harrods 124, 126, 127, 143 I Am Love (Io sonno l’amore) (2009) 99,
Hatherly, Owen 148 100, 101, 146, 149
Hault, Nicolas 70 identity
haute couture 3, 7, 18, 37, 87, 88, 89, 114, brand 5, 11, 90, 101, 103, 105, 127,
118–19, 130, 156 129–31, 136–7, 144
Haynes, Todd 65–7, 66, 67, 68, 73, 74, feminine 2, 8–10, 16, 18, 25, 27, 31–2,
83 154
Hayworth, Rita 30, 31, 39 formation 4, 15
Head, Edith 3–4 gay 70–1, 166 n.1
Heartbeats (Les Amours Imaginaires) gender 4, 6, 7, 11–12, 54, 72, 75, 76–7,
(2010) 83 79, 151, 157
Heim, Jacques 114 heterosexual 77, 82
Hepburn, Audrey 96, 97–8, 98, 99, 107, homosexual 60, 61, 68, 70–1, 82
134, 143, 146, 152 masculine 42, 50
Hepburn, Katherine 22 playboy 9, 24, 50, 52–5, 57–60, 117,
Herbst, René 114, 120 152–3
heritage films 32–3, 65, 81, 84 queer 2, 61, 64, 70–1, 75, 76, 79–80,
Hermès 99, 142 82–3, 154, 166 n.1
Herzog, Charlotte 85, 89, 95 racial 152–3
heterotopias sexual 4, 6, 7, 8–10, 15, 25, 27, 32–3,
brand 11, 130–6, 143–4, 150, 155 68, 71–2, 151
Foucault’s definition of 9–10, 72 Il Conformista (The Conformist) (1970)
queer 64, 72–80, 153, 167 n.13 147
Hewson, Linda 126 Iman 151
Hinds, Hilary 22 In the Mood for Love (2000) 8, 13, 25–8,
Hitchcock, Alfred 3–4, 9, 41–2, 44–5, 45, 26, 149
46, 49, 60, 66 Instyle (magazine) 83
Hogben, Ruth 125 interiority
Hollander, Ann 48 architectural 4
hollywood cinema 8, 20, 36 female characters and 1, 18, 19, 25, 27,
architecture in 41–2, 44, 69 30, 66–7, 72–3, 153
fashion in 14, 16, 25, 30, 84, 85, identity and 2
94–101, 121, 122, 134–5, 135, 151 male characters and 24, 47, 57, 69–71
208 Index

International Style 7, 41 Lautner, John 41, 43–4, 58–9, 69–70, 70

Iribe, Paul 1, 32 Le Corbusier 43, 47, 120
Isherwood, Christopher 68, 82 Le Double Amour (Double Love) (1925) 19
Italy in Hollywood (exhibition, 2018–19) Leff, Naomi 136
134–5, 135 Léger, Fernand 116
Lehmann, Ulrich 49–50, 60
Jacobsen, Arne 3 L’Elegance (1926) 114
Jacobsen, Janet 64 Le P’tit Parigot (The Little Parisian) (1926)
Jeunet, Jean-Pierre 81 107, 116, 117, 118
Jourdain, Francis 7, 19–20, 120, 121 Le Somptier, René 107
Joy Luck Club, The (1993) 153 Le Vertige (The Living Image) (1926) 107,
Julien, Isaac 153 116, 117
Lelong, Lucien, House of 87
Karaminas, Viki and Adam Geczy 52 Leopard, The (1963) 149
Kaufmann’s department store 122 Les parapluies de Cherbourg (The
Kèfer, Pierre 19 Umbrellas of Cherbourg) (1964)
Khoon Hooi 153 123
Kirkland, Douglas 90 Lethal Weapon II 58
Kiss, The (1929) 17, 31, 121 Letty Lynton (1932) 22, 36
Klinger, Barbara 95 Leuchten, Kaiser 46
Knight, Nick 125, 127 L’Herbier, Marcel 41, 107, 115, 115–16,
Knize gentleman outfitters 55, 56 116–17
Knoll, Florence, furniture 55 Life Aquatic, The (2004) 142
Koolhaas, Rem 103, 104, 140, 171 n.46 L’Inhumaine (The Inhuman Woman)
Koons, Jeff 127 (1924) 41, 115, 115–16
Kortajarena, Jon 81 Lipovetsky, Gilles 11, 85, 102, 129, 148
Kusama, Yayoi 127 and Veronica Manilow 130, 136, 176
n.10
L’Atalante (1934) 7 Lissenko, Nathalie 19
La Dolce Vita (1960) 142, 145, 146 Livingston, Jennie 79
La Donna Scimmia (The Ape Woman) Looking for Langston (1989) 153
(1964) 132 Loos, Adolf 9, 42, 43, 46–8, 50, 52, 55–7,
La Femme de Nulle (The Woman from 56, 60, 61, 152
Nowhere) (1922) 7 Louis, Jean 25, 30
La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game) Louis Vuitton (brand) 82, 83, 105, 127,
(1939) 5 134, 142
La Sirène des Tropiques (Siren of the Maison Etoile 134
Tropics) (1927) 119, 151–2 Lucile see Duff Gordon, Lady
La Sirène du Mississippi (Mississippi Luhrmann, Baz 124, 125, 139
Mermaid) (1969) 5 Lumière Brothers 125
Lacoste 27, 142 Luna, Donyale 151
Lagerfeld, Karl 91, 92, 94, 148 Lynch, David 81
Lamarr, Hedy 96, 97 Lynch, Lashana 152
Lanvin, Jeanne 89
Larson, Lola 58, 59 Macy’s 14, 36, 88, 121
Laudrée 143 Madonna 80
Lauren, Ralph 11, 129, 136, 136–9, 143, Magnin, Jean, House of 87
144, 155 Mahdavi, India 143, 149
Laurence Anyways (2012) 9, 64, 65, 75, Mahogany (1975) 89
76–9, 77–8, 80, 83, 168 n.32 Maison Beer 86
 Index 209

Maison Mallet-Stevens 118, 121 mirrors 21, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 37, 59, 73–6,
Maison Myrbor 89 74, 89, 90, 91, 92, 98–9, 107, 108,
male body see Bond, James; dandy, the; 112, 126, 149
masculinity mise-en-scène 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 11, 29, 42, 66,
male gaze, the 15, 36–7, 39, 85, 97–9, 98, 68, 70, 88, 102, 117, 120, 128, 129,
112 137, 139, 149, 157
Male and Female (1919) 33, 34 Miyake, Issey 79, 105
Malin House 58 modern
Mallet-Stevens, Robert 11, 19, 41, 107, architecture 41–8, 55, 57–61, 119
113–21, 115–16, 118 design 17–19, 22, 41, 44–6, 54
Manabe, Daito 133 modern woman 8–9, 14–16, 22–3, 25, 39,
Manilow, Veronica, and Gilles Lipovetsky 89, 115
130, 136, 176 n.10 lifestyle 16, 18, 114, 117, 137
Mannequin (1937) 88, 123 modernism 3, 7, 32, 90–1, 115–17, 121,
Mar-a-Lago 122 147–8
Mara, Rooney 65–74, 66–67, 73, 74 as evil 41–2, 44–8, 57–8
Marchand, Corinne 112 as masculine 9, 24–5, 42–4, 47–8, 55,
Marchesa 83 56–7, 59–61, 68
Marie Antoinette (2006) 6, 33, 143 as queer, 60–1, 69–72, 74
Marino, Peter 105 modernity 18, 43, 44, 111, 114
Martin, Catherine 124, 125, 139, 140 Mon Oncle (1958) 149
masculinity Monroe, Marilyn 31, 134
heroic 9, 39, 47, 48, 61, 112 Monsoon Wedding (2001) 154
and heterosexuality 24–5, 42–4, 47–61, Moon is Blue, The (1953) 7
146 Moore, Julianne 68, 69
queer 82, 83 Moore, Roger 51
Mason, James 44 Mulvey, Laura 9, 15, 16, 37
masquerade 2, 4, 28, 32, 37, 47–8, 66, 73, My Fair Lady (1964) 96, 152
75, 77, 83, 100–1, 156, 157
Mastrioianni, Marcello 145–6 Nagy, Phyllis 73
Maurice (1987) 82 Neale, Steve 42
Max Factor 31, 157 Nendo 102
Maynard, Margaret 93 Neutra, Richard 41
Maywald, Willy 92, 93 Newman, Bernard 3, 88
McCartney, Stella 126 Newton, Helmut 91
McEwen, Todd 50 Nicolas, Gwenaël 103
McNeil, Peter, and Giorgio Riello 130 No Time to Die (2021) 152
McQueen, Alexander 125 North by Northwest (1959) 9, 44–50, 45–6,
McQueen, Steve 141 49, 52, 58, 60, 61
melodrama 19, 25–6, 32, 68–9, 74–5, 81, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2
82, 99 (Duchamp, 1912) 91, 93
menswear 80–1, 82–3, 137
Merchant-Ivory 82 Octopussy 53
Metropolis (1923) 7 Okonkwo, Uche 131
Michele, Alessandro 132–3 Op Art 4
mid-century modern Orientalism 153–4
architecture 42, 43, 59, 103 ornamentation 46–7, 60, 65, 68, 105, 142
design 25, 32, 41, 44, 69 Orry-Kelly 88, 121
furniture 3 Our Dancing Daughters (1928) 16, 20
Miller, Monica L. 153 Out of Africa (1985) 136, 155
210 Index

Palazzo Civiltà Italiana 145, 145–8 Production Code 22, 23, 34, 60, 63
Paltrow, Gwyneth 142, 157 prostitution 22, 33, 34, 37, 38–9
Panton, Verner 4 publicity
Paquin, Jeanne 86, 87, 118 campaigns 80, 83–4, 95
Paris is Burning (1990) 79–80, 168 images 90
nn.36–7 Pugh, Gareth 125
Parker, Suzy 90
Parks, Trina 58 Quantum of Solace (2008) 57
Party, The (1968) 149 Queen Christina (1933) 84, 121
Paulicelli, Eugenia 145 queer
people of colour, underrepresentation of aesthetics 61, 63–4, 69–72
in fashion 151–6 audiences 63–4
performativity 4, 10, 13, 48, 59, 63, 75, cinema 10, 64, 79, 83
77–8, 125 closet 60, 70–1
Phillips, Arianne 68 commodification 80, 168 n.40
Pickford, Mary 134, 135 definition of 166 n.1
Pillow Talk (1959) 13, 23, 23–5, 53 desire 61, 64, 65, 68, 82
Pine, B. Joseph, and James Gilmore 130 fashionability 80, 82
Playboy (magazine) 24, 42, 53–5, 59, 60, heterotopia 64, 72–80, 153, 167 n.13
153 kinship 64, 69, 78–9
playboy identity 9, 24, 50, 52–5, 57–60, masquerade 65–8, 73, 75, 76–80
117, 152–3 nostalgia 9, 64–72
Playtime (1967) 7 spaces 65, 71, 75, 76–7
pleasure
and dressing 82 Rabanne, Paco 4
and looking 10, 16, 42, 65, 66, 82, 85, Rabinovitz, Lauren 111
111–12, 126, 154 Radner, Hilary 38, 101
and patriarchal attitudes 15–16, 75–6 Rain (1932) 22
and queer desire 61, 64, 65, 68, 82 Rambova, Natacha 1
and surface 14, 16, 21, 65–72, 76, 84 Rear Window (1954) 4
Poiret, Paul 5, 19, 86, 87, 88, 92, 114, 116, Redford, Robert 136
118–19 Red-Headed Woman (1932) 30
Polanski, Roman 141 Reed, Christopher 65
Polglase, Van Nest 3 Rees-Roberts, Nick 6, 77, 83
Ponti, Gio 142 Rhinelander Mansion 136, 137–8
pop art 4, 127 Riviere, Joan 4
Potvin, John 4, 54, 60–1, 69, 70 Roberta (1935) 88
Poupaud, Melvin 75, 77 Roberts, Julia 37–9, 38
Powell, Sandy 66, 83 Roberts, Mary Louise 14
Prada (brand) 11, 81, 103–4, 124, 140–2, Robie House 43
144, 146, 153 Roma Città Aperta (Rome, Open City)
epicentre 103–4, 104, 139, 140 (1945) 147
Fondazione 140, 141, 143 Rope (1948) 60
Prada Candy (2013) 141 Rosa, Joseph 41
Prada Epicentre see under Prada (brand) Rose, Steve 57
Prada, Miuccia 139, 140 Ross, Diana 89
Pret-à-Porter (1994) 89 Rossellini, Roberto 147
Pretty Woman (1990) 13, 37–9, 38 Royal Tenenbaums, The (2001) 142
Printemps 102 Ruhlmann, Émile-Jacques 19
 Index 211

Russell, Lillian 21 Single Man, A (2009) 9, 60, 64, 65, 68–72,

Russell, Rosalind 35 69–71, 74, 80–2
Ruti, Mari 38 Single Standard, The (1929) 13, 17, 17–18
Sirk, Douglas 32, 66, 68
Saarien, Eero 3 Skyfall (2012) 61
Sabrina (1954) 96–7 Smith, Paul 126
Saint Laurent, Yves, 5, 27, 79, 83 Sontag, Susan 63
Saint, Eva Marie 44 space
Salomé (1923) 1 private 7, 8, 13, 14, 18, 28, 32, 41, 54–6,
Salon d’Automne 113 70–2, 148, 149
salon, the 56, 86–9, 91, 101, 112, 137 public 14, 32, 54, 55, 70–2, 109–12, 148
Salvatore Ferragamo 134–5, 135, 144 Sparke, Penny 5, 54
Samarataine 102 spectacle
Sander, Jil 99, 101 bodies as 9, 10, 11, 42, 111–12
scenography 96, 136, 138, 144, 148–9 fashion as 5, 85–6, 125
Scent of Green Papaya, The (Mùi đu đủ see also staircases; window shopping
xanh) (1993) 154 spectatorship 11, 43, 67, 107–8, 111, 157
Schaffer Residence 69, 70 female 15–16, 28, 98–9, 110 (see also
Schiaparelli, Elsa 21, 88, 92 window shopping)
Schleier, Merrill 6–7 Spectre (2015) 51–2, 52, 57
Scott, Ridley 141 Spicer, Andrew 50
screen, the 2, 20, 41, 108, 112, 121–2, 126 Spiral Staircase, The (1946) 99
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky 71 spy films 9, 41–2, 44, 48, 60
Selfridge, Harry Gordon 109, 110 stage, the 5, 85–9, 152
Selfridges 109–10, 110, 125, 126, 127 staircases
set design 6, 7, 19, 32, 41, 45, 57–8, 115–19, as fashion icon 85–6, 89–94, 152, 169
115, 121–2, 129, 136, 139, 145 n.5
see also Adam, Ken; Mallet-Stevens, as film motif 94–101
Robert; Martin, Catherine as statements of luxury fashion 101–5
sexuality symbolic function of 10–11
and consumption 13, 22 starchitects 4, 103, 104–5, 140, 171 n.46
female 13, 16, 21–7, 30–1, 33, 36–9, 43, Steichen, Edward 92
54, 152 Stevens, Alfred 33
male, 23–4, 37, 52, 54–5 Stockhausen, Adam 142
and morality 1, 13, 21–3, 30 Stolen Holiday (1937) 88
see also camp; dandy; the; drag; suffragettes 110, 127, 155
playboy identity; queer suit, the 41–2, 47–61, 136, 146, 153, 164 n.18
Shanghai Express (1932) 30, 154 Swanson, Gloria 34, 134, 135
Shanghai Tang 134 Swinton, Tilda 99–101, 100, 142
Shearer, Norma 20, 31
Sheats-Goldstein House 58 Tally, André Leon 94
shop window 84, 107–12, 114, 120, 121–2, Tati, Jacques 7, 149
123–4, 125, 126, 127, 148–9, 155 Templar, John 92
Show Window (magazine) 108 theatre 5, 87, 88, 102, 103, 108, 109, 122,
SHOWstudio 125–7, 156 130
Shwartzman, Jason 141 see also Ziegfeld Follies
Sign of the Cross (1932) 34 Theatre (magazine) 1
Silva, Raoul 61 Thompson, Kirsten Moana 68
Sinclair, Anthony 42, 50 Tiffany & Co 124, 143
212 Index

Tonight or Never (1931) 5 Wallace, Lee 81

Top Hat (1932) 3 Wallenberg, Louise 1
Trevi Fountain 145, 146 Wallpaper* (magazine) 103
Troutman, Anne 26, 28 Way Down East (1920) 88
Troy, Nancy 87, 88 Weiner Werkstätte 55
Turner, Lana 96, 97 Whitehead, Jean 10
Twin Beds (1942) 23 Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (1966) 4
Wiley, James 82
Under the Red Robe (1923) 122 Williams, Rosalind 112
Une Parisienne (1957) 8, 36–7 Wilson, Elizabeth 15
Urban, Joseph 96, 122 window shopping 11, 107–8, 111–12, 114
Usonian houses 44 Winged Victory of Samothrace (sculpture,
200BC) 98
Valentino (brand) 83, 105, 125, 146, 149 Wizard of Oz (book, 1900; film, 1939)
Valentino, Rudolph 135 108–9, 121
van der Rohe, Mies 53 Wojcik, Pamela Robertson 7, 55, 60
Vandamm House 44–7, 45, 46, 58 Women, The (1939) 8, 13, 34–6, 35, 88,
Varda, Agnes 111–12 123, 157
Vertigo (1958) 4 Wong Kar-Wai 25–8, 26, 149
Viard, Virginie 91–2 World of Suzie Wong, The (1960) 154
Vigo, Jean 7 Wormley, Edward 46
Villa Necchi Campiglio 99, 101 Wright, Frank Lloyd 43, 44–5, 53, 58, 103
Villa Noailles 116 Written on the Wind (1956) 32
Vincendeau, Ginette 37
Vionnet, Madeleine 89, 114 Yamamoto, Yoji 126
Visconti di Modrone, Violante 7 You Only Live Twice (1967) 57
Vogue (magazine) 14, 20, 21, 32, 82, 83, Young Diana, The (1922) 32, 122
86–7, 90, 91, 97, 136, 151, 156
Vogues of 1938 (1937) 88 Ziegfeld, Florenz 95
Ziegfeld Follies 95, 95–6, 122
Wagner, George 44 Ziegfeld Girl (1941) 96, 97, 122–3, 123
Waldman, Diane 84 Zola, Émile 112