Celluloid Style

Last winter The New York Times claimed that the “long and fabled love affair [between fashion and film] has lost its heat,” but we have to respectfully disagree. Sure, Avatar-influenced sci-fi fashion had a moment last year, but it seems that fashion and film are feeding off each other now more than ever. From festivals to blogs, we see a long and happy relationship ahead.

Runway-Ready Films: Most associate movie costumes with period films resplendent with excessive bustles and top hats rather than designer fashions. But with the recent release of last summer’s I Am Love and Darren Aronofsky's new psychological thriller Black Swan—both the subject of Oscar buzz—fashion is taking a lead role on the big screen. While Tilda Swinton’s I Am Love character was dressed entirely by Jil Sander's Raf Simons, Rodarte designed everything from leg warmers to intricate tutus for the Black Swan ballerinas. If high end designers continue adding “costumer” to their resumes, Oscar nominees may start reading more like the pages of Vogue.

Fashion Film Festivals: Fashionistas and filmmakers are coming together to celebrate their respective loves at the third biennial Fashion in Film Festival, which kicked off last week in London. An arena to highlight the oft-ignored critical role that fashion plays in film, the festival celebrates a full range of cinema from animated features to documentaries. This year’s program, themed “Birds of Paradise,” includes rare screenings of underground films that “explore costume as a form of cinematic spectacle throughout European and American cinema,” including work from Missoni collaborator Kenneth Anger. New Yorkers will get a taste of the fest this coming spring when it arrives at the newly reopened Museum of the Moving Image in Queens.

Film Fashion Blogs: Fashion bloggers are borrowing style cues from movies, even going so far as to mine obscure films for guidance on their everyday wardrobes. Perhaps a direct result of Netflix Instant’s rapidly swelling selection of films, more fashion bloggers are creating style guides for Gen Y classics like Thelma and Louise and The Breakfast Club. Other fashion blogs, like Blog Full of Jelly and Cat Party, are pulling from even more vintage fare for recurring film inspiration series bursting with film stills that rival the pages of any fashion magazine. (Recognizing this, V Magazine even tapped Cat Party’s Chelsea Fairless to gift its blog with her encyclopedic knowledge of exquisite screen style.) We may need to rewind our VHS collection before we go shopping next time.