Fashion and film stories of (mis)understanding: Introduction to a special issue on cinema and fashion

ABSTRACT

Cinema is the “the Seventh Art” and cinema is valued socially for its enormous capacity to evoke feelings, awaken consciences, and represent the most sublime of the human spirit and soul. Cinema stories are elaborate constructs of narrative, technical and aesthetic elements whose result is a final product with the antagonistic ability to entertain in an alienating way or even change the thinking of a society regarding a certain issue. Through movies, generations receive aesthetic educations: the way of behaving is learned, the way of speaking and dressing is imitated, an atmosphere of the past is reproduced, trying to represent the Zeitgeist and evoke the great themes that oscillate in each society. Without a doubt, the arrival of cinema into lives in the 20th century marks the ways generations socialize, while forever changing the transmission of ideas, values, and aesthetics.

KEYWORDS:

• Fashion
• cinema
• communication
• consumer behaviour
• fashion films
• stereotypes

Within this cinematographic way of communicating, fashion has occupied a primordial place since its origin (Uhlirova, 2022). Dressing is possibly the aspect that best indicates the historical moment and the changes and revolutions of all time. The needs of the people, associated with their desire to show opulence, are also features that have allowed us, over the years, to identify historical periods and transitions. That is why the cinema includes costumes, designers and stylists, to recreate moments, events and occurrences in the history of humanity, as one of its main resources (Ganeva, 2018). The relevance of this resource earns this art the recognition of awards and tributes at all the major film events: the Oscar Awards, Bafta, Cannes, San Sebastian, Golden Bear, Venice Film Festival, just to name a few.

Listening to the costume director of the film The Others, by Alejandro Amenabar with Nicole Kidman as the protagonist, the following perspective is noteworthy: the clothing of a film must be so good that you are unaware that it is there because it is absolutely credible. This perspective confirms the relevance of clothing, when it comes to making a character believable, thanks to the transforming power that this “costume” has, which makes it easier for the actor to possess the spirit of the character. Such is the transforming capacity of a uniform or a dress, that the protagonists themselves often point out how it facilitates the interpretation of their role, the first time they dress in the clothes and put on makeup to achieve the appearance that the role they are playing should have.

Such is the strength of the costumes, hairdressing, and makeup of a film that it is often the part of the shoot that needs the most time for its preparation and there is a plethora of professionals who work in the production of a feature film, to ensure that the final look is as believable as possible. They, together with the direction of photography and set design, can ruin or make a movie or television series succeed in the first minutes of viewing.

1. When fashion met movie stars

When thinking about the influence between fashion and cinema, the relationship between actresses and fashion designers invariably comes to mind: any cinema lover will remember the glorious Golden years of cinema during the 40s and 50s of the 20th Century where Hollywood stars were the great influencers of the moment, all over the globe (Butchart, 2016; Studlar, 2013; Maeder, 1987). Both on and off the big screen, actresses became the undisputed ambassadors of fashion, stealing the leading role that had historically belonged almost exclusively to the aristocracy. Well explained by Nadoolman Landis (2012) in terms of brand heritage, the bond created between Hollywood stars and fashion brands is priceless: the names Marlene Dietrich and Dior, Audrey Hepburn and Givenchy or Catherine Deneuve and Yves Saint Laurent will forever be entwined in the collective memory.

But it was not always the intention of the actresses to act as the face of brands or designers: often it was rather the film directors themselves who chose to partner with fashion creators to design the entire wardrobes for their films, of such that, over the years, they invariably ended up associating with each other (Engelmeier & Engelmeier, 1997). At the same time, the influence that the costumes of certain films or series have on street fashion and its ability to spread fashion among a large mass of consumers is surprising and once again highlights the power of emulator that proposals have of fashion, as well as the dynamics of imitation of postmodern societies through the media, among which is the cinema.

What are the roles of the new audiovisual genre conquered by fashion and which receives the name of fashion film? Fashion film is a new format, appearing with the beginning of networks via social YouTube, Vimeo, and Instagram and through which fashion brands have initiated a new mode of expression, transmitting their identity and universe in a richer and more fluid way than they had been doing until now, through static pages of illustrated and fashion magazines, from the 19th century.

The new digital environment enables the possibility for a different way of interacting with a consumer who is very experienced in luxury and used to interacting with high-end brands, despite not having high income levels (Uhlirova, 2022). Fashion films have become the language of middle-class youth and young adults, who seek access to an aspirational world, through the cultural elites that have replaced the upper classes and the great celebrities.

2. The contributions on this special issue

The five contributions to this special issue will help the reader to a better understanding of the relevance and strength of the link between fashion and cinema. Both are symbolic languages open to varied and highly enriching meanings: sociology, marketing, journalism, psychology, branding and anthropology celebrate their confluence. Fashion is a clear and open tool that has been useful to the film industry since the beginning of this system. For this reason, it continues to be interesting to analyze the connections that exist between the two sectors and find out where the trends are going both from film producers and from fashion brands, which approach audiovisual language and the power of film narrative to design communication campaigns.

2.1. Fashion empowering women: Stereotypes in the TV dramedy series House of Cards, Suits and Emily in Paris

This paper elaborated by Teresa Sádaba, Carmen Azpurgua and Pedro Mir Bernal and Patricia San Miguel, faces a topical issue, the consolidation of female stereotypes present in professional life and portrayed by fictional series. The three well-known blockbusters have powerful scripts and main characters Robin Wright (playing Claire Underwood), Meghan Markle (playing Rachel Elizabeth Zane) and Lily Collins (playing Emily Cooper). These profiles are brought to life in large part by the costumes of the characters, who embody different ways of “being a woman” at the present time. In conclusion, it is easy to understand the main role that fashion has as a relevant tool to make the characters credible before the viewer and to reinforce the importance of dressing as a path to success in a professional career.

2.2. Bollywood influence on clothing selection of Indian consumers

The paper by Tammy R. Kinley, Sanjukta Pookulangara, Bharath Josiam, Dan Spears, Kirti Dutta and G. L. Bajaj explore the growth of Bollywood’s influence on the fashion industry, to gain a better understanding as to how to capitalize on this media influence more holistically as a psychographic influence on clothing purchase. Festinger’s social comparison theory comes into play as people use social cues gleaned by observation, to define one’s own behavior and examine concerns about others’ reactions to one’s behavior for the purpose of self-assessment and self-esteem enhancement.

2.3. Fashion, cinema and marketing: An exploratory study of diversity and stereotyping on the red carpets in US Vogue

The work presented by Ana Mª Velasco Molpereces, Concha Pérez Curiel and Jorge Zarauza, could be addressed as research on race and gender stereotypes in a context marked by the #MeToo revolution (Arriaza-Ibarra & Berumen, 2019; Barrett & Phillips, 2002; Gillis et al., 2004; Treviños-Rodríguez & Díaz-Soloaga, 2021). The international Red Carpet events (Tello Díaz, 2016) continue to reproduce in each edition a model of femininity and masculinity according to the traditional canon of beauty (Freitas et al., 2017; Volonté, 2019). They studied the coverage of Vogue magazine of three world-renowned red carpets is analyzed: the Oscars (USA), the Cannes Film Festival (France) and the Venice Film Festival (Italy) and a panel of experts specialized in cinema and fashion, who interpret the results obtained in the initial phase.

2.4. The evolution of journalists’ style in the cinema in Spain: From the Historias de la radio to Spotlight

The paper by Alfonso de la Quintana states that cinema is a fashion promoter that has always influenced journalists’ stereotypes: from clothes, hairstyles, gestures and even the way of speaking. It has been an essential instrument for studying aesthetic movements through the different eras in history. It also turned the journalist into an opinion leader and, hereinafter, those journalists would influence their audience by creating style icons through movies and promoting items of clothing.

The article analyzes two films about journalists linked to fashion: Historias de la radio, a film by Sáez de Heredia, where a post-war fashion can be clearly studied and there is an evident difference between clothing and gender, for example, the use of “fedora” hats, or ties and suits that define that style. And Tom McCarthy’s Oscar-winning film Spotlight, where a certain journalistic fashion is conveyed through the media director especially thanks to his beard and trendy glasses.

2.5. Legacy transmission through fashion films: Visual and narrative brand heritage integration

The paper elaborated by Paloma Díaz-Soloaga, Gemma Muñoz Domínguez and Jing Zhou, analyzes how fashion houses transmit the spirit of the brands, convey the values that constitute their identity and show their heritage through fashion films. High-end luxury brands with a long heritage such as Dior and Chanel use audiovisual narratives fashion films, a form of visual and artistic communication, where the content establishes an emotional relationship between brand and customers and recreates the origins of the brand through their own resources and tools.

Authors primarily selected, classified, and analyzed all the fashion films that Chanel and Dior had published on YouTube, and then studied a series of representative samples selected from all those contents created by fashion brands and collected on the audiovisual platforms. Based on the number of views, likes and comments of each video, they extracted the level of interaction between the brand and the audience, also the engagement among the different fashion films released.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).