Fashion also made several appearances on the screen in 2022: in the form of beautiful costumes, exciting stories or critical views of the industry. FashionUnited has compiled a list of nine 2022 fashion films and documentaries to spend the holidays with.
Movie: Mrs. Harris goes to Paris
Surely the ultimate fashion film of this year: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris. When British widow and cleaning lady Mrs. Harris unexpectedly receives a large chunk of money, all she wants is to buy a Dior dress in Paris. So she travels from London to the French capital to buy one, but it’s not exactly an easy thing to do.
The film is based on the 1958 novel of the same name by Paul Gallico. Costume designer Jenny Beavan and the production and set designers pulled out all the stops to bring the lure of the fashion world that Gallico writes about to the big screen. The highlight is a Dior fashion show with period dresses, which Beavan realized in collaboration with the Dior archives in Paris.
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Documentary: Fashion Reimagined
Fed up with the polluting fashion system, British fashion designer Amy Powney decides to create a fully sustainable fashion collection for her label Mother of Pearl. With the money left over from winning the Vogue award for the best young designer of the year, she visits sheep farms, textile fairs and a wool weaving mill, among other things. She learns a lot about what that actually means – sustainability – and what you need for it.
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Movie: Triangle of Sadness
Ruben Ostlund’s “Triangle of Sadness” is not primarily about fashion, apart from the first few scenes. These scenes alone are so perceptive that the film deserves a mention here. At the beginning of the film, the couple Carl and Yaya are introduced, both models and influencers. This is done with footage from a casting and catwalk show where the fashion industry is made fun of. Later in the film, Carl and Yaya end up with a group of the super-rich first on a luxury cruise and then on a desert island where the social hierarchy is completely upended. After all, what counts as wealth under these difficult circumstances? Money? Groceries? And what about the beauty?
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Documentary: White Hot, The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch
In the 1990s, the clothing brand Abercrombie & Fitch conquered the US high streets under CEO Mike Jeffries. The brand wanted to appeal to hip young people and did so primarily by setting up stores in the form of clubs and hiring models as salespeople. In reality, it was also about racism and exclusion, practices for which Jeffries had to go to court on numerous occasions. “White Hot” documents the tumultuous period at Abercrombie & Fitch between 1992 and 2014, the year Jeffries was fired from the company.
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Movie: Corset
This year’s “Corsage” came out in the costume film category, a film about Empress Elisabeth of Austria, also known as Sissi. The film takes place in 1877, the year in which Sissi celebrates her 40th birthday. She’s famous, not least for her looks and style, but her influence is waning and she needs to maintain her image. The directors Kreutzer and Buttinger chose relatively restrained costumes in order to put the form in the foreground. “Then you can see the character better,” Buttinger told WWD. An important role in the film is played by the corset as a means of manipulating the human form.
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Documentary: The Beauty of Blackness
In the early 1970s, black women in the United States found it almost impossible to find makeup that matched their skin color. This changed in 1973 with the founding of the cosmetics brand Fashion Fair. The company was the brainchild of American businesswoman Eunice Johnson, who also pioneered the promotion of black models and co-published Ebony and Jet magazines, which catered to African American audiences, in the previous years.
The documentary The Beauty of Blackness tells the story of Fashion Fair and follows current CEO Desiree Rogers and President Cheryl Mayberry McKissack as they prepare for the brand’s relaunch. What are you facing today?
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Movie: Elvis
Elvis Presley was a fashion icon himself with his pink rubber jackets and double jean look. The biopic about Presley, which hit theaters in June, at least pays tribute to that. It was directed by Baz Luhrmann, also known for the film adaptation of The Great Gatsby (2013). Costume designer Catherine Martin was approached for both films, and Martin has worked with Miu Miu and Prada on both films. The costumes in “Elvis” helped Miu Miu climb three places in the Lyst Index, a quarterly ranking of the most popular brands, by the summer.
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Movie: Everything Everywhere All at Once
Speaking of Elvis costumes, villain Jobu Tupaki wears one in Everything Everywhere All at Once. An adaptation, admittedly, combined with pink hair and glitter makeup. In the film, Tupaki takes on protagonist Evelyn Wang and her family as they travel across different universes to defeat Tupaki and save their family business. Wang’s outfits change with each universe, but Tupaki’s costumes in particular always surprise: from wild color collages and teddy bear sleeves to beads and ruffs.
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Documentary: Fashion Babylon
Fashion Babylon follows three extravagant fashion figures during the Paris and Milan fashion weeks. Musician and artist Casey Spooner, designer and fashion icon Michelle Elie, and RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Violet Chachki all play spectacular roles in the complex interplay known as the fashion system. But that doesn’t always mean rosy days: a day on the catwalks of the big fashion brands can also end in a tiny, lonely hotel room.
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This translated article originally appeared on FashionUnited.nl.