coffee-table can be beautiful

     Albrecht, Donald. Cecil Beaton: The New York Years. New York, Skira Rizzoli, 2011. [Published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name held at the Museum of the City of New York, October 2011-March 2012.]  
   Brassaï : For the Love of Paris, Agnès de Gouvion Saint-Cyr [exhibition curator]. Paris, Flammarion, 2013. Translated from the French by David Radizinowicz. "Simultaneously published in French as Brassaï, pour l'amour de Paris" (Title page verso). [Published on the occasion of an exhibition held from November 8, 2013 to March 8, 2014 in the Salle Saint-Jean at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris].
     Fashion: The Definitive History of Costume and Style. New York, DK, 2012. [‘Smithsonian’ - cover]
     Jorgensen, Jay and Scoggins, Donald L. Creating the Illusion: A Fashionable History of Hollywood Costume Designers. Foreword by Ali MacGraw. Philadelphia, Running Press; Atlanta, Turner Classic Movies, [2015].  


     There’s the coffee table and then there’s the coffee table book. Alas, so called coffee-table books have attained a bad odor: they’re really just ornaments for display, things not really to be savored, much less read. Thus the moniker. In a word, they’re status symbols that advertise how cultured (and how well off) we are. Official sources tend to reinforce this: the term reportedly made its first appearance in a 1961 issue of Arts Magazine, and according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, coffee-table refers to "a large expensive book with many pictures that is typically placed on a table for people to look at in a casual way." Similarly, the august New Oxford American Dictionary, Third Edition, chimes in with the almost exact same definition: a large, expensive, lavishly illustrated book, especially one intended only for casual reading. However … I hope the four volumes listed above will to some extent refute this assumption: they have scrumptious photos but also sprightly, well informed, highly literate texts, so much so that at least one of them might be considered a full-on monograph.    

    The Brassaï volume is in its way the most substantial, though not necessarily the most beautiful, of the four. While Brassaï was a man of many talents – novelist, sculptor and painter – it’s his nighttime vistas of Paris that assure his place in aesthetic history. Indeed, the Hungarian-born Gyulus Halasz (1899–1984), who worked as Brassaï, was something of a lifelong Paris specialist, and the black and white images herein concentrate on the between-the-wars years and the 1950s. It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that the city has never been captured so evocatively or poetically. My favorites are the photos that distill the melancholy and mystery of the night, and especially those that give us the night people – criminals, prostitutes, grifters, night owls, alcoholics, drug addicts, cabaret entertainers, the homeless – in the all their unsavory splendor. Brassaï: For the Love of Paris further benefits from David Radizinowicz’s insightful translation from the French. Includes a chronology.

    As for Cecil Beaton, he was of course more than just a portrait and fashion photographer. Illustrator, artist, set and costume designer, incorrigible bon vivant, his many talents are seen to best advantage in the extravagant volume that’s Cecil Beaton: The New York Years. Fans of Beaton will lap up this book like catnip and if one is new to his work you’ll probably become a fan quickly. We have page after page of mouth-watering photos (some never before published) of the beautiful – in all senses of the word – people. I’m especially partial to the candid(?) and not-so-candid entries of Greta Garbo. Also making an appearance are the usual suspects of the rich, famous and notorious: Brando, Astaire, Warhol, Marilyn, Capote, Callas, Chanel, Mick Jagger. Indeed Beaton ran with the beau monde and, like Capote and a few others, blurred the line between self and subject.
    Not so surprising then that this volume features selections from the elite figures in art, theater, fashion and the entertainment worlds from the 1930s to the 1960s. The portraits and ‘informal’ photos are fine, but what captures my heart are the illustrations of the theatrical costume designs in their technicolor glory. In his designs Beaton had an eye for the classical style and brought truth to the adage that old is always new again if we wait long enough. In sum, Cecil Beaton: The New York Years is a wonderful production and shows how classy a ‘coffee-table book’ can be.

    Speaking of classy coffee table books, Fashion: The Definitive History of Costume and Style, while it may overstate its title – I’m not sure what a ‘definitive’ history would look like – this massive volume is nonetheless a feast for the senses, well, certainly for the eyes. As the fellow said, fashion changes but art and artistry doesn’t.
     Impressive in its range and with impeccable production values, Fashion covers the most important trends in costume and style from antiquity to the present. True to DK form, the book scores on quality – and most definitely quantity – of illustrations; layout; and, to a certain extent, content, providing almost too many facts in one volume. Each chapter has a timeline; analysis of social, historical and cultural issues; major trends; feature articles on fashion legends and major designers; and many, many illustrations. The detailed index, even with its squint inducing small print, is also a plus, though conspicuously absent is a reading list or footnotes.
     One curiosity about Fashion is that there’s no author credited, not even an editor. There are lots of names listed on the copyright page, thus we assume this production was done by committee. However – to be perfectly technical, a listing of ‘consultant authors’ and ‘writers’ is provided on pages [8-9]. In any event, and perhaps not so surprising, the writing itself, while commendable in the plethora of information it offers, has a certain generic quality and lacks a cohesive voice or point of view.
     If I were to quibble, and it’s only a quibble, I would have preferred more coverage of costume design in the movies, and in particular its influence on fashion trends in the broader culture, especially during cinema’s golden age (roughly 1930-1955). Another caveat, if that is the word: the book’s content leans heavily toward women’s fashions, along with an almost total emphasis on white, American/Euro fashions that rich people wore, to the almost total exclusion of other cultures and socio/economic groups. Still, as long as there are those who appreciate the chronicling of costume design, conveyed through the most luxuriant imagery, Fashion: The Definitive History of Costume and Style will never go out of style.

     As much as Fashion: The Definitive History … may be a little weak on costume and the movies, Creating the Illusion: A Fashionable History of Hollywood Costume Designers fills the void admirably, almost with a vengeance. The cover photo of a wildly adorned Marlene Dietrich gives us an idea of the extravagant treasures to be found inside the pages of this huge tome. The book then is little short of nirvana for film lovers, especially those partial to the Golden Age. Each chapter has a brief biography of a designer, starting with the silent era and progressing more or less to the present. The better-known designers get several pages each, with heavy emphasis on the biographic details to the detriment somewhat of the aesthetic elements. A parochial observation: I was delighted to see that longtime RKO designer Renié Conley (who usually went by just plain ‘Renié’) was given a chapter. Among many other films, she created the wardrobes for the Val Lewton horror classics in the 1940s, and won the Oscar in 1963 for her over-the-top designs for Cleopatra.    
    Creating the Illusion then is a beguiling, somewhat incongruous combination of photos of near camp, and, in some cases, straight-on camp costumes, combined with a sensitive, knowing text that borders on the scholarly. The verdict: the book is an absolute stunner, and will delight movie fans, especially connoisseurs of classic cinema. A mild criticism: as the book's subtitle implies, the coverage is very Hollywood-centric, thus, and alas, very few, if any, foreign films are included.

sunglasses-chic: La Dolce Vita (1960)

La dolce vita. Directed by Federico Fellini. Originally released as a feature film in 1960. Performers: Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée, Anita Ekberg, Yvonne Furneaux, Alain Cuny, Lex Barker. Summary: Rome 1960. A jaded journalist looks for meaning among the beautiful people of Rome, but can’t find it anywhere. La Dolce Vita was the film that rocketed Federico Fellini to international mainstream success by offering a blistering critique of the culture of stardom.


style ****
substance ****



“Either a film has something to say to you or it hasn’t. If you are moved by it, you don’t need it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it.”  
  - Federico Fellini (1920-1993) 

As we’re creeping up on the hundredth anniversary of Federico Fellini’s birth – and the sixtieth anniversary of the filming and release of La Dolce Vita – it would seem apropos to share some thoughts, focusing on the film's wardrobe design.

But first, a confession: I was never much of a Fellini buff; what I’ve seen has been mostly his later, arguably more accessible, arguably lesser, works like Amarcord, Roma and Ginger & Fred. Thus my education as a fan of classic cinema had a conspicuous gap: I’d never before seen La Dolce Vita all the way through, only snippets. Of course I was aware of its awesome repute and had seen pictures of a beautiful blonde frolicking beside some kind of waterfall. So I looked forward to watching the complete film on DVD. And I wasn’t disappointed. Indeed in my ever-shifting pantheon of all-time favorite movies, Dolce Vita is nudging for a place in the proverbial top ten.

couture as culture

La Dolce Vita-consciousness arrived just in time for the Italian couture industry, which had played second fiddle to France for more than a decade. With Christian Dior’s radically conservative New Look which burst on the scene in 1947, Paris displaced New York and Hollywood as the world’s fashion epicenter and held its lofty position through much of the 1950s. But the Italian fashion industry, with figures like Schuberth, Brioni and the Fontana sisters, gradually crept back into prominence. And with all the attendant ballyhoo surrounding the making of and release of La Dolce Vita, the Italian brand and its sleek look suddenly became the very definition of hip.

This was further reinforced by the large stage provided by the Rome Olympics of 1960: the games were an international sensation and added further momentum to Italy’s growing status as a top-tier player. Henceforth the made-in-Italy imprimatur would carry a cachet the equal of any other national brand. Glamour, cinema and city became interwoven, and Rome chic became the standard for measuring sophistication and cool.

 La Dolce Vita’s cultural repercussions and connections have extended in all sorts of directions. To mention just a couple of examples: the term paparazzi originated as the name of a tenacious celebrity photographer in the film (actually the character’s name was ‘Paparazzo’). The sunglasses and snug black dress worn by Anouk Aimée, along with her svelte physique, find an obvious counterpart in Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly and her über-Sixties look in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Moreover, the collection of cocktail party types Holly ran with in Tiffany’s can be traced directly back to the beau monde who populate Dolce Vita. In fact it wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to see Tiffany’s as the American Dolce Vita (though not nearly as good, in this writer’s humble opinion). Perhaps the ultimate nod was given in 1995 when the echt-French fashion house Dior launched a fragrance called ‘Dolce Vita,’ complete with promotional video in the style of Fellini’s film. Even today echoes of La Dolce Vita reverberate in strikingly disparate venues: countless memoirs, documentaries, critiques, advertisements, fashion spreads, novels, parodies, blog posts and tributes have surged forth. The film’s spectacle of relentless photographers and gossip mongers who feed the public’s appetite for the sensational finds a reflection in our own media- and celebrity-obsessed times, whose manifestations are even more stunningly vulgar and would make Dolce Vita’s Marcello and his photographic entourage look like Edward R. Murrow.


those sweet sunglasses

Wardrobe designer Piero Gherardi was also Dolce Vita’s set designer and art director, and accordingly deserves much of the credit for the film’s well-heeled, high gloss look. As for the costumes, with the exception of Marcello, the women do seem to get the better of it. In any case, all the costumes in La Dolce Vita are important; the clothes not only reflect the character, in large part they are the character.

So many worthy exemplars we might cite: the bikini-clad, hat-donning bathing beauties who wave to Marcello and Paparazzo; Madame Steiner’s polka dot one-piece with white collars and white scarf which she wears as the swarming photographers descend upon her; Emma’s black dress, scarf and frumpy coat at the Madonna sighting; the recurring motif of the simple black dress throughout, the most stylish being the two black dresses worn by Maddalena; Sylvia’s demure vestmentlike dress which Gherardi borrowed from the Fontana sisters’ linea cardinale look of a few years prior; the stunning strapless dress Sylvia wears for her impromptu wade in the fountain; the Thai dancers at the night club and their strange get-ups, a good, if mild, example of Fellini-grotesque; Marcello's father’s conservative – if high quality – business suit, striped tie and old school hat which contrasts nicely with the son’s always trendy threads; and of course the impossibly cool sunglasses worn, day or night, by Marcello and Maddalena [1].

Then there's the exotic-looking woman at Steiner's party who sits on the floor strumming a guitar and singing a plaintive tune. She is adorned in toga-like one-piece that suggests ancient Roman garb, topped by gold headpiece. And of course designer Gherardi lavishes much attention on the film’s central protagonist, tabloid journalist Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), a man who, though short on substance, has style to burn. Mastroianni fast became the embodiment of continental cool with the dark glasses, casually elegant wardrobe and diffident manner. Gherardi dressed his savoir-faire hero in sleek designer suits or snug fitting tuxedo and bow-tie. But the outfit we remember is the white suit he wears in the final scene, though curiously the garb contrasts with the generally dark tones he wears through the rest of the film.

If La Dolce Vita’s louche themes of media corruption and Old World decadence no longer have the power to shock, then its purely cinematic aspects, especially the crisp, widescreen look and brilliant editing, remain amazingly fresh [2]. Indeed viewed from six decades on the only thing about LDV that's shocking is that it's shockingly good. Moreover, there’s a case to be made that La Dolce Vita is the first modern movie, and contributing to the film’s modernist aesthetic in no small way is the wardrobe design. The clothes worn by Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimée and the other principals remain perpetually cool and radiate good taste. Far from being dated, the Dolce Vita look – classic, streamlined, understated – holds up exceptionally well. Old is always new again if we wait long enough.

[1] Interesting that Marcello doesn’t wear his sunglasses in the two scenes with his friend and mentor Steiner. It’s as though by removing the glasses he wants to absorb what he perceives to be Steiner’s genuineness of spirit and intellect. Otherwise he uses the glasses as a way to keep the world at bay, allowing him to engage socially only when he chooses to.
[2] Despite the occasional surrealistic flourishes, the visuals in La Dolce Vita are relatively restrained. But the detached visual styling doesn’t preclude an eye for detail, realized through a prowling, fluid camera that captures much but judges little: Fellini doesn’t render a verdict on the foibles of the characters he presents. Rather, and much to his credit, he simply records what he sees and lets the viewer make up his own mind.  

Further reading:

   Grace H. Carrier, La dolce vita: Fellini’s Farewell to the society of the spectacle, NYU Expository Writing Program, New York City, 2015.
   Nicola Certo, "La Dolce Vita today: fashion and media," 2017. CUNY Academic Works.
   Federico Garolla di Bard, Dolce Italia: the beautiful life of Italy in the Fifties and Sixties, Rizzoli, 2005.
   Shawn Levy, Dolce vita confidential: Fellini, Loren, Pucci, paparazzi, and the swinging high life of 1950s Rome, Norton, 2016.
   Eugenia Paulicelli, “Fashioning Rome: cinema, fashion, and the media in the postwar years,” Annali d'Italianistica 28, Capital City: Rome 1870-2010, pp257-278.
   Sonnet Stanfill (ed.), Italian style: fashion since 1945, V&A Publishing, 2014.