The film

In the Mood for Love is a film made by a Hong Kong director Kar Wai Wong. This director was famous for not having a script. When shooting In the Mood for Love it is said that the crew moved from Beijing to Macau because the authorities asked Kar Wai Wong to show them the full script, but he did not have one. Though the shooting did not follow an actual script, the atmosphere in the film was beyond compare: romantic, elegant, oppressive, and passionate. People who were familiar with Kar Wai Wong knew that the storyline was never his focus—in this case, it was pretty simple too: a man (Tony Leung) and a woman (Maggie Cheung) were neighbors, and they both discovered that their spouses were having affairs. They were friends at first, but as time went by they became close and did not know exactly what their relationship was…

The dresses by William Chang

Apart from the original sound track of this film, which by the way is fantastic, the Chinese dresses wore by Maggie Cheung were the most eye-catching scenery. To reconstruct the exact kind of Cheongsam from 1950s, the art director William Chang and the director Kar Wai Wong extracted over 300 old film clips within which the actresses were wearing Cheongsam. William Chang even took some premium cloths out of his personal collection and contributed them to the costumes of the film. Together with a few experienced retired tailors from Shanghai, William Chang made 46 pieces of fine Cheongsams for Maggie Cheung. Though some of them did not survive to the final cut, we can see the beauty of them from a few snapshots here.

The history of Cheongsam

You must have noticed that the Cheongsams Maggie Cheung wore were extremely tight, but actually Cheongsam as a general kind of clothing worn by the noble class of Qing Dynasty, was baggy and loose. The reason led to this is that Qing Dynasty was built by a minority group; Qi people—whom used to live in the north-east part of China and usually rode horses to fight or to travel. For the convenience of riding horses gradually their clothes adopted a loose-fitting one-piece dress style. After Qi people dominated the country, they popularized their Cheongsam to ordinary Chinese people in other regions of the country.

The appearances of Cheongsam for women did not change much during nearly 300 years of Qing Dynasty. It was until Xinhai Revolution that it changed its style—the sleeves were shortened and the overall piece was fitting. In Shanghai, during the 1920s, the modern style of Cheongsam emerged and became the favorite of upper-class Chinese women. As the rise of womens’ position in the society increased, women were allowed to wear clothes that revealed their body curves. Of course today Chinese women can wear whatever they want, but the freedom to choose was not always there.

References: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0151858/bio

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheongsam

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118694/

by XIN WEN

Have you started wondering what to wear this Halloween? For me last Halloween is still vivid--I saw several guys dressed like ‘The Joker’ from Batman: the Dark Knight. Surely movies are always our resources of inspiration; we are more heavily influenced by movies than we thought perhaps. Christopher Breward in Fashion said: “As many commentators have noted, cinema, especially the Hollywood version of the idiom, has featured as an important adjunct to advertising in promoting a simple and reassuring consumerist version of life.”

For this Halloween I recommend 90s style from Quentin Tarantino’s movies. For girls, I think Uma Thurman’s outfit in Pulp Fiction, 1994 is a simple, but wonderful choice. All you need is a crisp white shirt, a pair of black pants, rouge noir nail polish, and a black wig. In the film, Uma played an unsuccessful actress who did a pilot show and ended as a wife of a gang leader. The character made her debut with her extremely sexy red lips and her cool voice. She ordered a five-dollar milk shake and danced shimmy with her husband’s minion Vincent (John Travolta). Just when the audiences presaged and actually expected that she and Vincent would have a romantic night, she overdosed. Her white shirt was stained with her own slobber, and the simple, sexy style went to neverland.

For guys I highly recommend the classical appearance of Mr. Colors from Reservoir Dogs, 1992. Again, it is super simple: all you need is a black suit, a white shirt, a skinny black tie, and a pair of ray ban sun glasses. Sure you’ll be in need of more guys to help you achieve the stylish spectacle, since in Reservoir Dogs there are six of them.

Quentin himself admitted that he borrowed this gangster style from a look created by French director Jean Pierre Melville. This director inspired a few New Wave directors and was famous for his minimalist film noir crime dramas. However, the “borrowing” nature did not harm the charm of Mr. Colors. Quentin is a remix genius. (here is a video about his remix ability, <start from 7:20>) He combined songs, looks, styles, shots from so many movies and created his own legend. For example: though all the people recognize Bruce Lee from his yellow tight gym suit, if a woman wears it with a long knife in her hand, people would say that’s Uma Thurman from Kill Bill. This remix gift gave popular culture vitality; this remix gift made him a director who will never be neglected.

References:

http://entertainment.msn.com/beacon/editorial1.aspx?ptid=2038c9a7-3e3d-49fd-a6f4-78cfc10eeeb4

http://i-am-db-cooper.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-dress-like-the-guys-in-Reservoir-Dogs

pictures come from www.douban.com

Synopsis

Rear Window is a 1954 Hitchcock movie—one of his suspense classics. The storyline goes like this: Jeff (James Stewart) is a photographer who loves to take risks, but one of his legs was injured during work. As a result he had to sit in a wheelchair for a couple of months. However, his eager desire to know never ends: he started to observe his neighbors with his binoculars. Gradually a case of murder surfaced from the trivia details of everyday life viewed through the rear window—Jeff thought Mr. Thorwald across the yard killed his sick wife. Lisa (Grace Kelly) is Jeff’s girlfriend, who was into fashion and came to visit Jeff regularly. At first she didn’t believe Jeff’s suspicion but little by little she became increasingly involved: she even sneaked into Mr. Thorwald’s apartment to look for evidence…


Lisa’s outfits and the costume designer Edith Head

In the movie Rear Window Lisa wears six different outfits. For me the black top and white dress outfit was most unforgettable. In Sarah Street’s words:

‘Her outfit is a black, tight-fitting top with a full, white layered net skirt, and a white chiffon shawl worn with a pearl choker.’

Clearly the idea behind this outfit came from the famous ‘New Look’. (for New Look you can check out this post)

Apart from this outfit, the green suit and the white day dress with yellow flowers also fascinate many women. If you think Grace Kelly was behind all these beautiful costumes, you are definitely wrong: Edith Head—Hollywood’s most celebrated costume designer was the hero behind the breathtaking beauty of Lisa. In 1925, Edith Head became Paramount’s costume designer and in less than thirty years she won 8 academy awards for best costume design. If you have seen The Incredibles, you will be familiar with the appearance of Edith Head. Rumors said that the costume designer (Edna Mode) for the superman family in the cartoon was based on Edith Head.


From a feminism point of view

Although Lisa’s outfits were feminine, her image was very active and strong. She first provided the critical statement for the cracking of the murder case that ‘No woman would go on a trip and leave behind her purse and her wedding ring,’ and then she sneaked into Mr. Thorwald’s apartment to find further evidence.

Originally Jeff was not satisfied with Lisa’s obsession over fashion and her reluctance to take risks. However, Lisa was the one who acts. On the other hand, Jeff ‘looks but does not act, failing to take even one photograph that would surely help to corroborate his story. The plaster cast on his leg symbolizes Jeff’s crisis of masculinity and also conveys his weakness in identity.’ (<Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window>, Edited by John Belton-- ‘The Dresses Had Told Me’, <Fashion and Femininity in Rear Window> by Sarah Street, page 94)

In the end, Lisa wears a pink shirt and a pair of jeans with a very serious magazine in her hands. Many people stated that since this outfit was relatively masculine, Lisa finally became the kind of woman Jeff wanted her to be. However, my point is Lisa was more independent than Jeff assumed. In order to capture Jeff’s heart, or to entertain him, Lisa can be adventurous. However as soon as Jeff fell asleep, she picked up her Harper's Bazaar: perhaps it is always hard to change a real woman-- her true color insisted.

Photos come from www.douban.com

References: <Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window>, Edited by John Belton-- ‘The Dresses Had Told Me’, <Fashion and Femininity in Rear Window> by Sarah Street

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Head

by Xin Wen
Two months ago, I watched Annie Hall, and felt quite amused by it. (Here is my favorite scene:

So, it surprised me a little bit when I read of Woody Allen’s dislike of Annie Hall. In 1977, on the premiere of the film, as Julian Fox stated “Pessimistically, he declared it, like a number of his films, ‘a personal failure’: a view scarcely borne out by its enormous critical and commercial success.” (Woody—Movies from Manhattan, Julian Fox, page 97) In fact, apart from the commercial success, the film Annie Hall also had an impact on fashion--The style of the female leading role Annie, played by Diane Keaton, “Fueled a world-wide phenomenon and a trend in cross-dressing that continued to influence womens’ wardrobes into the 1980’s.”

When Diane Keaton first came to the shooting scene, it is said that her way of dressing was criticized by the costume designer Ruth Morley—“Curiously, Annie Hall’s costume designer, Ruth Morley, had been initially resistant to Diane’s ‘crazy’ way of dressing, but Woody, considering the actress something of a sartorial ‘genius’, persuaded Morley to let her have her own way. ” (Woody—Movies from Manhattan, Julian Fox, page 98)

At last, Diane’s style was a little bit masculine: baggy shirts and pants, waistcoats, ties and a very big tote (she even put her tennis racket in it). The whole style was androgynous, but very cheeky, and suitable for the character Annie. She was confused sometimes and needed Alvy (the leading man’s) help to gain confidence (he encouraged her to sing publicly), but she was brave and independent enough to leave him and fly to Los Angeles for her own career. Although in the actual movie’s end, Annie returns to New York, though my version of the story would have been more feministic—Annie would have been fine in LA. Two years after the release of Annie Hall, another film Kramer vs. Kramer captured the beat of the era—the second wave of feminism reached its climax in the 1970’s.

Although the film was largely created by Woody Allen and in it he expressed his bitterness and confusion toward life, the success of the film owed a lot to the character Annie. ‘It was on Annie that the emotional heart of the movie finally fastened and thus provided for America, as elsewhere, a feminine ideal for the late 1970s.’ (Woody—Movies from Manhattan, Julian Fox, page 92) Like the dressing style, the personality of the character, Annie, greatly resembled Diane Keaton. It is said that, “The film has been seen by many observers as a cinematic love-letter to Diane Keaton and, indeed, makes use of the couple’s off-screen as well as the entrancing quirkiness Woody and Brickman discerned in Diane’s personality.” (Woody—Movies from Manhattan, Julian Fox, page 87)    

Annie’s look was referred to as the “Annie Hall look” since the popularity of the film. All the elements of the look are easy to find nowadays, what’s hard to copy is the spirit behind the look. Annie was quirky, sentimental, and daffy, but most importantly, she was independent, or at least, she wanted to be independent. For women in hardship or deep poverty, Annie’s image should provoke more insights.  

References:

http://movies.msn.com/movies/galleryfeature/film-fashion/?photoidx=2

http://www.missomnimedia.com/2009/04/fashion-meets-film-annie-hall/

http://www.costumedesignersguild.com/aw-archive/aw-recipient.asp?AwardID=34&award

By Sarah Bahl
   
The Heian Period of Japan from 794 to 1185 AD, was one of fashion breakthrough as it was a time of cultural blossoming in Japan. The nation was at peace and the time period is named of the capital Heian, now the city of Kyoto. The Heian Period is considered the height of classical culture in Japan. It is also during this time, that women writers in Japan prospered. A world renowned tale, also known as Japan’s first novel is: The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, a noblewomen of the court. The Tale of Genji reveals the status of women in court affairs at the time and that of men. It also makes clear the balance of gender relations. Noble women, protected by the court were to study the fine arts and this time period produced some of the world’s best female writers. Though women were not encouraged to participate directly in governance. For the most part, the men governed and lead in affairs while women, though allowed solid educations, were not enabled to be of political power.
    The Tale of Genji is sardonic and at times near scathing toward the shallowness of human nature. Yet, it is incredibly elegantly written and reveals much about court life at the time. Genji is son of the emperor by a woman of the court known to be the emperor’s favorite.  She was beautiful and bullied by the other women as, because she was favored, she lessened the chances of the other children’s position in court. In certain ways, Genji was born the male version of his mother, and was spoiled for his beauty and charm as much as she was punished for hers. His mother died, according to the novel, because of the evils the people of the court were always placing upon her. Genji grew to have many affairs and a few children. The novel ends perfectly embodying the persona of Genji.
    The tale also reveals much about fashion and the importance of dress in communicating hierarchy. Women of the court wore up to twelve inner and outer layers of cloth. Their faces were painted white, their lips pouty, and natural eyebrows were singed off. The natural eyebrows were replaced by gray ones drawn on and arched near the hairline. Also, teeth were blackened, as the effect was considered more lovely than yellowed teeth upon a whitened face. The clothing was meant to be reflective of the seasons, as well. The woman were also to have full faces, signifying wealth, though figures were hidden by the layers of cloth. The woman's hair was  also worn extremely long.
The Heian Period, lead to a sharply contrasting Kamakura period, where militaristic rule settled over the previous widespread court rule based on code. The fashion sensibilities changed as did the pathos of the times leading to much more simplistic kimono type wear with lessened adornment.

Image collected online 11/29/2010 from http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu.