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
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