Pretty Little Phony
by Jansen Musico

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
D: Blake Edwards
S: Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Mickey Rooney

Who could forget that black dress, those long ebony evening gloves, and those strings of pearls with the matching tiara? It’s probably one of Givenchy’s finest ensembles immortalized in film. In fact, the look is so iconic that it’s almost inseparable from the equally iconic actress who pulled it off, Audrey Hepburn. She and Givenchy have been style soul mates ever since her appearance in 1954’s Sabrina. Their collective pizzazz gets carried over to the 1961 classic Breakfast at Tiffany’s, a movie roughly based on the Truman Capote novel of the same name.

The film starts with a taxi pulling up in front of Tiffany and Co. Holly Golightly (Hepburn) steps out in her black number. She starts perusing the window displays, proceeding to have pastry and coffee—an early breakfast, although she considers it her final meal for the night. She stops, ever so casually, to admire her glamorous reflection before walking the next few blocks home.

Her home, of course, is an apartment somewhere 1960s New York, an era and city where fashion and day to day life are very much entwined. Appearance is key in the Big City, especially for a social climber like Holly. The very second she enters her abode we get our first taste of that truth. Her space is almost barren except for the misplaced items found in the oddest nooks of her home. Her apartment and the nameless cat who lives with her are more accurate reflections of her than the sparkling goddess standing in front of Tiffany’s.

Holly is a phony, but a real phony. This is something that Paul Varjak (George Peppard) discovers throughout the course of the film. He meets her for the first time as he moves into the apartment upstairs. He misplaces his key and is forced to buzz his downstairs neighbor. She greets him wearing the queerest turquoise sleep mask with matching hanging ear plugs. They exchange pleasantries and automatically spark a platonic friendship which eventually enmeshes them deeper in each other’s lives. He finds out about her nightly escapades with the richest men in America, and she stumbles upon his elicit affair with a very lofty Mrs. “2-E” Failenson (Patricia Neal), his “interior decorator” and financial supporter. Though both of them have equally scandalous secrets, they hold no judgment against each other for they’re both only going for the same thing: a better life.

At this point, the film starts to deviate from its source material. Screenwriter George Axelrod took the liberty of injecting Hollywood into the text. He toned the language down and jazzed up Holly and Paul’s friendship to suit the movie standards of the early ’60s. Much like the quirky indie love stories of late, Holly and Paul’s relationship is complicated yet somewhat outlandish. At one part of the film, they go on a friendly date doing things they wouldn’t normally do, such as walking into a public library to vandalize a book and stealing animal masks from a novelty store. Another liberty Axelrod took was introducing “2-E” into the storyline. Though highly unnecessary in the novel, Patricia Neal’s feminine swagger and haute couture made her character a delight to watch, not to mention her biting dialogue: “I’ll tell you what, Paul. I am a very stylish girl…”

As stated earlier, appearance is everything in the Big City. Every character in the film—even the token Asian landlord Mr. Yunioshi (Mickey Rooney)—and how they carry themselves symbolize several segments of 1960s New York. There are the elite, the commoners, and those in between like Holly and Paul. They are kindred souls seeking an escape from their current circumstances.

In one of the few shots near the end of the film, they walk down a busy street with the towering skyscrapers in their background. These serve as a monuments of class and power slowly engulfing their characters, making them hapless pawns in its structure. Holly is looking up, trying to surmount them with her eyes, while Paul is looking at his feet on the ground. This one shot sets the tone for succeeding minutes of the film.

Preferably, I would have liked a different ending, but that would have spoiled everything the film stands for. More than just being a cinematic barometer of fashion and Hollywood glamor of the early ’60s, the film is a waking fantasy. The movie version may have ended with a happy ending, a kiss under the pouring rain, but we all know stories just don’t die there. Breakfast at Tiffany’s is an on-going romance between reality and personal hopes, and what people make of them.

Glam and Gore
by Patricia Valerio

The Godfather (1972)
D: Francis Ford Coppola
S: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, John Cazale

Long before the image of Italian-Americans was tainted by the travesty that is Jersey Shore, there was The Godfather, a film about the Italian-American mafia that, in redefining the mobster movie genre, made crime seem fashionable, and somehow, almost forgivable.

There is something about a man in a suit that easily lets him, quite literally in The Godfather, get away with murder. Coupled with slick hair, a suave and almost regal bearing, and a careful but never calculated swagger, a suit disarmingly leads one to believe that the man wearing it can do no wrong –- an idea that The Godfather exploits so well that the movie looks like a 175–minute GQ fashion editorial set to motion.

Concentrating on the clothes used in a highly acclaimed classic like The Godfather may at first seem to downplay its cinematic merits, but the gangster garb in the movie actually gives a glaring glimpse of the workings of the rather glamorous criminal (under)world. The opening scene alone is already revealing: Dressed in a black suit, Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) –- in a room with his son Sonny (James Caan) and consigliere Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), also decked out in dark duds –- says a line that underlies the motives of the mafia: “You think it’s enough to be an American.”

The movie cuts to the scene outside, where America’s well-loved balladeer Johnny Fontaine (Al Martino), clad in an all-white suit, sings to the delight of the female-dominated crowd. And then there’s Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) in his distinctive army uniform, seemingly distancing himself from the dark shades that shroud the secret family business.

But Michael is eventually assimilated, rather hesitantly, into the operations of the Corleone crime family. Donning a similarly dark suit, Michael turns from reluctant son to vengeful lord when he, in a masterful montage that portrays his rise as the new Don, orders to have the heads of the rival families assassinated –- all while he says his vows as godfather to the child of his sister Connie (Talia Shire) at church.

Seventeen dead bodies and one severed horse head later, The Godfather shows Michael in his office, where he is surrounded by sober-suited capos who take turns in kissing his hand, as if to seal his spot as head of the mafia family. It was in that very same room that Don Vito uttered the now classic line that has practically become a cliché: “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.” With suits like those, probably no one would even dare try anyway.

Sin is Green
by Aldrin Calimlim

Atonement (2007)
D: Joe Wright
S: James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Romola Garai, Saoirse Ronan, Vanessa Redgrave

Ian McEwan took all of three pages in his award-winning 2001 novel, Atonement, to narrate the painstaking, Goldilocks-like process aristocrat Cecilia Tallis goes through in choosing a dress for a formal dinner party in her family’s English countryside home in the summer of 1935. After trying on a black crêpe de chine dress, which she thought was somewhat funereal, and a pink moiré silk dress, which made her look like Shirley Temple, Cecilia finally chooses something that is just right: “She reached for […] her green backless post-finals gown. As she pulled it on she approved of the firm caress of the bias cut through the silk of her petticoat, and she felt sleekly impregnable, slippery and secure; it was a mermaid who rose to meet her in her own full-length mirror.” 

In the acclaimed 2007 film adaptation by Joe Wright, that mermaid, Cecilia, is portrayed by Keira Knightley, beautiful and regal as always, in a loosely fitting evening gown created by Academy Award-nominated costume designer Jacqueline Durran. The film, deprived as it is of the luxury of time, doesn’t devote a considerable amount of frames to the depiction of the pre-dinner deliberation Cecilia has with her wardrobe, but it does get the dress right. As in McEwan’s book, the dress which the sartorially inclined principal character picks in Wright’s Atonement is green and backless. Thanks to Duran’s expertise, it also bears the same effect to its wearer (making her feel “sleekly impregnable, slippery and secure.”), made evident as soon as Cecilia puts it on and its hemline drops to the floor. It’s a far cry from what she was wearing—or rather, not wearing—just a couple of scenes back, although, to be fair to her clothes then, she wasn’t about to attend a formal gathering. 

A couple of scenes back, Cecilia is about to fill a vase with water at the fountain near the Tallis mansion. On the way there she meets Robbie Turner (James McAvoy), the housekeeper’s son and a childhood friend of hers who, like Cecilia, is home from university for the summer break. For reasons not entirely unknown, reasons made more pronounced by the blazing hot weather, until this moment they’ve been avoiding each other. Walking toward the fountain, he in his gardening clothes and she in a diaphanous floral summer dress, they talk about her preference for Fielding over Richardson, then arrive at the subject of his scholarship under her father, at which point their conversation starts to feel awkward and delicate. At their destination he offers to help her with the vase, she refuses, he grabs the vase by its handle, she turns away, and just then a portion of the vase snaps and a fragment drops into the fountain. Furious, Cecilia strips down to her undergarments and goes into the water to retrieve the detached piece of porcelain. When she emerges, Robbie can only stare at her, wet and nearly naked. 

Through an upstairs window, the foregoing episode of attenuated desire is witnessed by Briony (Saoirse Ronan), Cecilia’s sister who, having only seen and not heard the encounter, fails to comprehend the circumstances of the couple’s unusual acts. And it’s not the only time that she does. Later in the evening, minutes before the dinner party, to which Robbie is also invited, Briony again becomes privy to a moment of intimacy between Robbie and Cecilia. In the home library, whose only source of illumination at the time is a small desk lamp, Briony sees—or thinks she sees—Robbie assaulting Cecilia, the latter seemingly splayed by the former against the bookshelves. In truth, the couple have just confessed their love to each other and have just begun making love—almost fully clothed at that, he in his sharpest black suit and she in her backless green dress, which proves to be slippery but not completely impregnable and secure—when they are discovered by Briony, in a simple dress so white as to hint of her supposed innocence and naivete. At night’s end, a crime that will take decades to atone for is committed, but it’s not Robbie nor Cecilia who’s responsible for it. On the contrary, they are the victims, and Briony, with her intense eyes and propensity for fabricating realities, is the unknowing perpetrator. 

It’s not hard to understand why a great deal is invested in perfecting that flowing green dress, on top of getting the other articles of clothing used in the film right and making sure that they lend an air of authenticity to the film’s different settings. That utterly divine gown symbolizes a number of things, not the least of which are love, lust, and longing shared by the central couple. It also reflects envy on the part of Briony, even though it’s not until much later that she realizes its hold on her self. Worn by Cecilia during the film’s most pivotal series of scenes and complemented by a white gold bracelet and a pair of cage-front sandals, it all but becomes a character itself. 

But Durran’s exceptional costume design is only the first hint of Atonement’s strong stylistic leanings. Dario Marianelli’s uniquely percussive score, Seamus McGarvey’s literally brilliant cinematography, and Sarah Greenwood’s pattern- and detail-obsessed production design also contribute greatly to the film’s artistry. One need only watch the five-minute tracking shot of the Dunkirk beaches prior to the evacuation of Allied soldiers in the Second World War toward the end of the film’s second act to see, hear, and feel the aforementioned aspects of filmmaking and then some at breathtaking play. 

That spectacularly long sequence, so effective in its illustration of the misery and absurdity of war, is also suggestive of the devastating effects of Briony’s words and actions on that fateful summer day in 1935 in the lives of Cecilia, who is now a wartime nurse, and Robbie, who is one of the soldiers seeking refuge in the harbor of Dunkirk—both desperately holding on to a mutual promise (“Come back. Come back to me.”) made on the same night they consummated their love in the library, he in his sharpest black suit and she in her backless green dress. 

Who Needs Pants?
by Rozette Diaz

Factory Girl (2006)
D: George Hickenlooper
S: Sienna Miller, Guy Pearce, Hayden Christensen, Jimmy Fallon

Almost everyone knows Edie Sedgwick. She was a fashion icon who made it look okay to not wear pants and the poor little rich girl who became Andy Warhol’s disposable muse. Factory Girl revolves around her life as she transforms from a carefree art student to a doomed Warhol puppet. Just as quick as her rise to “It Girl” status is her demise into drug addiction; she falls prey to the evil people around her who did nothing but take advantage of her. At least, that’s what the film’s approach is. And I disagree with it.

What the film lacks in narrative substance, it makes up for with a stellar wardrobe. And I have to give credit to Sienna Miller for her convincing acting as a junkie. It becomes quite painful to watch her towards the end. The real star of the film, however, is Guy Pearce who really does a great job in playing Andy Warhol. He is cold, unsympathetic, and rather cruel. Although, it kind of asserts that he plays a big part in Edie’s ruin which, again, is one of the bad points of the film. It maintains a perspective from which she is nothing but a poor little victim of the people around her, stripping off all responsibility from Edie herself.

The film starts with a glimpse of pre-Andy Warhol Edie with her long, brunette hair and her preppy clothes. She looks breathtaking and fresh. It is the Edie that we’ll never get to see again after she leaves Massachusetts for New York City.

Edie and Andy soon become an inseparable duo, with Edie becoming the submissive one who does pretty much whatever he asks of her even if she isn’t necessarily okay with it. Their fascination with each other is never fully established in the film, which is a pity because that’s the interesting part about their relationship—what kept these two together. Apart from the fame, the factory offers nothing more than drugs and a rather toxic environment for a girl like Edie who is weak and in need of attention.

Under Andy’s wing, she transforms into a platinum-haired pant-less muse with no sense of responsibility and restraint. Her short time as a famous it girl is as destructive as can be—getting shots of heroin when at the factory, drinking and smoking constantly when at home, and avoiding the people who care and mean well (e.g. her accountant). It is a surefire way to die at an early age. She has too much of everything too early.

And her style change reflects this. She is carefree and unassuming. She trusts everyone around her too easily and grabs what she can. The world of Andy becomes her world as well and she is having too much fun to notice that she is losing much of herself already. Ironically, it is this loss of innocence that makes Andy slowly get sick of her. He likes her for her beauty, her spontaneous way of living, and once she absorbs the air of the factory, she turns into a depressed girl who Andy wants nothing to do with.

Again, the film paints Edie as too much of a victim. Like she has nothing to do with her destruction at all and it is the fault of everyone else. Sure, she had a pretty nasty childhood and some pretty nasty friends, too. But she made those choices in life too, right? I just think it unfair to be blaming everyone else.

Then comes Billy Quinn, that handsome Dylan-esque devil who turns her life around. Sort of. He offers her love and a chance to get away from the clutches of evil Andy. Billy’s presence in her life triggers the beginning of the decline in Edie and Andy’s relationship.

Style-wise, the film accurately achieves the depiction of Edie Sedgwick’s style. But that’s pretty much it. It’s nice to look at, to get style points from. But as a whole, it will still leave you wondering, What was it really that glued Edie and Andy together? Also, where did she get all those earrings from?

Androids Dream Of Unicorns, Not Electric Sheep
by Gio Dionisio 

Blade Runner (1982)
D: Ridley Scott
S: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah, William Sanderson 

If we were to believe the first few frames of this movie, we have some major changes and new infrastructures to put up. Not to mention a couple new technologies to invent and some fauna to run extinct in the span of a decade. 

Blade Runner continues to be one of the most influential films of the century, and much of the acclaim stems not just from the existential, philosophical, and badass plot, but from its cutting-edge visuals and artistic direction. 

The movie begins with a view of future Los Angeles; lightning bolts, skyscrapers spewing pillars of fire, one or two floating cars that cross the screen, no stars, but a million tiny little dots of light littering the cityscape. We then see the same image reflected in someone’s eye before panning over a pyramid-like fortress of iron and lit windows where the first murder occurs. Motifs like these appear throughout the film: harsh scenery, an unforgiving ambiance, cold noir detachment, and eyes. 

The menacing sets are constructed smartly, fusing post-digital advanced technology with ramshackle steel scaffolding, wall carvings that resemble Incan hieroglyphs, mood-setting billows of smoke everywhere, various levels of precipitation, and roving searchlights to induce paranoia. Typical for the cyber steampunk genre. 

In what Ridley Scott himself considers one of his most precious projects, Rick Deckard (Harrision Ford) is a police operative, part of the so-called Blade Runner unit, a division specializing in the identification and extermination of Replicants, human clones with extraordinary physical abilities who, years before, were banned from earth for inciting a violent Off-World mutiny. The movie’s introductory text would like to point out that this act of exterminating Replicants is not called execution, but “retirement.” 

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get on with the fashion! The beauty of Blade Runner’s costume design is in its oxymoronic concept: advanced modernism juxtaposed with Oriental smut, formalist sportswear, and crack den ruggedness. 

This film radically pushed fashion towards what it is today, and continues to influence design aesthetic and construction. In fact, I think it’s only now that we’re finally catching up to the styles the movie blatantly shoved in our faces 20 years earlier. And you thought it was just another geeky sci-fi flick. 

Helmed by Charles Knode (Braveheart) and Michael Kaplan (Flashdance, Fight Club, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and, more recently, Star Trek), the costume design’s strength was in its individuality. Each character stood out in their own way. A quick glance at any of the latest runways will prove just how impactful Ridley Scott’s masterpiece is. Let me illustrate. 

Deckard is a hunkier, gruffer Christopher Bailey, what with his Burberry trenches, ribbed lapels, corduroys, and love of brown leather. His wardrobe was actually executed by now defunct TrenchCo in that very rustic British “I’m a cop, sod off!” appeal, only Harrison Ford is American. 

Rachael in her Fall 2010 Chanel furs, brocade coats, and Pugh-lenciaga (That’s Gareth Pugh + Balenciaga) structures. It was all about the power collar and the 80s elbow pad silhouette taken to the 21st century extreme. She epitomized retrobotic, remaining HBIC while doing so. 

Roy Batty is more the brooding Rick Owens kind of man. Aggresive, but composed; his thinning bleach blond hair covering up for his inner finger-breaking, dead-girlfriend-smooching personality. 

Pris originated the streak of color over the eyes look, although she used spray paint instead of shadow. Her character’s ensembles were made up of skin-tight stirrups, leotards, fishnets, leggings, lingerie, eaten-up fabrics, frayed hems, and basically I’m just describing a Rodarte show. She mixed it up with slouchy boots and poofy parkas, but please don’t call it “grunge.” 

Gaff is dandyism straight out of Dries Van Noten’s atelier. Or maybe Cavalli, but less colorful. Bottega Veneta, but with more spunk. Thom Browne, but not as drastic. 

The extras, too, had their share of outstanding outfits. Recall the posh bar scene with everyone in dainty hats and lace veils, puffing on their long-stemmed pipes. The apathetic street crowds represent the goths, monks, bikers, and even the hipsters of today with their fluorescent light neon umbrellas and eclectic get-ups, awash in baggy cargos, flannel shirts, draped robes, and kimono crops. 

Tyrell’s scene had him in a luxe white Gucciesque quilted robe, while exotic dancer-slash-Replicant Zhora’s death happened with her in a transparent rain coat and iron welded undies. J.F. Sebastian’s first appearance has him looking quirky in his newsboy cap and piped jacket, and forgettable Leon is just Batty’s less dapper version in a possibly knock-off Lanvin. 

While the story, based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, delves into ideas of genetics, robotics, and the (in)human condition, its eye-catching execution remains the real star. Blade Runner slices through the trite of the genre to bring us a sci-fi gem at its purest and rarest; it’s almost frightening to think about how this classic has prophetically dictated lifestyles and trends, fash-wise, cinema-wise, and in-general-wise. The question of whether protagonist Rick Deckard is a Replicant or not, what that would signify, or if it even signifies anything at all, still eats away at my core… but thank goodness this is a Style special because that argument is best saved for a nerdier week.