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“Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking.” “By all means, move at a glacial pace. You know how that thrills me.” “Gird your loins!” We first heard these now-immortal lines in 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada, a wicked look at the running of a fashion magazine helmed by Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) with a quiet ferocity. With The Devil Wears Prada 2 opening today, I thought a look at other films dealing with the fashion industry might be fun.
Fashions of 1934 (1934) – This turkey stars William Powell and a platinum blonde Bette Davis as a con man and a fashion designer, respectively. Powell is Sherwood Nash, who comes up with an idea to make cheap copies of designer dresses for the bargain basements. Lynn Mason (Davis) agrees to it. While in Paris they discover that famous designer Oscar Baroque (Reginald Owen doing a bad French accent) gets his inspiration from old history books. Using the same inspiration, Lynn starts designing her own versions from these tomes and putting Baroque’s and other well-known designers’ names on her drawings.
Sherwood also discovers that Baroque’s woman Grand Duchess Alix (Verree Teasdale) she of the heavy accent, is a fraud. She is just a regular girl from Hoboken, New Jersey. He blackmails her into starring in a musical revue and getting Baroque to design the costumes. Ostrich feathers are part of the designs because Sherwood has a deal with Joe (Hugh Herbert) to supply them. This is where Busby Berkeley steps in to direct an elaborate musical/fashion show. This was pre-code so the costumes are a bit risqué for the time. Scantily clad blondes (just blondes) are posed in every possible way, with ostrich feathers doing a lot of hiding for modesty. Harps also get a starring role. It’s the best part of the film just for the sheer pleasure of the filmmaking and camera angles. That Busby Berkeley knew what he was doing. If only the writers could boast the same.
The police eventually get involved. After all Nash and company are criminals (despite the “swindling is fun message”). But Nash once again uses blackmail to weasel out of an arrest. The film is literally a fluff piece with all the ostrich feathers being used. Also being used to no effect is Bette Davis. She’s dressed to the nines, and does some swell cigarette acting, but she’s just used as a plot device and is totally wasted here. No wonder she wanted out of her Warners contract. William Powell is well, William Powell. Frank McHugh as Sherwood’s partner garners a few laughs with the running gag of trying to put the make on a hot floozy to no avail. Recalling the film in Whitney Stine’s book on her, Mother Goddam, Bette is quoted as saying “No makeup in the world was going to turn me into a glamour star such as Harlow, it just wasn’t my type.” Amen.
Designing Woman (1957) – This romantic comedy has a lot going for it. It’s directed by Vincente Minnelli, and stars two actors who ooze charisma, Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall. Together they create fireworks with chemistry off the charts. He’s sportswriter Mike Hagan and she is fashion designer Marilla Brown; they meet cute in California and marry within days of knowing each other. When they get back to their native New York is when their trouble starts. Mike is startled to see Marilla’s beautiful Manhattan penthouse just as much as her surprise at his two by four bachelor abode.
At Mike’s apartment Marilla finds a torn-up photo of a woman that sparks her curiosity. The partial torso featured in the picture is actress/singer Lori Shannon (Dolores Gray), a woman Mike had been seeing. Mike has also been writing about criminal boxing promoter Martin Daylor (Edward Platt) and making an enemy doing so. Marilla is asked by Tom Helmore (Zachary Wilde) to design costumes for a musical he’s producing that just happens to star Shannon and is being choreographed by Randy Owens (Jack Cole).
Marilla and Mike’s worlds collide when he hosts a poker game and she has her ‘arty” friends over. Marilla is obsessed with finding out the truth about Lori and Mike’s previous relationship. Mike is being pursued and roughed up by Daylor’s fellow hoodlums (one of them being Chuck Connors) for his critical articles. This leads Mike’s boss Ned Hammerstein (Sam Levene) to assign soft in the head boxer Maxie Stultz (Mickey Shaughnessy) to hideout with him at a hotel (and to provide comic relief).
The film starts out being charming and witty and then around three quarters in, it just becomes silly and loses steam. A fight scene in an alley is saved by the acrobatics of choreographer Randy and is ludicrous. And for me, Maxie’s antics grow tired very fast. Dumb can be only so funny. The draw here is Peck and Bacall. They rise above some of the foolishness of the script because they are pros. Peck plays befuddled excellently, and no one delivers a line like Bacall. And the striking Helen Rose fashions Bacall wears throughout the film take full advantage of showcasing her many charms. Dolores Gray adds solid support as Lori Shannon and conveys an honest and mature take on being passed over by Mike. She sparkles in every scene she’s in. I don’t understand why she didn’t have a bigger film career. Designing Woman won one Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay for George Wells. The story was suggested by costume designer Rose.
Mahogany (1975) – The supreme Supreme Diana Ross stars in this romantic soap opera look at the fashion world. She plays Tracy Chambers, a would-be fashion designer working as a secretary to a buyer (Nina Foch) of a large Chicago department store. At night she takes courses in fashion design. She meets Brian Walker (Billy Dee Williams), who is running for alderman and is concerned about the gentrification of their neighborhood. When Tracy fills the bullhorn he uses to address crowds with milk, Brian incorrectly blames the wrong people and a fight ensues. He is arrested and Tracy bails him out, and a romance begins. One day at her job she is mistaken for a model by fashion photographer Sean (Anthony Perkins), launching her into a new career. She also helps Brian with his campaign, but Brian isn’t as supportive for her endeavors. They clash and Tracy leaves for Rome at Sean’s invitation.
Her modeling career takes off, which Tracy feels will help her reach her goal of becoming a fashion designer. Sean gives her the professional name of “Mahogany” because she’s rich, dark, beautiful, and rare. He wants more than just a professional relationship and is jealous when Brian arrives to visit Tracy. He tries to seduce her but does not…er, rise to the occasion (latent homosexuality, anyone?). Tracy has Brian escort her to a party in her honor where images of her are projected on the walls (how subtle). Brian and Sean have a fight at the party that involves a gun (and a little homoeroticism), and Brian exits the party telling Tracy the people she is hanging out with are not their kind of people. Tracy informs him that those people love her and after he leaves pours hot candle wax over her face and body erotically. That’ll show him!
Tracy returns home to find Brian packed to leave, and they fight again. Tracy, apparently suffering from an extreme case of high self-esteem, extols her own virtues, telling Brian how truly fabulous she is. Brian leaves to go back to Chicago. At her next fashion shoot, which takes place in a sports car, she and a frustrated Sean fight. Sean takes the wheel and drives recklessly while snapping photos of a panicked Tracy. They crash, with Sean being killed and Tracy injured. She recuperates at a villa owed by another suitor, wealthy businessman Christian (Jean-Pierre Aumont). He reveals a studio he’s built for Tracy to use to design and make her fashions. His return on investment is her…physically. Tracy, in full blown bitch mode, yells at her staff and is admonished by Christian. He reminds her he is the one providing the money. When he tells her it’s time for the payment due, Tracy acquiesces but Christian knows her heart isn’t into being intimate with him. She decides to return home. No spoilers here.
Tony Richardson was the original director of the film but was let go, and Motown mogul Berry Gordy made his directorial debut (he and Ross once had a relationship). Diana Ross rises above the material on sheer charisma. She is extremely watchable. Billy Dee Williams is so charming that his dismissal of Tracy’s aspirations seem tone deaf. Many of the designs in the film were created by Ross herself and are truly bizarre looking. As for the Kabuki-inspired opening fashion show, I doubt knowledgeable fashionistas would be hooting and hollering as they do here. Viewers in the know will spot future Oscar Night quipmaster and game show fave Bruce Vilanch as a dressmaker. Some people view Mahogany as camp or even a cult classic, but I don’t see it. It reminds me of the earlier “woman’s” pictures of the forties and fifties, where the scrappy heroine fights for success, achieves it, becomes full of herself, and then realizes it means nothing without the love of a good man. As Brian tells Tracy, “Success is nothing without someone you love to share it with.”
Zoolander (2001) – The fashion industry gets skewered in this wacky and completely entertaining comedy about a male model brainwashed to kill. Any film that uses “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood as a major plot point works for me. Directed, co-written and starring Ben Stiller, this send-up is filled with sight gags, tons of cameos (a certain businessman, now a President), and even some heart. Stiller is Derek Zoolander, a very successful male model with a signature look named “Blue Steel.” The fashion world is waiting for him to unveil his new look, “Magnum,” that he is still working on. His main rival on the runway is Hansel McDonald (Owen Wilson), a blonde, laid-back surfer dude type and adventurer. Will Ferrell is evil designer Jacobin Mugatu, Milla Jovovich is his treacherous sidekick, and Stiller’s real-life wife Christine Taylor is Matilda Jeffries, a Time Magazine reporter. Ben’s dad Jerry Stiller has a role as Murray Ballstein, Derek’s duplicitous agent, and his mother Ann Meara also shows up as a protester in one scene.
Mugatu wants the prime minister of Malaysia assassinated because he is against child labor, which hurts his and other designers’ bottom line. He hatches a plan to brainwash Derek and have him carry out the murder. Derek will be triggered to kill when he hears Frankie’s “Relax.” That’s the plot, but there’s still a lot of silliness to go around. Derek’s three model roommates (including Alexander Skarsgard) have a gasoline fight (don’t ask) and are killed. Derek and Hansel have a major showdown at a runway “walk-off” event judged by none other than the epitome of cool, David Bowie. A bearded David Duchovny shows up as a former hand model and “Deep Throat” sort plying Matilda with pertinent info about other assassinations performed by male models, who all end up dead afterwards. Even John Wilkes Booth (James Marsden) was among them!
Derek’s family is represented by Jon Voight as his father and Vince Vaughn and Judah Friedlander as his brothers. They are coal miners (in New Jersey) and are ashamed of Derek’s career choice. Cameos abound with Tom Ford, Heidi Klum, Sandra Bernhard, Jennifer Coolidge, Nora Dunn, Winona Ryder, Stephen Dorff, Paris Hilton, Lenny Kravitz, Tommy Hilfilger and many more participating in the fun. The film breezes along fast at 89 minutes and we finally get to see Derek’s “Magnum” look. A sequel was made in 2016, but lightning did not strike twice. It bombed.
Other films about fashion to check out include House of Gucci (2021), which I like to call “Battle of the Bad Accents”; Phantom Thread (2017); and Cruella (2021). And in the immortal words of Miranda Priestly, “that’s all.”