Fashion as the main issue of the movie is also vividly shown in the musical number of ‘Think Pink’, and the costumes totally stand out from the song and dance, and celebrate women’s fashion by showing pink clothes ranging from children’s dresses to women’s gowns. This suggests that this musical number is created to celebrate pink costumes that are set as a fashion trend by Quality magazine; we can thus assume that song and dance add an aspect of entertainment to this scene.
However, in the musical numbers of ‘Empathicalist’s Dance’ and ‘Let’s kiss and Make Up’, costumes only play the supportive role. It is well known that Hepburn has her own principle of costume style on the screen and off the screen, and although the costume of black turtlenecked sweater, back narrow pant and a pair of flats is recognised as her off-screen uniform which she also wears in the musical number of ‘Bonjour, Paris!’, she refused to perform with white socks on in ‘Emphathicalist’s Dance’, and protested that ‘the stockings would break the continuous all-black line that made legs look longer’ (Patricia L. Fox, 1995, p118). But the director Stanley Donen insisted that she wear white socks, in order to allow the movements of her legs to stand out from the dark background while with the black costume she fades into that gloomy scene setting.
Another example of costume as an accessory to the musical number is Fred Astaire’s ivory-white wind coat in ‘Let’s Kiss and Make Up’. ‘Costumes are obvious indicators of occupation’ (J. Michael Gillette, 1997, p392), and Astaire is a reputable fashion photographer. So his clothes must be fashionable and artistic enough to let audience recognise his job and social status. From this analysis of occupation, the costume designer, Edith Head, makes a milky-white wind coat with a red Burberrys’-like patterned collar decoration which can be seen closely while Astaire is sitting on the handrail at the balcony. The wind coat is so fashionable and special that the collar decoration actually matches the red velvet inner coat with Burberrys’-like patterns. The coat is stylish and well designed, but it turns into a prop for a dancer in the performance. Astaire reverses the coat into red inner side, and swings it in the air and drags it on the floor like a bullfighter. From this very moment, costume is not just a fashion; it becomes a part of the performance, and an accessory to integrates the dance number.
On the other hand, it is no doubt that Funny Face is a movie about fashion because this film production incorporates French couture, Givenchy, as an essential part of it, and shows the glamour of French high fashion. The scenes of Take The Pictures and Paul Duval’s Collection are just like Givenchy’s non-stopping fashion shows. Every costume Hepburn wears after transforming into a sophisticated lady in Paris has Givenchy’s particular styles, such as heavy silky gowns, trapeless satins, pipe-shape suites with square neckline, slim-waist dresses, wrappings and delicate cup-like hats.
It was Givenchy’s French couture that brought Hepburn an ‘Audrey Hepburn Look’, and attracted audience to come and see the film. According to Hepburn’s personal view,
‘His [Givenchy] marvellously sure sense of colour put life on the screen. His red coats, apple-green costumes, or the dress in shocking pink have never been forgotten by cinemagoers, nor has the delicate lace creation I wore when I sailed down the river with Fred Astaire in Funny Face. And the hats! They always made the face appear in close-ups like a wonderfully framed picture…Givenchy’s outfits gave me “protection” against strange situations and people, because I felt so good in them. In a certain way one can say that Hubert de Givenchy has “created” me over the years’ (Prestel, Verlag, Munich, 1990, p10).
The relationship between Givenchy and Hepburn is auite important. Givenchy gives Hepburn a flawless public look by creating spectacular costumes that emphasize her slenderness, and in return Hepburn contributes her elegance and her artistic accomplishment to the costumes Givenchy designs for her. If Givenchy had not been so faithful to Hepburn, she would not have been so faithful to her style nor so sure about her taste, and Funny Face would not have been so fashionably attractive.
While Givenchy was given the opportunity to create all the spectacular costumes, it was Edith Head who made the Cinderella clothes for Hepburn and all the other costumes for the entire musical film. Hepburn’s costume before she turns into a model for Paul Duval is designed into a set of a dark grey woollen vest and a brown woollen skirt, which portraits her as a bookworm in the beginning of the movie. But there are still Hepburn’s styles in it, such as the pipe-shape line of the costume, and a pair of loafers. Moreover, Hepburn’s particular style – a scarf folded in the triangular form and tied under the chin appears in the musical number of ‘On How To Be Lovely’. Probably Hepburn discussed the image of the costumes with Head before the costume construction, because she was very concerned about her public image, and because of the previous working experience with Head in Roman Holiday (1953), in which ‘together Head and Hepburn took advantage of her lithe dancer’s body. The star took to actually sketching costumes on “little Audrey” to show the designer what she wanted’ (Patricia L. Fox, 1995, p112).
For the female staffs of Quality magazine, Head also designs elegant fifties lady’s suits in numerous vivid colours with narrow skirts, tight-waist jackets, delicate hats and pump high heel shoes, which look like the fashion in the fifties women’s fashion magazine. But for Maggie, the editor of the magazine, Head uses more classic colours, such as black, white, grey, dark red and beige to suit her age and her superior occupational position in the magazine company.
However, for the empathicalists, costumes are designed in the funky styles, and are created to wear untidily, such as men’s suite jacket with jeans, black and white striped T-shirt with traditional gentlemen’s vest, and suite with shirt with button unfastened, to indicate their philosophical images and free-and-easy lifestyle. Besides, Head wisely picks bright costumes for the empathical dancers in the musical number of ‘Empathicalist’s Dance’ to make a contrast with Hepburn who wears all black, and to make dancers stand out from the dark background.
In addition to analysing the characters of the film, and listening to star’s costume requirement, a costume designer has to think about the budget and the balance of the scene settings. According to an interview with Head, she describes her working methods as follows,
‘The budget has to be very carefully fixed. I start on the design when the script is ready. Only then can I draw up a dress plot, a score which shows what figure will appear in which scene, at what time of the year, how often and with whom. The most important thing at this stage is to master the script…it contains data on weather conditions, the social and financial status of the individual characters, their personalities, and so on. These studies are the basis for conversations with the director, the producer, and the cast. I always talk to the cast first, ask them how they see their part and how the character should in their view be dressed. Then I speak to the art director, to make sure I do not design a lilac dressing gown for a lilac bedroom; similarly, I talk both to the set and the lighting designers. The effect of a costume very largely depends on their work’
And of course, being a costume designer for a musical film about fashion, Head has to research the contemporary fifties fashion trend, to understand the musical numbers the film features, and to arrange and balance the costumes she creates with Givenchy’s couture in the settings. Thus, it is very clear that there is a difference between a couturier and a costume designer. The couturier, Givenchy, creates an ideal image based on his aesthetic ideas and the model of his choice, such as Audrey Hepburn whose body and image fit to his ideas. Because of his fame, his French couture makes fashion as the main attraction of the film. On the other hand, Head works with a script, and serves the characters in the roles and the personalities they represent in the film. That is why her costumes is so successful in dealing with the contemporary women’s fashion of the fifties, and in assisting the perfection of dance and singing musical numbers.
Audience
One of the articles about screen fashion claims the magical transference of stardom from screen to audience. According to Melanie Hillmer,
‘The clothes worn by immortal stars and long-forgotten starlets serve as a pattern for our dreams and nightmares, and for things of which we have not yet dreamed. When we take clothes out of context, we can slip into the role of Marlene, Humphrey, Audrey, James, speaking their sartorial language with our bodies. We are the copy, the variation, the improvisation, the parody’ (Melanie Hillmer, 1997)
It seems to be the case that audience frequently adopts what she sees on the film for her own wardrobe, and sometimes it is likely that film serves as a commercial promotion. As Funny Face starts a story about a women’s fashion magazine and the fashion world, it indirectly contributes to promoting the fashion magazine, the contemporary fashionable costumes of the fifties, and the high fashion of French couture.
The musical number of ‘Think Pink’ is probably the most obvious example that promotes the women’s fashion of the fifties. Every pink costume ranging from swimming suits to daily dresses represents the contemporary feminine fashion trend as well as the fashion trend that was popular in the fifties. According to Melanie Hillmer, pink fabric probably was the most popular material for dressmakers when the film was released.
Besides, Givenchy’s couture worn by Hepburn turns out to be the most appealing commercial promotion of the film. In the scenes of A Bird Of Paradise and Paul Duval’s Collection, Givenchy’s couture appears in a lavishly designed dressing salon with vases of flowers, antique furniture and splendid chandeliers, which allow audience to have the illusions of being at the actual Givenchy’s fashion show. The height, angle, and distance of the camera and the movement of Hepburn correspond to the way audience, who attend actual fashion show is supposed to look at the model. For instance, in A Bird Of Paradise, an each shot consists of a long shot of Hepburn with Givenchy’s long silky white gown and pink wrapping, and then the camera fades away from Hepburn to return to the ‘main’ story while the light goes on.
In Paul Duval’s Collection, audience is even encouraged to see the event taking place after the show– the commercial deal between wealthy buyers and the French couturier. While it is very difficult for most of the audience to attend a high fashion show in reality, this scene shortens the distance between high fashion and the ordinary audience, and fulfils the desire of female audience who has no opportunity to wear or purchase spectacular costumes in reality.
As I have mentioned before, the storyline of Funny Face evolves around fashion, and a Cinderella-like girl becoming a sophisticated lady. It is very clear that it is the well-designed costumes that transform her into an attractive woman, and help her fulfil her love, and attract other people’s attention, such as professor Flauster’s. Stockton‘s costumes in this film are divided into stereotyped Cinderella’s clothes and dream-like spectacular couture. The stereotyped Cinderella’s costume is designed for a character of intelligent but narrow-minded female bookworm in gloomy grey and brown colour. However, the pre-transformed image and after-transformed image of Jo Stockton are not so clearly distinguishable from with each other. Probably it is because Stockton is performed by Hepburn who has her own image, and the costume still has her styles in it.
For most of the female audience, Givenchy’s spectacular costumes are an impossible dream, and Hepburn’s image beautifies the fashion of French couture, and makes the dream come true. Givenchy’s couture combined with Hepburn’s image is certainly a commercial promotion for French high fashion, because it is clear from a sociological perspective that if a woman purchases high fashion costumes or wears the same clothes as a movie star, then she can be an upper-middle class society woman, or she, too, can be a star. It is very likely that Givenchy in Funny Face brings a message that by wearing French couture, every woman can feel like Stockton, and sings for happiness and celebrates for love, and be elegant and attractive like Hepburn. The impossible fashion dream has vicariously come true in the film, however, in ‘reality’, Givenchy promotes his French couture while leaving the audience in the illusion that their dreams have come true with Stockton in the musical numbers of ‘Bonjour, Paris!’, ‘He Loves And She Loves’, and ‘S’Wonderful’. These musical numbers are mainly to celebrate the happiness and love brought by the existence of French high fashion.
In ‘He Loves And She Loves’, Stockton says ‘I never want to go home, I love Paris! I love these clothes and the little church! And I love you!’, which shows her thanks to women’s fashion and Paris that allow her to be beautiful through the French couture and fall in love with a dandy fashion photographer. The relationship between well-designed costumes and women’s attractiveness (their marriage) is indivisible. If it is true that most men are attracted by pretty women, then a woman can assume her attractiveness through the well-made costumes.
Hepburn herself is an example of a pretty woman who is made beautiful by well-made costumes: when Head assigned to Roman Holiday (1953), ‘she [Head] thought Audrey’s neck too long, her shoulders too wide, brows too bold, teeth too crook and feet too big’ (Patricia L. Fox, 1995, p112). Comparing her with other popular Hollywood female stars in the fifties, such as Marilyn Monroe, Hepburn did not satisfy the standard of beauty in that age which required a voluptuous body feature. Her elegant Hepburn style is recognised due to Givenchy’s magical couture. For audience, Funny Face can be seen as her real story of becoming a sophisticate, stylish and popular woman. It is needless to say that Givenchy’s costumes contribute to a successful creation of a beautiful woman in the film.
In conclusion, as a fashion show musical film, Funny Face certainly takes costumes as a significant part of the movie, and adds an entertaining value by providing singing and dance musical numbers that are well integrated by the use of the costumes. Moreover, because a costume designer of a musical movie has to work on a fixed budget, it is impossible to regard her creations as independent works of art. Her designed projects are supposed to be integrated into the overall context of the film. On the other hand, the European couturier is allowed to express his idea freely, and guarantees the publicity of a star and the box office receipts by promoting his particular designs. Needless to say, a star is a movie’s best advertisement. Who can forget Hepburn holding a bunch of balloons in front of Louvre, wearing a slim-waist black dress, and dancing with all black costume and white socks and a pair of loafers?
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