Ready to Scare : The Movie: “Ready to Wear (Pret-a-Porter).”
The Setup: Some two dozen movie stars play fashion groupies, editors, parasites and French fashion designers, appearing alongside the real McCoys in a fashion farce that takes place during the twice-annual Paris collections.
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The Costume Designer: Paris-based Catherine Leterrier, whose credits include about 100 French films (directed by Claude Lelouch, Alain Resnais and others), plus “Gorillas in the Mist” and “Meeting Venus.”
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The Look: Interwoven scenes of actual runway shows shot this spring in Paris and highly primped actors--save for fashion reporter Anne Eisenhower (Julia Roberts), who spends the entire film in sweats and a hotel bathrobe until her brown Richard Tyler suit arrives from home. Plus don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it cameos by fashion stars Jean-Paul Gaultier, Christian Lacroix, Issey Miyake, Sonia Rykiel and Gianfranco Ferre. But don’t expect to ogle at Paris’ biggest deities, Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld: They’re nowhere to be seen.
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Misses: The cinema verite pret-a-porter collections of Gaultier, Lacroix, Miyake, Rykiel, Vivienne Westwood (standing in for Richard Grant’s Cort Romney line), Xuly Bet (Forest Whitaker’s Cy Bianco takes the movie bow), and even Christian Dior come off as a big disappointing joke. (The clothes are actually available in shops now, should anyone be so inspired.)
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One comes away with the sense that this is territory better left to store buyers and fashion editors to sort out and analyze for future trends, because no one else could possibly take it all seriously. These decadent, extremely avant-garde designs give “hanger appeal” a new meaning. As Leterrier puts it: “Pure fashion is for magazines and runways.” Also, a long-running bit with Texas boot maker Clint Lammeraux (Lyle Lovett) pairing his wares with the conservative collection of Nino Cerruti (er, the conservative collection of Anouk Aimee’s Simone Lo) falls as flat as a pair of Chanel ballet slippers.
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Hits: The troika of statement-making magazine editors--Sissy Wanamaker (Sally Kellerman) representing America in Calvin Klein separates, Nina Scant (Tracey Ullman) in a Paul Smith redingote and over-the-top Philip Treacy top hat, and all-in-black Regina Krumm (Linda Hunt) in the very strict Japanese designer look: thick tights and flats. All three carry different versions of the fashion designers’ handbag du jour--by Prada.
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You Should Know: The dazzling Isabella de la Fontaine (Sophia Loren), wife of head of the fashion commission, quite literally dresses from another era. Her curvy Christian Dior dresses--both decollete and prim, full-skirted and straight--were remade from archival 1950s patterns; her huge, platter hats are newly made from 1960s and ‘70s Jean Barthet designs; pumps by Roger Vivier are from the same era. Loren, it happened, is a longtime Dior customer and her fitting body is still on hand there.
“Monsieur Claude at Dior who cut the suits said she has not changed. She does 40 minutes of gym every morning, eats pasta every day and has not changed one centimeter,” Leterrier reports.
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Quoted: “It’s wild. It’s not fake at all, all the clothes are the real things. We wanted it to be very, very realistic. Nothing was made for the runways for the production. Everybody was terribly eccentric and different. The only thing common to all our designers is that Miyake and Gaultier were both showing lit candles on the models’ heads,” Leterrier said.
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Trivia: TV reporter Kitty Potter (Kim Basinger) personifies the fashion journalist who changes clothes to flatter the designer whose collection she is attending. In short order, she switches from Claude Montana to Miyake to Gaultier to Lacroix to Dior.
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Bonus: Most of the actors (except those wearing Chanel) were able to take home their wardrobes. “Bob Altman gave it to them, including Sophia,” Leterrier said.
