Cinematic Style: Fashion, Architecture and Interior Design on Film

(Hardback)

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Description

From cinemas silent beginnings, fashion and interior design have been vital to character development and narrative structure. Despite spectacular technological advancements on screen, stunning silhouettes and striking spaces still have the ability to dazzle to dramatic effect. This book is the first to consider the significant interplay between fashion and interiors and their combined contribution to cinematic style from early film to the digital age. With examples from Frank Lloyd Wright inspired architecture in Hitchcocks North by Northwest, to Coco Chanels costumes for Gloria Swanson and a Great Gatsby film-set turned Ralph Lauren flagship, Cinematic Style describes the reciprocal relationship between these cultural forms. Exposing the bleeding lines between fashion and interiors in cinematic and real-life contexts, Berry presents case studies of cinematic styles adopted as brand identities and design movements promoted through filmic fantasy. Shedding light on consumer culture, social history and gender politics as well as on fashion, film and interior design theory, Cinematic Style considers the leading roles domestic spaces, quaint cafes, little black dresses and sharp suits have played in 20th and 21st-century film.

Reviews

Cinematic Style approaches the long-term disciplinary distinction between fashion, architectural decor and interior design through the lens of cinema, arguing for the interconnectivity of these fields. Abundantly illustrated, with an approachable writing style and innovative story line, it is an essential read for scholars of the domestic, commercial, or fictive interior, fashion historians, architects and historic preservationists alike. * Anca Lasc, Pratt Institute, USA *
Berry brings themes from feminist theory, and to a lesser degree, Queer theory, to bear on this slice through film history to consider intersections between fashion, design and groupings of films (many canonical) from the 1920s and 1930s, the mid- and late 20th-century, and more recent examples. Anyone with an interest in masquerade, transformation, performativity, staging, interiority, gender, and sexuality, as well as camp, Queer nostalgia, and Queer heterotopias, fashion and luxury, will find much to intrigue them in here. * Pat Kirkham, Kingston School of Art, UK *

Author Bio

Jess Berry is Senior Lecturer in Design History at Monash University, Australia. She is the author of House of Fashion (Bloomsbury, 2018).