Films to see that are all in fashion in 2023
From searing analysis on the dark side of fashion’s glamour, to celebrating the impact of the industry’s many style icons on clothes, and beyond, here are 10 of the best sartorial films of 2023.
The death of fashion designer Mary Quant, aged 93, last week was a salient reminder of how fashion tells us a lot about society, culture and how we see ourselves.
Her new documentary Quant, directed by Sadie Frost, fits with a slew of newly debuted and soon-to-come fashion films, miniseries and documentaries that examine the commercial, creative, cultural and philosophical impacts of fashion. Also below are nine other fashion-focused films to add to your must-watch list.
Quant
As Mary Quant herself said in her 1966 autobiography Quant on Quant of how her audacious miniskirts and practical, fun clothes not only clothed a generation of newly liberated young women in the Swinging Sixties but represented a certain shift in attitudes and social mores: “Good designers – like clever newspapermen – know that to have any influence they must keep in step with public needs and that intangible ‘something in the air.’ I just happened to start when ‘that something in the air’ was coming to a boil.”
The legacy of the British fashion designer is explored in a new documentary using archival footage, interviews with Quant’s contemporaries – including supermodel Kate Moss and the late Vivienne Westwood – plus some dramatised scenes. Quant explores the boundary-pushing originality of the style icon, and her lasting legacy on fashion and beyond.
In cinemas May 18
In Vogue: The 1990s
When you think of proper fashion moments it is essential to include this: Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington linking arms and strutting down Gianni Versace’s runway lip synching George Michael’s Freedom! ’90. The rise of the supers, the models who didn’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day, and who changed the landscape of fashion and media, is just one of the facets to be explored in the forthcoming In Vogue: The 1990s. A spin-off from the popular American Vogue podcast of the same name, hosted by editor-at-large Hamish Bowles, the series will include interviews with Vogue editor-in-chief and global chief content officer for Conde Nast Anna Wintour and Edward Enninful, editor-in-chief of British Vogue, among many others. As Wintour said of this period in fashion and culture: “The ’90s was such an exciting and important decade for fashion. It was the period when fashion entered the mainstream – when it became inescapable, culturally relevant and full of iconoclasm and expression and difference. The personalities were larger than life too. This series will capture all of that and I’m thrilled it’s coming to Disney+.”
Coming soon to Disney+
Air
Some pieces of clothing become part of culture because they connect us so fully with a moment – as is the case with the Air Jordan sneaker. As the epilogue to Air, the Ben Affleck-directed sports biopic about the historical 1980s deal between Nike and GOAT (greatest of all time) basketball player Michael Jordan, notes, the company predicted $US3m in sales for the shoes but made $162m in one year. A pair of Jordan’s sneakers from his famous Last Dance season set a world record last week when they sold for $US2.2m ($3m) at Sotheby’s. The film also stars Matt Damon, Jason Bateman, Viola Davis, Chris Tucker and Chris Messina.
Screening now in select cinemas
Kingdom of Dreams
For all its dreams and fantasies, fashion has a darkness humming beneath the glittering surface. This is explored in the four-part series Kingdom of Dreams, which charts the particularly golden era of fashion and creativity when the brightest and most burning talents – John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Marc Jacobs and Tom Ford – revived the fortunes of luxury fashion houses. This period also marked the beginning of the dominance of the luxury fashion conglomerates (LVMH has made Bernard Arnault the richest man in the world). Based on Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Lustre by fashion journalist Dana Thomas and with archival footage and interviews with people who were there at the time – such as milliner Stephen Jones and fashion critic Tim Blanks – the series explores the unparalleled glamour, ambition and excess of this era, as well as the darkness, downfall and despair that riddled it.
Now streaming on Stan
Invisible Beauty
Here’s another revolutionary moment in fashion: the Battle of Versailles in 1973, which pitted American fashion designers against French ones in what was understood to be a glamorous David and Goliath battle. Yet the American designers were the winners on the night, in part because of the energy of the models on the runway – 10 out of 36 of them black which, as The Hollywood Reporter notes, was unprecedented at the time and in some ways remains so. Among them was model turned activist and agent for change Bethann Hardison, who said of the Battle of Versailles experience, “I knew that these people thought that we were less. The more I walk, the harder and stronger and more intense I become with an attitude. I let them know we are here.” Hardison, who not only mentored the likes of Naomi Campbell and discovered supermodels such as Tyson Beckford, has been a force for change in the fashion industry and is at the centre of this film. Working with Frederic Tcheng (Halston; Dior and I) the film traces Hardison’s accomplishments, her impact on fashion and inclusivity, and what it takes from you to be a pioneer.
Screened at Sundance in January, release date to come
The Supermodels
Speaking of models we all still know on a first-name basis, the forthcoming The Supermodels will include interviews with Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington about their game changing decade in fashion (the ’90s, of course). Directed and executive-produced by two-time Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple (Harlan County USA; American Dream; Shut Up & Sing), the film looks at the origin story of each woman, the power they attained, and how power in fashion has evolved and been redefined since this period.
Coming to Apple TV+
Milano: The Inside Story of Italian Fashion
Described in The New York Times as “half nostalgia trip and half corrective to the narratives disseminated by docudramas like Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci and Ryan Murphy’s Assassination of Gianni Versace”, this feature-length documentary is a juicy paean to an exhilarating moment in Italian fashion: the 1980s. Written and produced by Alan Friedman, a foreign correspondent for the Financial Times in Milan from 1983 to 1989, the documentary includes extensive archival footage and interviews with the likes of former Gucci creative director Tom Ford, Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace’s brother Santo Versace and actors such as Sharon Stone and Frances McDormand. The documentary includes revelations that a merger between Versace and Gucci was discussed in 1997 and again in 2004. In any case, as the film’s director John Maggio, told industry trade journal Women’s Wear Daily, with fashion there will always be drama: “Finding out there was a precise moment in time when fashion took off here and changed the world was a surprise for me. As was learning about the family dramas, the passion, the capitalism; there’s something operatic about it.”
Coming to cinemas
Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields
“I spent my life owing people things and doing whatever they wanted,” Brooke Shields says in a teaser for a new two-part documentary that looks at the objectification she endured as a child actor and fashion model.
“I finally asked myself, ‘What will I be if I don’t allow that any more?’ ” she says.
Directed by Lana Wilson, who also directed the Taylor Swift documentary film Miss Americana, the docuseries also looks at Shields’s relationship with her alcoholic mother and manager, Teri, and her first marriage to tennis player Andre Agassi. It also examines the culture that picked her apart and how she went on to build a beautiful life for herself.
Now streaming on STAR on Disney+
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Photographer Nan Goldin is known for her raw and real photography, as a documenter of those living on the edges and for her enduring influence in the world of filmmakers, art and fashion images. But as this documentary shows, Goldin wants to build another legacy: her advocacy work around prescription medication addiction and her crusade against the Sackler family – prolific philanthropists in the art world and the owners of Purdue Pharma, the billion-dollar company behind OxyContin. As was detailed in Artforum, Goldin became addicted to OxyContin following surgery and since then has been on a campaign to draw attention to the role of Purdue Pharma in America’s opioid crisis. The Oscar-nominated documentary by Laura Poitras (who won an Oscar for the Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour) splices Goldin’s activism with the story of her life and career, and how she became one of the world’s major artists.
Now showing in selected cinemas
Fashion Reimagined
Can fashion, despite its many efforts, ever really be sustainable? It’s an idea that Amy Powney, creative director of British label Mother of Pearl, sets out to explore. Raised by activist parents off the grid, Powney had become increasingly uneasy about the impact of her industry and wanted to transform her business. The trials of examining every stage of the fashion supply chain and creating a collection that’s ethical and sustainable at every level, from fibre to finished collection, is examined across the course of three years in Fashion Reimagined. Powney’s efforts highlight just how much work needs to be done when it comes to truly green fashion.
Will be screened at the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival at ACMI, Melbourne, on May 9, followed by a panel discussion
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