Turner Classic Movies: Follow the Thread
June. 04,2022The film industry has been wowing audiences for over 100 years, and one of the best parts of any film is seeing all the amazing costume designs. Depending on the movie, those designs can have a real world impact on its viewers, particularly in the fashion industry. Now Turner Classic Movies has announced a new limited series, Follow the Thread, that will show movie fans the link between fashion and film.
Seasons & Episode
The Met's Andrew Bolton and Sylvia Yount present the great exhibition In America: An Anthology of Fashion. Exploring the role of dress in shaping American identity produced in collaboration with nine notable American film directors.
Film character transformations can be seen in a number of ways on the big screen, including through the clothing and costumes they wear. For some, this is a subtle progression in wardrobe that reflects a slowly evolving character arc, oftentimes resulting in a newfound confidence. For others, it's a quicker, memorable, and sometimes magical change as the ugly duckling transforms into a beautiful swan. In this episode of Follow the Thread, fashion and costume experts discuss how transformative clothing in film plays a part in the storytelling process.
Visionary designer Jeremy Scott stages spectacular fashion shows for his collections, fusing elements of pop culture, the avant-garde, and even classic film to lens his sublime take on contemporary fashion. In 2021 and 2022, Scott paid homage to The Women (1939) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), borrowing and updating moments from these iconic films to craft show-stopping stories around his clothing designs.
In films at least, low morals are often combined with high fashion. Some of the most stylish films of all time are centered around crime, often with the criminals themselves as the most fashion-forward characters. The gangster films of the 1930s were incredibly popular and featured main characters who wanted to show off their power and wealth with the clothes that they wore. The trend continues to this day, as filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Brian DePalma like to highlight a more glamorous side to the world of crime.
The interplay between fashion and costume design is complicated and can cut in both directions. Fashion trends certainly influence costumes, as filmmakers try to authentically capture an era or a subculture. But sometimes the clothes in a film are so visionary that they capture the public’s imagination and begin to push the fashion world in new directions.