Sunday 19 May 2013

WATCH | #GreatGatsby & The Roaring 20s




“Can't repeat the past?  Why, of course you can!"

I can’t help but join in the hype around the much anticipated Great Gatsby film, based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel and directed by Baz Luhrmann, which has already been championed for its spectacular visuals.

Having finally seen the film this evening, BFF and popcorn in tow and paper version finished, it satisfied, if not excelled, its preceding reputation.

The film captured 1920s New York and its vacant excess magnificently and doused it with the perfect measure of contemporary, from Jay-Z’s soundtrack to Luhrmann’s signature acidic colour and energy. You are sucked through a champagne bubble haze to become carefree and lost among the revellers of indulgently decadent parties.

Catherine Martin, Luhrmann's wife, was the film’s costume designer responsible for presenting a wardrobe for a film which was as anticipated for its wardrobe as its story. My personal favourite is the outfit Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) wore to one of Jay Gatsby’s many infamous West Egg gatherings with husband Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton)…
I adore the opulence fuelled by emancipation of 20s fashion, from flirty flapper dresses, classic dropped waist tea dresses, cloche hats and beads and pearls EVERYWHERE. The post-WW1 era was an exciting time for female fashion as ankles were flashed and the Women’s Rights Movement meant restraint was easing. We saw the first inkling of 20th Century androgyny as hair was bobbed and styles became loose and boyish. Coco Chanel was a pioneer of this era’s style and 20th Century fashion as a whole and represented the new, stylish women of society.

Men didn’t miss out, particularly on the headwear front, with fedoras, bowlers or trilby complimenting their sharp, regimented suits.

STYLE GUIDE:

Flapper Dress
Beading
Fringing
Bobbed Hair
Fur Stoles
Feathered Headbands
Cigarette Holder
Dropped Waist
Masculine Tailoring
Long Shorts/Sophisticated Sportswear
Embellishment

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”

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