Sofia Coppola always wears the same Charvet shirt with a collar (sometimes layered over a tank top, sometimes buttoned) when working on her films. On the Studio Ghibli set, Hayao Miyazaki was known to wear white aprons over whatever outfit he had chosen for the day: a gray blazer, a wool vest. And Spike Lee has practically made the sports cap his signature while directing his most iconic works (some examples? Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X). As detailed in A24’s new publication, How Directors Dress, there is a clear connection between how directors dress and the roles they play both on and off set.
“By talking about garments, we can cut through the usual Hollywood language of legends and icons. The clothing worn by a director is so personal and holds such an intimate physical space, that it has a great deal to tells us, if we let the clothes themselves do the talking”.
If the popular stereotype paints the director as an auteur figure who smokes cigarettes and sits beside the camera, the reality couldn’t be more different: most are dressed according to the mental and physical demands of the film. This is narrated in the book through five chapters – covering themes from workwear to louche – and considered by some of the world’s most renowned fashion journalists, such as Rachel Tashjian and Lauren Sherman. As Yohji Yamamoto, a favorite designer among directors who created a special jacket and pants suit with 15 pockets for Wim Wenders, says, “The first thing directors think about is shooting their film. Not how to dress. But how to work.”
The common thread among all of them is the need to be somewhat invisible on set. Many dress to work as efficiently as possible within their surroundings: Adam Wray recalls Kathryn Bigelow wearing a keffiyeh, motorcycle gloves, and ski goggles while filming The Hurt Locker (2008) in the Jordanian desert, while others adopt a more characteristic appearance, such as Ron Howard spending four hours getting makeup exactly like Jim Carrey did every day for his starring role in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000). However, this sense of discretion and practicality in a director’s wardrobe does not always come at the expense of a deeply personal style. As noted by Healy in Buttoned Up, delving into the lives of directors like Federico Fellini and David Lynch – who adopted the timeless buttoned-up shirt as their distinctive style – “a uniform becomes increasingly necessary, when cinema becomes a life“.
“I feel too vulnerable with the top button open. Especially with the wind on my collarbone. This is something that bothered me a lot…I like that tightness around the neck.”
The book features over two hundred archival images, a foreword by director Joanna Hogg, and an introduction by Charlie Portered.
It is now available at shop.a24films.com starting today.
