Designers and stylists, icons, photographers, models, subcultures and performers: these are the films and documentaries to mark on your watch list.
Why are fashion documentaries and films to watch in streaming everywhere lately ? Knowing fashion, understanding it, living it and, subsequently, explaining and decoding it seems to have become the discipline in which many tend to try their hand. Thanks to social media where everyone is free to argue and delve into the brat phenomenon , the umpteenth rise of denim or the waltz of chairs of creative directors , the only thing that makes the difference is one’s own cultural background combined with a sufficiently trained critical spirit. Because really knowing fashion, beyond aesthetic exercises on oneself, requires a lot of study and cross-reading in the most disparate fields. From art to music, from news to science. Therefore, cinema and the documentary genre are the languages and formats best suited to offer excellent sources of personal watering.
If you are passionate about fashion, this is a precious compendium with the best and recommended (to date) of video production on the subject of fashion: fashion documentaries on designers , on social phenomena, films dedicated to rebellious and nonconformist people, recap of the complex work of photographers with a deep gaze, news stories on the state of health of the planet too abused by the textile industry. Nothing is missing. For now there are 45. Happy scrolling, happy watching.
Fashion Power, documentaries and films about fashion with those who are behind the scenes and make decisions
Newspaper editors, sharp journalists, art directors and film costume designers. Fashion revealed from behind the scenes is the main style of the most recent narrative on the complex fashion ecosystem. What is hidden becomes forbidden and therefore desirable: revealing it to the public was brilliant. To increase the audience, to democratize it. When The September Issue came out in 2009 , a documentary on the creation of the September issue of Vogue America magazine, the most important and rich of the year, the fashion people enjoyed that creative (and also a little magical) hysteria that hovers in the editorial office of such a prestigious magazine led by a legendary figure, Anna Wintour . And what about Mademoiselle C (2013) , Carine Roitfeld ‘s transition after 10 years from editor of Vogue France to creator of CR, the magazine of the same name? Or the narrative arc of André Leon Talley , the historic editor-at-large of American Vogue, a sagacious and cultured fashion journalist, a giant in every sense who passed away in 2022 and was celebrated in 2018’s The Gospel According to André ? Here is the history of fashion publishing, the story of those who made the difference.
Diana Vreeland: The eye has to travel (2011)
A historic editor of Harper’s Bazaar in the 1930s and of American Vogue later, Diana Vreeland is still synonymous with fashion journalism with insight, courage and intuition. This film portrays a woman of great intelligence, culture and humor, a generous dispenser of pearls of wisdom.
Franca: Chaos and Creation (2016)
Directed by her son Francesco Carrozzini, also a director, the film about the legendary director of Vogue Italia is a fresco, in the intimacy of the mother/son relationship, of a charismatic and strong woman who, however, lets herself be guided docilely and with modesty in the flow of images of her professional life at the centre of the fashion system.
Anna Piaggi: A Fashion Visionary (2016)
Fashion journalist Anna Piaggi , senior contributor to Vogue Italia, is celebrated (perhaps not enough) for her eccentric, free and personal style as much as for her culture and reading of fashion. Known for having signed hybrid articles of photos, texts and illustrations, the legendary Doppie Pagine, she was the wife of fashion photographer Alfa Castaldi. A woman so inside fashion that she was totally outside and impartial. The book DP Doppie pagine by Anna Piaggi. Fashion Algebra ( Electa, 1998), an anthology volume, is worth a look .
Jean-Paul Goude, So Far, So Goude (2016)
He says of himself that he is simply a graphic designer. In reality, Jean-Paul Goude is an art director, a photographer, a director, an illustrator, a dancer, a choreographer. Parisian, in the 60s he directed Esquire and then expanded into every field of creativity in fashion, music, television and art. A close collaborator of Chanel , he has signed memorable TV commercials for the perfumery segment for the double C brand. Vanessa Paradis as a small and precious bird in a cage, a selfish man for the viral story of the maison’s first men’s perfume. So Far, So Goude is the documentary dedicated to the celebratory exhibition of his multifaceted work supported by Tod’s and hosted at the PAC in Milan in 2016. While in 2019 In Goude we trust, is the title of a second retrospective dedicated to the multifaceted Frenchman by Chanel.
Anthea Sylbert: My Life in 3 Acts
Anthea Sylbert is a true pioneer. A twice Oscar- nominated costume designer , she worked on iconic films such as Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown and designed Julie Christie’s famous black dress for Shampoo (1975), probably inspired by the Guy Laroche design worn by Mireille Darc in Yves Robert’s Le Grand Blond avec une chaussure noire (The Big Blonde with a Black Shoe), released in 1972. Sylbert was one of the few women of the New Hollywood era to move from the creative side of film to the commercial side: she worked as an executive at Warner Bros. and United Artists before co-founding SylbertHawn Film Productions with her good friend, actress Goldie Hawn. The documentary, made by The Dark Candy , a studio specializing in documentary films dedicated to the world of costume design for cinema, tells the story of her extraordinary life that spans three decades of Hollywood history.
There are not only designers and fashion journalists at the center of the fashion documentary narrative . Fortunately, there are stories about people who use that same fashion, manipulate it, transform it to their own service, that is, they use it for a higher purpose, that of the complex search for identity affirmation. Excessive, maximalist, sometimes ridiculous characters, but not for this reason wrong or out of place. Indeed, thank you for existing.
The Legend of Leigh Bowery (2003)
Director Charles Atlas documents the life and work of Australian Bowery, one of the most important figures in the English underground scene of the booming 80s. Atlas follows him until his death from AIDS in 1994. Performer, designer, icon, exaggerated and provocative, his outfits still represent the starting point of the modern concept of identity projected into a universal ideal where gender is merely a secondary issue. From the London club Taboo he inspired a host of personalities in music and beyond, including Boy George, Damien Hirst , Alexander McQueen and Rick Owens , just to name a few of his many fans. This is a documentary to be watched without judgement but with the gaze of enchantment.
DANIEL LISMORE, My Life as work of art work, (TedTalk 2019)
Lismore is a multifaceted artist, visionary, designer, sculptor and activist completely immersed in the infinite and undefined universe of the fashion system. The title of the book “ Daniel Lismore: Be yourself everyone else is already taken ” (Ed. Rizzoli International Editions) has become one of the statement quotes among the sequins and feathers of the wardrobes of fashion lovers all over the planet. Styles and thoughts, visions and doubts are added to him, from which everyone can try to take a piece in search of their own self. Nine minutes of his speech are full of important ideas and reflections filtered through the story of his relationship with fashion.
IRIS (2015)
Charisma, irony and a strong sense of style make Iris Apfel the queen of the manifesto of maximalism without an expiration date. Having become a fashion icon in her silver years after a successful life as an interior designer (she has furnished the homes of many presidents of the United States and beyond), at 93 years old in 2015 she became the protagonist of a documentary on her life and her aesthetics shot by the director Albert Maysles who was then 87 years old, a name to remember because he is the one who signed another masterpiece of narrative of costume such as Grey Gardens released in 1975.
Designers and creative directors are among the most popular protagonists of fashion documentary screenplays. Not least High & Low — John Galliano, the film that re-ennobles the uncontainable and piratical flair of couturier John Galliano to the severe judgment of the world. Or the recent TV series dedicated to Karl Lagerfeld . The biopics on Chanel, on Valentino Garavani in The Last Emperor released in 2008, Dior and I in 2014 where Raf Simons in 2012, 55 years after the death of Monsieur Dior, takes over the helm of the Maison and in eight weeks performs the miracle of creating the Haute Couture collection when, normally, much more is needed. Here is a selected recap of stories and encounters that are difficult to forget.
Notebook on Cities and Clothes (1989)
When German director Wim Wenders was commissioned by the Centre Pompidou to make a documentary about Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto , he said he didn’t want to hear about it. Fortunately, things turned out differently and the result exceeded expectations. A philosophical essay on two modes of visual communication, a look at the connections between Yamamoto’s chosen medium and Wenders’s. That is, how documentaries about people should be. There is also Yohji Yamamoto: Dressmaker, a 2016 film that offers a glimpse into Yamamoto’s creative process and his fascinating career as a law graduate who became the father of contemporary Japanese fashion .
Issey Miyake Moves (2002)
Issey Miyake is a philosophical and meticulous human being, both an architect and thinker and a creator of clothes, and this thoughtful film follows his rhythm. Released in 1993 and then dubbed in 2002, we get closer to his rippled world to understand his care and poetics. The famous folds and twists have in fact opened up worlds of possibilities in the manipulation of fabrics and therefore in the construction of the dress in symbiosis with the body. Two striking moments: the design of the costumes for William Forsythe’s Frankfurt Ballet and that of the clothes for the 1992 Lithuanian Olympic team .
UNZIPPED (1995)
Unzipped shares much in common with Catwalk (same release year, same lead actors with a focus on the rise of model Christy Turlington ), but it’s more playful, less serious and presents American designer Isaac Mizrahi as a character full of humor and wit. The cult documentary, shot in grainy black and white, follows the launch of Mizrahi’s fall 1994 collection plus every surrounding moment of industry chaos and madness. It’s a «we were and (maybe) nothing has changed yet» kind of thing.
McQueen (2018)
Lee Alexander McQueen, the boy from London’s East End who shook up the fashion world, believed that a garment had to either «repel» or «excite», otherwise it would have no reason to show. He committed suicide at the age of just forty in 2010, leaving a terrifying void. This intimate documentary by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui is a portrait of his complexity behind the theatricality, a moving examination of a dark and romantic mind. A year after his death, in 2011, McQueen and I was released, a film that traces his journey through Saville Row and St. Martins fashion school to the impact of his incredibly powerful relationship with his scout and mentor Isabella Blow.
The Artist Is Absent (2015)
This is a short film, short but dense, on the meaning and essence of Martin Margiela ‘s work . The Artist Is Absent is dedicated to the Belgian designer through the story of the evolution of his eponymous brand and his influence on the fashion industry despite never showing himself in public. As Cathy Horyn, Fashion Critic-at-Large of The Cut, says, «Margiela made us think». In 2019, a second important document was released: Martin Margiela: In His Own Words, where you can only see his hands and hear his voice. That is, what is needed.
DRIES (2017)
Director Reiner Holzemer followed and observed him for a year. Dries Van Noten is the last true intellectual designer, fresh from leaving the brand to rightfully enjoy a new phase of his life at 66. In his heart he knows he has broken many hearts, but c’est la vie . The documentary Dries is therefore a magic, a window into the thoughts and gestures of a creative so refined and free and yet so discreet. Seeing Dries in his element, from developing fabrics and perfecting the fit of a suit, to more personal moments with his partner and dog in their spacious (and very well designed) house in Antwerp, is a real gift.
CRAZY LOVE (2010)
This documentary, made two years after the death of couturier Yves Saint Laurent , revolves around the posthumous sale of the stunning works of art he collected over decades with his partner and companion Pierre Bergé. A shared love of collecting beautiful things, a love, Monsieur Laurent’s, for clothes and the women to dress them.
Westwood, Punk, Icon, Activist (2018)
Rebel in the deepest sense of the word, beyond punk and clothes. Vivienne Westwood was in the way she led her life, second after second. This is why it is important to see and re-see this documentary that portrays her in all her passionate facets and engaged in projects and moral choices from which to take an example.
Fashion documentaries about models
Before the influencers, but after the movie stars, there are them, the top models. Reference figures useful for calibrating the beauty coefficient of the current time. Fascinating parameters to aspire to and to look at and, at the same time, to be seduced, enchanted in the ever-increasing desire to emulate. Here are the stories and suggestions on the subject with documentaries of the most incisive models in the history of fashion. Special mention for the film Gia — A woman beyond all limits played in 1998 by Angelina Jolie , true and sad story of the famous photomodel and model Gia Carangi. Despite her successful career, she died prematurely from AIDS at only 26 years old.
Who Are You, Polly Magoo (1966)
A satirical mockumentary by an author that mocks the world of fashion and its excesses. The protagonist of the surreal and cynical story is the model Dorothy McGowan in the role of Polly Magoo, an American supermodel who is followed by a French television crew. With her, Grayson Hall in the role of Miss Maxwell, director of a fashion magazine modeled on Diana Vreeland and Philippe Noiret in the role of the reporter and television director. What has changed since then? Hmm, maybe still too little.
INVISIBLE BEAUTY (2023)
Co-directed with Frédéric Tcheng, the film explores the life and career of Bethann Hardison . If the name still says too little, this is the opportunity to make up for it. Bethann Hardison is one of the most important activists in fashion: from being one of the first black models to break through in the 70s, since the 80s Hardison has worked to increase opportunities for other black women within the fashion industry. Not a little. Among the real inserts are also the testimonies of Zendaya , Naomi Campbell and Fran Lebowitz, her big fans. On the subject we also associate Donyale Luna: Super Model (2023) the first black model to end up on the cover of the English edition of Vogue in 1966 with the signature of none other than photographer David Bailey. She was a performer on TV with Salvador Dalì, she worked in Italy acting in Satyricon by Federico Fellini and in Salomè by Carmelo Bene. A rather interesting document on the emancipation and representation of non-white beauty.
Casablancas: The Man Who Loved Women (2016)
John Casablancas — father of Julian (yes, Julian from The Strokes) — is credited with two main things: the creation of the modeling agency Elite Model Management in 1972 and the development of the concept of the top model. Thanks to him and Anna Wintour’s ever-upright antennae, models’ careers have become equal to those of Hollywood stars and this documentary film tells the story of their rise.
The Super Models (2023)
4 names: Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington. They are the ones who earned the stellar title of top model. Many others followed, but we have to look in their direction to have ignited the spark. The mini series The Super Models produced by Apple TV + and released in 2023 captures exactly the spirit of those decades, the eighties and nineties when the perception of the role of model changed forever.