Instructor: dr. Marie-Aude Baronian

Departing from the idea that costume and fashion are obviously central to filmmaking (e.g. mise en scène), this seminar will investigate and complicate the particular relationship between film practices and design practices.

In my own research I define (fashion) design from various viewpoints since it can refer to visual looks and forms, to clothes, accessories, costume, textile, but also collage and décor as well as a specific system of signs, commodities or as modes of presentation in our visual culture. For instance, we will explore fashion and design in film (its multiple graphic manifestations) but also film as design – as if, for example, the construction of images were mirroring the fabrication of textiles. In considering certain filmmakers designers and certain designers filmmakers we will actually challenge the very “appealing” and “transformative” force of cinema as such.

Further, this seminar will also give the students an opportunity to disclose contrasting and sometimes unexpected aspects of film. Indeed, I believe that in exploring film together with design/fashion we are close to understand the persistence of film in our contemporary (digital) culture: the process of designing a film, but also consumer culture and society of spectacle, the haptic (tactile) dimension of film, issues related to the body and movement, question of creativity and style, concept of intertextuality, or fetishism to name but a few. We will engage in a great variety of filmic and cinematic objects: feature films (be them popular or auteur), advertising films, the genre of costume drama, art videos, short fiction films, documentaries – that are addressing, literally or metaphorically, (fashion) design.

Therefore we will discuss different perspectives and texts (ranging from film theory, film history, art history to design theory and philosophy) in order to disclose the dynamic and intimate interrelation between film and (textile/fashion) design and thereby to reflect upon the ontological, aesthetical, technological, historical and cultural aspects and meanings of film – in other words, we will (un)dress cinema.