Fashion writer and editor-at-large of Danish magazine the Horse Rider’s Journal, Susanne Madsen writes every month about the awesome energy of fashion and film under Costume Dramas.
Last week, Prada released four sketches from Miuccia Prada’s collection of over 40 dresses for Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby. True to Luhrmann and Prada form, the dresses aren’t an obvious rehash of twenties style, but rather an idiosyncratic take on the period. Dreamt up in collaboration with Luhrmann’s wife, Oscar-winning costume designer Catherine Martin, the dresses take their cue from pieces from the Prada and Miu Miu archives: AW11’s vaguely sixties fur-collared fish scale dress makes an appearance in a new twenties guise, and SS11’s graphic, vibrant stripes have been re-imagined in sequins and plastic trimmings.
“In the same way Nick Carraway reflects on a world that he is within and without, we have tried to create an environment that the audience will be subconsciously familiar with, yet separated from,” Catherine Martin noted on the collaboration with Miuccia Prada. Obstructing any straightforward analysis and forgoing obvious style and era references is of course textbook Prada, making the designer the perfect choice for Baz Luhrmann’s time-travelling universe and the tale of Jay Gatsby – the man who hasn’t only constructed his own reality, but also his own history. While we wait for the film’s May release, here are our top five Baz Luhrmann costume moments.
