Brilliant Funny Face

Watching old movies on a cold winter afternoon covered in blankets and with some sugary treats in reach, is one of my favourite things to do – and even more so if I am recovering from a New Years Eve celebration ;)

So last Tuesday I watched ‘Funny Face’ (1957) starring Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire and Kay Thompson. And although it is not my favourite Hepburn movie - ‘Sabrina’ is – it is definitely worth watching for all the references made to the world of fashion magazines, for Richard Avedon’s opening title sequence and of course for the classically beautiful Hepburn equally stunning in Hubert de Givenchy’s designs as well as the most simple black pants and tops.

 

In the movie Astaire plays fashion photographer Dick Avery who works for the fashion magazine ‘Quality’ run by Maggie Prescott – played by Kay Thompson. At an on location fashion shoot in a bookstore in Greenwich Village, they meet the intellectual Jo Stockton - played by Hepburn. Avery is convinced that the freshness and character of Jo’s face is what ‘Quality’ magazine needs because Prescott had expressed that she wanted a model who can think as well as she looks. They both decide to turn Jo into a supermodel and they take her to romantic Paris on a fashion shoot and of course Avery falls in love with her.

 

A super sweet story and very endearing, but what really attracted me was the depiction of the world of fashion magazines . I am an avid collector – already since I was a little girl. It all started with the Cosmogirl I received from my family in the US when I was about 10. I soon switched to reading the French Vogue, Elle and Marie Claire my mom bought, and already a good 10 years now my collection has exploded in every direction from UK’s I-D, US’s Nylon, Harper’s Bazaar and Vanity Fair to France’s Jalouse and Officiel …

So I love when the movie starts out with the scene in which the fashion magazine publisher and editor Maggie Prescott explains the essence of what makes a good magazine: “A magazine must be like a human being. If it comes into a home, it must contribute. It cannot just lie there… it must have blood and brains and bozaaz!”

This movie also reminded me of two other must-see fashion magazine references: The September Issue – a documentary on US Vogue’s famous September Issue and The Devil Wears Prada – a movie that could almost be considered as a modern take on Funny Face albeit without the singing and dancing, it is the story of an intellectual journalist starting to work for a fashion magazine’s most demanding and powerful editor-in-chief.

A second reason to watch the movie is Richard Avedon’s involvement as ‘Special Visual Consultant.’ He worked with director Stanley Donen to create one of the film's centerpieces, a five-minute montage of Hepburn posing all over Paris for a fashion layout, as well as the witty fashion sequence in the "Think Pink" number. He also produced the amazing opening title sequence photographs. The most famous single image from the film is the intentionally overexposed close-up of Hepburn's face in which only her facial features—her eyes, eyebrows, nose and mouth—are visible.  

Still by Richard Avedon from the opening credits of Funny Face

Avedon is a fashion photographer pioneer. He started out after World War II and was soon picked up by Harper’s Bazaar’s strong triumvirate Carmel Snow (Editor-in-Chief) , Diana Vreeland (Fashion Editor) and Alexey Brodovitch (Art Director). When Harper’s Bazaar covered the Paris spring and fall fashion collections, Avedon's task was to stage photographs of models wearing the new fashions out in the city itself. Throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s he created elegant black-and-white photographs showcasing the latest fashions in real-life settings such as Paris's picturesque cafes, cabarets and streetcars. Something he did as well for the movie Funny Face (and the character of Fred Astaire is also based on Avedon).  His fashion photography is so new because he was so strong in capturing movement. His models are not static, they move in the clothes as he “dances” with them to take the shot. Avedon worked as a fashion photographer at Harper’s Bazaar for 20 years (1945 – 1965) and then another 24 years at Vogue (1966 – 1990). Besides his fashion photography, Avedon is also known for his portraits and his photojournalism (he became the first staff photographer for The New Yorker)

In 1995 a great documentary on his life and work was made and you should really watch it if you are at all interested in photography! See the link below: