"The Great Gatsby" is coming, and if you're not jazzed (see what I did there?) about the adaptation itself, you should at least be taken with the costumes, as designed by Miuccia Prada.
In an interview with WWD, Prada was quick to maintain that the film's looks weren't "about glamour," despite the 40 dresses adapted from Prada and Miu Miu collections seeming entirely glamourous.
"When I read [the book], it was psychological," she described. "It was not about glamour for me. It was a real [study of] personality, very internalised. It was meant to be about light. It became about money, because Luhrman wanted to show her as the most beautiful and rich woman on earth."
Interesting. Also interesting? How Prada wanted to avoid weighing the pieces down in "historical pedantry" — as "Gatsby" costume designer Christine Martin put it.
"The reality is that from 1920, I could find a photo or a fashion illustration that would support almost any choice we made in the film," she explained. "But we are not making a documentary. We are trying to express a story in a way in which Fitzgerald's visceral modernity is able to transgress the plane on the screen."
So what we we looking for when "The Great Gatsby" hits screens next week? An Oscar for Leonardo DiCaprio (he hopes), as well as costumes that evoke the feel of the 1920s without being 100% historical artifacts. Think any of us can tell the difference? We shall see.
