Angelina Jolie stars in Couture, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.carole bethuel/TIFF
For years, those working in the luxury fashion industry have watched movies that consistently overlook the grind required to bring runway glamour to life. All too often, the hours of labour, the creative process, and the skilled hands working behind the seams are overshadowed by spectacle or reduced to mockery. Breaking from Hollywood’s worn-out patterns, a French film titled Couture begins the conversation from a different vantage point – positioning itself as a cinematic anomaly, an anti-Devil Wears Prada.
Much of this new drama, which recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and is directed by France’s Alice Winocour, can be likened to an authentic designer bag in a sea of Birkin knockoffs. The film’s major draw is Angelina Jolie as Maxime, an American horror-movie director tapped to direct a branded short film for a luxe clothing house. Maxime believes fashion is “useless and unnecessary” but takes on the job to fund a personal art film.
In the course of directing, she crosses paths with complicated co-workers: South Sudanese model Ada (played by Anyier Anei) and Parisian makeup artist/hopeful writer Angèle (Ella Rumpf).
Ella Rumpf as Angèle.carole bethuel/TIFF
At its TIFF debut, Winocour declared that Couture is “not a film about fashion.” Instead it’s a space where she “wanted to sew together the destinies of three women. Coutures with an ‘s’, which is the title in French, means also stitches. I was moved by [people] I met during Paris fashion week … working class heroes, seamstresses and makeup designers and fit models … so many you do not see,” Winocour said.
The first half of Couture radiates compassion for the working creative class who are responsible for fashioning fashion. It is a direct departure from Robert Altman’s satirical Prêt-à-Porter of 1994, where only the stars of fashion and those who wear them snatched the spotlight.
While Jolie is the marquee name on the screen, the close-ups in Couture are the true triumphs: the meticulous stitching of garments and the tender moments away from the runway. This includes poignant scenes with Ada, a young South Sudanese transplant, learning to work the catwalk through tutorials from her fellow models, including a tough veteran fitting model from war-torn Ukraine.
The film shines when its sparse dialogue allows for genuine warmth, as in moments that reveal a sisterly kindness between Angèle and Ada during a photo shoot, showcasing the camaraderie among couture’s hidden drivers.
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Winocour immersed herself backstage at various Fashion Week runway presentations in Paris for over a year, hoping to transfer an accurate depiction of catwalk culture to film. Did she manage it? Both yes and no.
The film showcases how bonds between women thrive in a space that is typically portrayed as a Roman arena for the bold and the beautiful. However, the wardrobe doesn’t live up to the film’s name, which for fashionphiles will be a let-down. Costumer Pascaline Chavanne had few opportunities to dress up the off-duty models (usually in sweats and oversized T-shirts) or Maxime, who wears bulky coats and nondescript separates.
On the TIFF stage, Winocour reflected on how Maxime’s character was shaped by Angelina Jolie’s own health and struggles rather than her time amongst stylists and designers. “I was inspired by [her] personal story as well …” said Winocour. “… her mother and grandmother died of the disease and she had a double mastectomy.”
In one of the film’s pivotal moments, Maxime confronts a cancer diagnosis at the height of her dazzling Parisian assignment. Jolie, who wore her mother’s necklace while filming harder scenes, spoke tearfully about her mother’s words during her final days. “One thing I remember my mother saying was, ‘All anybody ever asks me about is cancer,’” Jolie shared. “I would say, if you know someone who is going through something, ask them about everything else in their life as well … they are still living.”
That tension between the vitality of fashion and human frailty threads through Couture. The movie’s ateliers and fitting rooms exist in stark contrast to scenes of Maxime getting examined in desolate hospital rooms or talked-down-to in dreary doctor’s office appointments.
What this movie does well is strip down the high-gloss veneer of the fashion industry with a sense of adjudication. In those narrative turns, it honours the makers who refuse to gulp the industry’s champagne-spiked Kool-Aid, even as they hustle within its relentless sparkle.
