Pedro Almodóvar and fashion: this is how the director's aesthetic has evolved over the years
AnalysisPrints, extravagance and lots of red. We review its parallels between original looks and trends
By Nuala Phillips
This topic was published in the February 2022 issue of Vogue Spain.
“It's like a childhood smell that goes deep. The combination of prints, the transgressive but traditional use of red and her load of personality have made her style a symbol of this century's cinema”. With this concise but resounding definition, the stylist Alba Melendo catalogs the Almodovarian aesthetic, that technicolor gazpacho in which decorations, characters and, of course, fashion are linked to give shape to a unique, costumbrista and nostalgic vision, but also hopelessly avant-garde.
A delusional oxymoron that Milena Smit, the filmmaker's latest muse, now brings to life for the pages of Vogue February -by the hand of Alba herself and the photographer Dan Beleiu– versioning some of the most unforgettable looks from the filmography of the manchego. Because if there is a director who has known how to make catwalks and trends his own, that is Pedro. A story that dates back to the eighties, when he began to collaborate with designers such as Francis Montesinos or Sybilla, and which quickly escalated – as did his popularity – thanks to houses such as Chanel or Armani, which opened the doors of the circuit for him. internationally with the film High heels in 1991. A milestone later perpetuated until normalization by firms such as Max Mara, who collaborated in La flor de mi secreto (1995); Gucci, who did her own thing in Talk to Her (2002); Marc Jacobs, with Back (2006); Pierre Cardin, with Broken Embraces (2009); Prada, in The Passing Lovers (2013); Dior in Julieta (2016), or Miu Miu, Louis Vuitton, Dior and Missoni in the recently released Parallel Mothers.
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“Throughout Almodóvar's filmography, fashion has been a fundamental element in creating the narrative of his films. This timeless and modern style of Pedro is what allows reinterpreting his keys to be possible today with the trends of the catwalk”, explains the stylist, who points to Victoria Abril's red Chanel in High heels as an example, honored in the pages of Vogue February with a design belonging to the last season of the maison. “It is the perfect example of an eternal look that, despite more than 20 years since the premiere of the film, is still current and contemporary,” she says. Although in reality this is not, far from it, an isolated case.
In fact, Almodovarian fashion stands the test of time with the same stoicism as the rest of his work. He achieves it by using primary colors and prints. Of flowers and moles. But also of hypersexualized styles and extravagance. Thus, from the bodycon jumpsuits by Jean Paul Gaultier that Elena Anaya wears in The Skin I Live In –whose tribute opens Milena Smit's report in February Vogue by Balenciaga–; Sor Rata's unforgettable habit in Entre tinieblas; passing through the ever-present floral prints of Pain and Glory or The Passing Lovers, or even more recent references such as the cerulean blue suit of Tilda Swinton in The Human Voice, the editorial that occupies the pages of Vogue February with Milena Smit as protagonist seeks precisely that: to claim the avant-garde and unmistakable character of Almodóvar fashion.
Precisely The human voice is the latest collaboration of costume designer Sonia Grande, who has worked with the director on other productions such as Julieta or Los abrazos rotos and who defines the director's relationship with fashion as an evolution in constant change. "She would tell you that now she is looking for other cleaner and much more refined concepts, there is something more refined and I think that her recent love of painting has contributed to all this," says Grande. “Everything has changed a lot. My first job with Pedro is from 2002, with Talk to her, and at that time her aesthetic had already evolved a lot since her beginnings with Pepi, Lucy, Bom... in the middle of the Madrid scene and postmodernity. He is a director with clear influences from pop, kitsch, shabby-lux... But we are no longer in the eighties, we are not the same and staying there would not make sense, ”says the wardrobe director.
Not surprisingly, from her years of collaboration with the artist, Grande highlights her aesthetic courage and her sensitivity when it comes to addressing the role that fashion plays in the whole. “Of all the directors with whom I have worked, Almodóvar is the one who has the most knowledge of the world of fashion, understands it the most and manages it best in his films”, he defends to end by summarizing all his experience in a sentence that captures like no other his admiration for the filmmaker: "His aesthetic is one of the best things that has happened to Spanish cinema," he points out. A statement with which Melendo agrees 100%: “Almodóvar is more than a director. He is ahead of his time and ultimately a genius."
Milena Smith's style
18 PhotosBy Sarah Arredondo
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