Jorge Pérez

Fashioning Spansh Cinema

This book spotlights a crucial but frequently overlooked aspect of a film – costume design– and fosters an appreciation of the diverse ways in which film and fashion enrich each other. As influential industries that offer representations of ideas, values, and beliefs, both industries shape and construct cultural identities. This book analyzes the use of clothing and fashion as costumes within Spanish cinema, and particularly the significance of those costumes in relation to the visual styles and the narratives of the films selected for examination. It includes case studies from multiple periods (early and late Franco films by Florián Rey, Luis García Berlanga, and Pedro Lazaga, and films by contemporary directors such as Pedro Almodóvar, Fernando León de Aranoa, and Icíar Bollaín) and genres (immigration cinema, sex comedy, quinqui films). Fashioning Spanish Cinema focuses on examples in which costumes have discursive autonomy (especially when it comes to the relationship between high fashion and cinema); in which costumes are essential to shaping the public image of stars such as Conchita Montenegro, Sara Montiel, Victoria Abril, and Penélope Cruz; in which costumes engage with broader issues of identity; and, relatedly, in which costumes impact everyday practices and fashion trends beyond the cinematic text. In so doing, the book examines the links between costume analysis and other fields and theoretical frameworks – fashion studies, the history of dress, celebrity studies, and gender and feminist studies, among others. This book contributes a Spanish perspective to the expanding interdisciplinary work on the intersections between film and fashion.