Fashion in Film: Elephant Walk

When Elizabeth Taylor passed in March of this year, the prolific stories and images about her reminded me of one of her films that I hadn't seen in years.  Elephant Walk had entranced me as a young woman because of the stunning clothes worn by Elizabeth Taylor.  It was perhaps one of the seeds that was planted early on that grew to become my fascination and love for vintage dresses from the 1950s.

The film was made in 1954 and Edith Head designed the costumes for Elizabeth Taylor.  The movie was filmed on location in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and the setting is stunning.  Head does a great job of making the star stand out amidst such exotic backgrounds.

The clothes that Taylor wears might seem out of place on a remote tea plantation if we weren't told early in the film that her new husband treated her to a new wardrobe in Paris on their honeymoon.

Head dressed Taylor in full skirted dresses with tiny waists that accented her ample bosom.  The dresses were always belted and most of the belts had some sort of adornment or beading to draw the eye right to Taylor's miniscule waistline.

Taylor wore this pink peignoir set on her first night on the plantation.  She looked very romantic and beautiful.

My favorite dress in the entire film is this evening gown.  Purple lace sculpts Taylor's figure very tightly and a white tulle full skirt floats beneath it.  You can see the gown in action in this video.

Like the look?  I have this 1950s dress available at Couture Allure that was probably inspired by Taylor's dress in the film.  Pretty, isn't it?

Movie Review - Beyond Biba

James Collie, producer of the film "Beyond Biba" sent me a copy of the movie to review. The film will be released on DVD in the US this month, and will have several US screenings this fall. See the Beyond Biba Movie website for more information.

I must admit, the British fashion scene is not my area of expertise, so I was intrigued to learn more about Biba founder Barbara Hulanicki. The film is essentially a series of interviews with Hulanicki and her friends and colleagues augmented with photographs and brief archival film clips. In the first half of the film, we are given an overview of Barbara's childhood and a brief history of the rise and fall of the Biba stores. The second half jumps forward to 1987 and gives a somewhat vague look at Hulanicki's work in interior design in the South Beach area of Miami.

While the film held my interest, I was left with a sense of frustration. As a vintage fashion aficionado, the main reason I wanted to watch it was to learn about the Biba stores, the clothing, and Hulinicki's design process. While there were some fabulous images of original Biba clothing and catalog images, these were panned in extreme close-up, so you could not see an entire garment in one glance. The archival film clips taken inside and outside the stores were all too brief and left me wanting a far more in-depth study. Perhaps someday, we will get one. For now, I do recommend the film with the caveat that you will not learn as much as you would like about the Biba phenomenon of the 1960s.