Created with the wisdom and passion of costume designer Jenny Beavan, the film retells the story of Mrs. Harris, who lives in the 1950s and goes to Paris in pursuit of the perfect dress of her dreams.
Mrs. Harris is an ordinary woman living in London, England, a maid who cleans for various patrons.
She saw the Dior haute couture dress in the customer's home, was instantly fascinated, and decided to use the meager income to Paris to buy a dream dress trip.
The film is set in 1957 when Mr. Christian Dior was still alive, ten years after the first release of Dior in 1947, undergoing changes in the social environment and the concept of clothing.
Paris is the center of fashion, and couture designers are still weaving perfect dreams in the center of the world, at the same time, the expansion of urbanization and the development of the entertainment industry has made more ordinary women expect to own haute couture.
The film looks back at the explosion of popular demand for fashion and the turning point of the clothing industry through a romanticized story, and also looks back at the golden age of French couture.
For this reason, the film's costume design is particularly important, costume designer Jenny Beavan has won three Academy Awards, and she was nominated for the best costume design Oscar again this year.
Born into a family of classical musicians, she loved the visual arts. At first, she studied stage set design at the Central University of Art and Design (which became the now famous Central Saint Martins in 1989). By chance, she began a career in film costume design, which found her ideal career and has been out of control ever since.
Her dream job was to create a whole world for the stage, and now her role is to use costume design to create characters for the film and to add persuasives to the characters.
She enjoys her work and gets great satisfaction from it.
Jenny Beavan won the Best Costume Design award for "Mad Max: Fury Road" at the 88th Academy Awards in 2016.
At the 94th Academy Awards in 2022, Jenny Beavan won the award for Best Costume Design for "Cruella."
The historical association between this film and Dior Haute couture is not only a combination of strong and powerful, but also a challenge for Jenny.
Dior provided 5 original replicas of the costumes. Some of the other Dior elements in the film were bought from vintage costume shops overseas, and some were redesigned by Jenny.
Jenny was invited to visit the Dior House and archives in Paris, which she said was a great excursion: Dior Archives staff showed valuable historical materials, she saw the film in the 1957 Dior fashion show in the original archive, with renderings, fabric samples, and accompanied by production notes.
The film recreates the 1957 fashion show, and the result is a masterpiece.
Most of the show clothes are historical restoration pieces designed by Mr. Christian Dior, and Jenny is responsible for the design of two dresses, designed in the name of Christian Dior for the needs of the plot.
Together with the dress that initially attracted Mrs. Harris in the plot, Jenny designed three of the most important Dior dresses in the film, each of which, in accordance with haute couture convention, has its own name: Ravissant, Venus, and Temptation.
Dress as its name, three Dior dress layers of the film plot needs, Ravissant successfully attracted Mrs. Harris fell in love with Dior haute couture, and let her go to Paris at all costs to buy a dream dress; Venus is the style Harris fell in love with on the fashion show, and the Dior fashion house was customized according to her size. However, when she returned to Paris, she found that she had no occasion to wear it, so she kindly lent Venus to her customers, but the dress was accidentally destroyed by fire and lost its original charm.
The fate of this dress is like her name, Venus is imperfect beauty; Temptation was Mrs. Harris' favorite dress Temptation, which was initially owned by other clients, but after many twists and turns, she finally got it.
