- An overall introduction about the history of fashion in film
In the very beginning of the film industry, this relationship had been aware by film directors. At first, costumes, including make-up style and accessories, were used to describe role’s characteristic, so that even without a word being spoken, audients can get an intuitive impression of Character’s background. Moreover, the outfit in film not only create a robust sense of character, these design are also used to create fantastic feeling and dream life style to attract audience’s eyeball, make audience experience the most severe hankering for those things.That was a direction to make fashion industry got development through film,fashion lifestyle and dressing get an extensive display in film industry, and it would be a yearning of the audience. As Gibson says (Stylist Magazine, 2014) ‘In the Twenties and Thirties, cinema was the means by which new stylesreached average women’, in the early period of film industry, fashion laid a good foundation in film industry, especially laid the unshakable position ambitiously.
- Hollywood glamour
Consider with the interdependence between fashion and film in the history, the influence of Hollywood film is significantly important that America culture and dress style were brought to entire world. Schreier (1998) states the power of Hollywood design is extremely influential at that period. The great strength of Hollywood film and the image of Hollywood celebrities, as well as their dressing style, make great impacts on audience’s purchasing behaviour.
The Hollywood fashion and star power owes a lot to costume designer. According to Munich (2011), the most famous costume designer in that period is Gilbert Adrian, who have the biggest power of influence on fashion and film industries. Adrian is MGM’s costume designer leader from 1928 to 1941, he is famous for ‘sculpting the padded shoulder and tapering’ (Munich 2011, p.17), his fashionable design leads the trend of most twentieth-century dress style. In addition, the influence of film industry on fashion can be seen from Hollywood glamour, as Adrian (see Schreier, 1998) states, it took 300 years to make Paris become the fashion leader of the world, but Hollywood just took 25 years. Moreover, Tom Ford (WWD, 1997), the famous designer for Gucci, mentions that compare with New York or Europe, Hollywood is more influential in current society and sets the standard for beauty and trend in the world. Furthermore, the style editor of IN STYLE magazine named Lisa Gabor (Munich 2011) also recognizes the affects from film, she commented that fashion style in Hollywood film effect greatly on their readers, and movie stars are commonly known by their famous image. In addition, Hollywood never made any clothes or sale clothes to the society, however, it influence on fashion trend significantly.
Due to the selling power of cinema become more and more obvious, film producers and couturiers seized the chance to develop these two industries. Fashion elements in films have been paid more attention, fashion items tend to make a great figure in film. Lodwick points that (Stylist Magazine 2014), when a character attracts people’s attention, she will cause audience’s imagination, her dress and items would definitely lead the fashion trend in the world. The celebrity effect could be a significant phenomenon in fashion and film industry, movie star would be a best advertising of a brand, and this phenomenon also influences the society culture. The celebrity effect from movie stars not only influence people’s eye for fashion, but also affect people’s life style.
- Denim in cinema and James Dean
Denim was created in Nineteenth century during American Gold
Rush. Many people emigrated to San Francisco in that period for panning, however, their pants are always broken by though stone and other bad condition. Denim become popular because pants made by canvas are more everlasting, even though, denim only worn by worker or miner until twentieth century, denim in film become more popular because of some famous movie stars, ‘from Marlon Brando (The Wild One) to Steve McQueen (Junior Bonner), Paul Newman (Cool Hand Luke) to John Travolta (Urban Cowboy)’ (Laverty, L. C 2010, p.1) , all of these famous actors have a same characteristic in film, which is rebelliousness.
It can’t be ignored that star power makes public yearn, the symbolism of denim has been changed from ‘worker’s wear’ to ‘trendy wear’ by the influence of film. Moreover, James Dean, as a social icon of social estrangement and teenage disillusionment, popularised denim to American teenager by wearing a pair of Lee 101 Riders jeans in his most famous film ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ (Laverty, 2010).
The influence of cinema can be easily seen, Jack (2013) states that, the issue of denim became the American national fabric is mainly owns to Dean, he showed denim in film with a new meaning that denim no longer only worn by farmers and worker, and macroscopically speaking, it change the culture of America.
Celebrity effect
The relationship between fashion and film should be alsodiscussed with the phenomenon about celebrity effect. Diana Crane (2011), who is an American sociologist, indicates that, the key factor to effect the value of a vintageattire is related to whether it was belonged or worn byfamous person, especially a movie star.
Rinaldi and Testa (2015) give some cases, the price ofthe litter black dress, which was designed by Givenchyand immediately made Audrey Hepburn in ‘Breakfastat Tiffany’s’ became the immortal monument in thehistory of cinema, is approximately 680,000 euros;andthe white dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in ‘The SevenYear Itch’ worth about €3.50 million. From these casesabove, although somebody would measure the value offashion in film by money, we cannot ignored the meaningfulinfluence of film.
In the past, designers made cloth for using in film as costumers, but dressing celebrities become their best way to promote themselves like make advertisements (Schreier, 1998). A case in point is Nicole Kidman’s look on Oscar red-carpet in 1997, she worn a chartreuse chinoiserie-embroidered Dior gown designed by John Galliano. According to Ginsberg (2014), before that time garments on Oscar red-carpet can be easily predicted – ‘parades of stately Armanis and sexy Versaces’, and referring to Schreier (1998), Oriental-inspired elements in fashion world only made a small wave, thus, the dress with chinoiserie-embroidered in ‘rebellious’ chartreuse was undoubtedly be controversial, even Joan Rivers made puking noises in front of Nicole. However, even this dress arouse controversy, WWD used her dress for next day’s cover, which denoted John become the red-carpet king. The style of this dress then copied by dress designer for their clientele and imitated by manufacturers.
- Film impact on fashion
Rinaldi (2015) mentioned that, fashion in film not only influence on ordinary public, but also make a bpotential influence on fashion trend in real life, it is not rare that designers gain inspiration from film, then develop their production with their individual emotion. A case in point is Yves Saint Laurent and his muse of inspiration Marlene Dietrich. While Marlene was wearing a suit with top hat and smoking a cigarette in the movie ‘Morroco’, it became an ground-breaking image of women in that century and also very strange to see a women in pants, but it did lead the trend of womenswear at that time.
Referring to Roséline (2014), women’s suit be reinterpreted mainly owing to Yves Saint Laurent. Yves Saint Laurent created Le Smoking for women, which is his iconic piece, included a black tuxedo suit and tie. Lupacchini (2015) states that, Yves Saint Laurent obtained the inspiration about making tuxedo for women from Marlene Dietrich, ‘It is a well-known fact that Chanel gave women their freedom; years later Saint Laurent brought them power’ (see Roséline, 2014 ), the Le Smoking is not only the clothesfor modern women, but also gave them power.
Moreover, the story still continues, more and more fashion designers joined in the style of ‘Le Smoking’, the new style of women’s sexuality with jacket and trouser which have perfect cutting and the sharp contours, instead exposed
body or other fancy design. For example,Tom Ford and Ralph Lauren all create their new interpretation of Laurent’s Le Smoking.
Furthermore, the spirit of Le Smoking can be recognized even in recent collections for Yves Saint Laurent. To compare these two photos on Vogue in 1975 and 2015, women wearing suit, tie, androgynous clothes and accessories can still be found. By the story of Yves Saint Laurent and Marlene Dietrich, we can observe that the effect of film not only influence on the fashion trend, but also the culture.
Another case is ‘Marie Antoinette’, which is really an influential film in fashion world, directed by Sofia Coppola in 2006 and costumes designed by Milena Canonero. Canonero was asked to design these costumes with fresh and bright pastel colours, such like pink and blue silk, to ‘create a sugary sweet image of youth and frivolity’ (Landis 2012, P.140), she also used heavy fabric and a mass of ornament to interpretative the fashion style among French court aristocracies of eighteenth century (Landis, 2012).
Owing to amazing costumer in the film, ‘Marie Antoinette’ gained a great of favourable comment and influenced on fashion trend, Dunst (Marie Antoinette actress) was photographed for the cover of Vogue as Marie Antoinette, in a dress design by Alexander McQueen.Almost all the show stages in 2007 were filled with de signer’s recall of 18th century and Marie Antoinette style. On Anna Sui’s spring collection in 2007, it is not hard to find some echoes of the film ‘Marie Antoinette’ and the style of Jack Sparrow in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’s’, she admitted that she got the inspiration from Marie Antoinette and pirates, as well as other film (Vogue, 2006).
In addition, the style of Marie Antoinette keep influencing on many luxury brands in recent years.On the Haute Couture Fashion week in Paris in 2014, Chanel and Dior all showed their collections which are affected by 18th century.
The French neo-classical arabesque designs and perfect embroidery work on Chanel’s collections represent the style of Marie Antoinette and French royal, and as early as two years ago,Karl Lagerfeld had Launched a series of clothes with Marie Antoinette-inspired designs for Chanel.
From the cases above we can easy to understand why fashion brands are trying to contribute to the film industry, if a fashion brand got a rich of background by linking itself with aacceptable film or movie star, its narrative would be recognized by public, therefore when compared with other brands, this brand which have its own brand concepts could be associated to a symbolism of particular spirits or stories and gains more awareness. However, even many resources shown the interdependence between fashion and film, there is hardly to find a strategy of developing fashion by film so far. In terms of developing the strategy, many resources are not deep enough that only illustrate the history of the two areas. In order to reach the goal of this research, it demand more basic theories.
- Brief probe into Neuromarketing and Semiotic in fashion film
Thinking about the relationship between the two, I found fashion style and products in film might make a profound impression on audiences, it makes fashion in film keep influencing on fashion trend and social culture, and sometime how we dress or what we buy are based on our sensorimotor which could impact by fashion in films.To be more specific, if we saw a brand logo in film, we may recognize the brand and get interested in it when we are shopping; or when girls have no idea about what to dress for dating, they choose a black skirt; When people see a blue satin heels with Jewel, may be associate it with ManoloBlahnikHangisi Jewel Satin Pumps, Carrie and ‘sex and the city’, people choose these kind of shoes as a symbol of sexy style.These phenomenon is related to neuromarketing and semiotics in film.
- The definition of Neuromarketing
Neuromarketing is a new field of marketing research which could be defined as a sub area of neuroeconomics, studying consumers’ sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli (Suomala 2012). Moreover, ‘base on the research method of neuromarketing, by measuring the brain activation when customers view and evaluate different products or advertisements, new information about human preference and emotional responses has be revealed’ (Plassmann et al., 2012). According to Nielsen and Fibæk (2014), during the past several years, neuromarketing gained quite a lot of knowledge and method form neuroscience area and make a great awareness and concern in marketing and consumer research areas, as neuromarketing derives from neuroscience, the research method, knowledge and techniques from neuroscience would be also suitable in the field of neuromarketing. The key point of neuromarketing is that consumers choose which products and brands is almost base on their subconsciousness, it can be used as a new basis for advertising campaign and brands promotion and it would be significantly important to fashion industry.
- Previous studies – neurocinema and film
Neuromarketing becomes used by media or business area in recent year, for instance, used to test the reactions from audiences of some film clips.
Randall (2011) comments that neurocinema has been practiced by few innovative films and studios, the use the feedback from audience’s brain in vetting and refining some elements in film.
Referring to Randall (2011), Uri Hansson, professor in psychology at Princeton University, states that some kinds of movie can be edited based on the test result of fMRI. Filmmakers can find the audiences’ excitement, maximise itand improve the film, based on what creates the most of activeness in the ‘emotional centre’ (amygdala), which control human’s feelings such as fear, happy or sad. Hansson further explains that buzz and success of a film can be controlled by a potential way, which filmmakers should edit the film precisely to enhance the excitement in amygdala.
- Pepsi challenge – Neuromarketing study
Polster (2010) comments avery famous research related to neuromarketing and neuroimaging, which is named ‘Pepsi challenge’ IN 1980’s, aims to test the difference between two of almost similar soft drinks, Pepsi Cola and Coca cola. From this research we can find it is very difficult to understand how consumers think, how do they think with their subconsciousness, and how difficult and significant should companies and advertisers consider carefully, about the decision in the subconsciousnes of customers. This research lasted for several years in a shopping centres of America, people were invited to taste these two kinds of Cola and show which he/she prefer.
The part is called ‘blind taste test’, that means in the process of the research respondents are not allowedto know which brand’s Cola they are drinking, so that they are only focusing on the taste without other interventions. In the first step, Pepsi became the winner, with the result of more than 50% of respondents like the taste of Pepsi rather than Coca-Cola. This result made the management of Coca-Cola hard to believe and they decided to do their own test, but the result of this time was still unsatisfactory, 57% of the tasters did indeed choose Pepsi. In order to meet the tastes of customers, the company decided to do a re-design of Coke into New Coke with new aspectand taste, sweeter and lighter like Pepsi. However, even the new taste of Coke gained recognition in test, consumers don’t like it, they somehow against it contrarily, finally it back to the original Coke (Nielsen and Fibæk, 2014). Moreover, about three-quarters of informants preferred Coke in a further research between these two brands, which is a little bit different to the first one that the brands were identified in this time.
Questions come after these tests. Although the tastes of these two brand’s cola are not changed, why the results of ‘blind’ and ‘identified’ test are different? And, why the New Coke not accepted by public with even better taste?
Associated it with neuromarketing, these result shown customers always do not exactly understand what they want. Martínez (2012) suggests that ‘consumers contradict themselves, saying what they want, but doing what they feel’ (see Nielsen and Fibæk 2014, p.50). Therefore, by using neuromarketing researcher can get more impersonal comment of a particular issue, because the methods of neuroscience can gain information from respondents brain that can avoid some intervention. Moreover, by advertising and established the brand concept for a long period, the memory and meaning of Cola in consumers’ brain are almost linked with Coke in their subconsciousness. Coca-Cola not only a drink for customers, but also their memory and habit, thus, the New Coke met with opposition and original Coca-Cola gained more supports than Pepsi in the ‘identified’ test.
