Special shoutout to Tamanna, my old friend, for catching the hint that I dropped for this piece on my instagram!
I enjoyed the recent origin story of the 101, fashion crazed-fur obsessed, dalmatians villain Cruella De Vil. What made me go gaga? The answer lies in the constructed pieces that had adorned the lengths of the movie. If you want to see a movie flowing with fashion looks in every second of it, this one’s for you.
Growing up with the 101 dalmations (the movies and the spin off cartoon) Cruella seems a smart and a mature way of looking back at the origins. While a very rebellious punk seeming side was pushed onto Cruella, a very Christian Dior Haute couture for the Baroness- Cruella is a compilation of strong narrative scenes that gave me the ENERGY to fall in love with fashion and construction, again!
To begin this, I have decided to rank the scenes in reverse order according to their impact on the story line and how the film used fashion to deliver contrasting personalities to the core.
The Sea of return!
After significantly assuming Cruella is dead, the scene with the ball hosted by the Baroness to celebrate her new collection amidst the death of Cruella which marks the return of Cruella sabotaging the event takes this spot. It just widened my smile by seeing how the guests were given the black and white wigs with looks replicating Cruella. It irks the Baroness the most as she again feels the moment was haunted by her nemesis. If you look at Baroness’ outfit, it seems very dull and out of her usual grand entrances. The grey sheen does steer away the light that usually helped her to stay aloof and above all.
Play with fire, why not!
This scene of Cruella lighting up the hoodie cape on fire to make her first grand appearance as Cruella is the most daring choice of making an appearance. Let’s see where we have seen this? Katniss Everdeen in her fire gown at the orientation of the Hunger Games. I think the usage of fire suggests that they have decided to play with fire and they might burn in flames if they come any closer. Fire has been a reference point later in the film as Baroness does use it to kill Cruella which further proves that fire cuts fire. Now that’s a good revenge to behold.
Flying Skirt
I may or may not have struggled to understand this but I applaud the creativity that went into this scene. Cruella saying, ‘Well cut skirts are life savers, girls’ and using it as a parachute to land in water, needs to be verified but as fiction it is brilliant. Showing us fashion’s way of being extremely utilitarian. The idea of a circular skirt must’ve been in Cruella’s mind as she saw her mother wearing a dress and a jacket not saving her in any way while falling off the ledge. Genius or I must say, Cruelly genius!
Moths as sequins?
What makes this movie more applauding is to watch sabotaging as a part of fashion’s culture in one way or the other. Be it PETA crashing the show, or some imposter crashing a Chanel show or ‘70s women’s rights movement sabotaging the Miss World event. This scene which Cruella uses to divert the crowd and media to her opening show is not only spectacular but a genius imagination. I still have a hard time believing that she actually decked the dress in cocoons of moths which would later destroy the whole collection locked up in the vault. The dress in question, a show stopper and a missing piece to Baroness’ collection, does stand out on its own by being very structured and quite toned down compared to the flowy dresses that were in the line up.
Cruel Visual Merchandising
Appoint Cruella as your professor to teach you visual merchandising. Window display but in Cruella’s way of expression- loud, proud and creative. She uses Newspapers to help support her execution and that ties very vividly with the movie’s portrayal of the media's involvement in someone’s rise to fame and downfall. During the duration of the film, newspaper articles flash every time Cruella sabotages Baroness’ spotlight. The significance of the newspapers, Cruella’s acts of presentation and her way to attract everyone’s attention (especially the Baroness) tie into the attention to the finest details that this movie wove the characters into.
Trashy Opinion
I have to mention this scene towers over every other sabotage that Cruella executes with finesse and thought. This scene where Cruella jumps right out of the dumpster truck and onto the road and back to where she came from with a huge trail of garbage bags and newspapers on her, shows how she knew that despite the media dictating the fate of the rivalry between Baroness and her, she is much powerful than the nonsense they might write about her mostly because she wants them to. Same cannot be said about the Baroness, she cares about what’s written about her and somewhere Cruella knows it and that’s why approaches Anita Darling, her childhood classmate who works as a reporter for a tabloid, to cover her antics. This is another clever ode to the era of newspapers and the impact they carried on to either irk someone or rile them up.
Cruella does make good points about fashion being quite reflective of our taste, persona and actions. Fashion would always be a response to it and Cruella masterfully used it to express the same.
Tell me which was your favorite scene?
//p
Comments