FxF: The 20s and 30s Onscreen.

Tomorrow, I’m upping sticks and moving to London. While kipping on the sista’s couch for the duration of menswear during LFW had its advantages, it’s time I made the former junk room, now bedroom, my Summer 2010 abode. Although I’ve pretty much pined for the city’s abundance of fashion-related places and people, nearing the move it’s actually all things fashion-and-film I’m stoked for.

Some of you may remember the 2nd Fashion in Film Festival, entitled If Looks Could Kill, which brought together the simultaneously disparate and surprisingly interconnected realms of cinema, clothing, crime and violence. Naturally, when I heard a bunch of hardened cinephiles and fashion aficionados were banding together to combine my two first loves, it was just a little bit heartbreaking to hear I wasn’t going to get to see it. Luckily, the FFF will return in December 2010 to once again unite the two arts. Fingers crossed for a good theme. Am personally favouring something along the lines of the hammy get-ups of Hammer Horror/all the silk shifts and suave suiting of Wong Kar Wai/50s and 60s-era sci-fi Barbarella-esque trash…

Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1968)

In the Mood for Love (2000)

Barbarella (1968)

Anyway, while browsing through the FFF site I stumbled upon Screen Search Fashion, which is basically a collab. between the RCA and Screen Archive South East that deals with 1920s and ’30s fashion on film. Put simply, it offers an array of clips from silent films which feature, variously, a moustached man sporting suspenders for his socks (am, worryingly, beginning to think this a smart sartorial choice…), a raglan-sleeved single-breasted overcoat that could give any trenchcoat a run for its money in terms of film noir effect, and sailor rig-outs circa 1935. ‘Nuff said, really.

Football gear from 1936/1937

Images from SASE, Lidous, ScifiWire, and Daily Mail