EMILY FENG, HOST:
One of the most anticipated movies of the year is strutting into theaters this weekend, "The Devil Wears Prada 2."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2")
ANNE HATHAWAY: (As Andy Sachs) Hello?
STANLEY TUCCI: (As Nigel) Well, look what TJ Maxx dragged in.
MERYL STREEP: (As Miranda Priestly) Sorry. Who is this? Do you know her?
FENG: Coming 20 years after the 2006 film about a young journalist's time in the trenches of a top fashion magazine and with the world of haute couture back on display in a theater near you, we thought it was a perfect time to talk movies and fashion this week on Cineplexity, our weekly conversation where talking about the movies allows us to talk about everything else. Here to walk us down the runway is Gene Demby, host of NPR's Code Switch, and Barrie Hardymon, a senior editor at NPR who's sitting next to me in the studio. And while she may work behind the scenes, Barrie, you dress like an A-lister from...
GENE DEMBY, BYLINE: She does.
FENG: ...Hollywood.
BARRIE HARDYMON, BYLINE: Oh, from, like, a B movie, really.
(LAUGHTER)
HARDYMON: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
FENG: Barrie, let's start with you. For the uninitiated, what films for you are good reminder of the ways movies both set trends and reflect fashion styles, however niche, out to the wider world?
HARDYMON: I think about it in two ways. So one is the way in which the fashion influences the character, and then the other is the way in which those choices then reflect upon, you know, the wider world. So - and that second one is the one that I think we're all sort of aware of, right? Like, those are the movies like "It Happened One Night," you know, where Clark Gable takes off his shirt, and he is bare-chested. He is not wearing an undershirt. And, you know, sales of undershirts plummet. People just stop wearing them.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT")
CLARK GABLE: (As Peter Warne) Perhaps you're interested in how a man undresses. You know, there's a funny thing about that - quite a study in psychology. No two men do it alike.
DEMBY: (Laughter).
HARDYMON: You know what I mean? Or Annie Hall wearing menswear, and, you know, Diane Keaton...
FENG: Yes.
HARDYMON: Like, all of a sudden, we were all trying to learn how to tie a tie, you know?
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ANNIE HALL")
WOODY ALLEN: (As Alvy Singer) You play very well.
DIANE KEATON: (As Annie Hall) Oh, yeah? So do you. Oh, God, what a dumb thing to say, right? I mean, you say you play well, and then right away, I have to say you play well.
HARDYMON: But I will say, like, I think the thing that's most personal to people - right? - or I hope that as people are listening, they're thinking about - is that costume is character. What I love so much is when I think of, you know, a character, and I think of the clothes. So you've seen this all over the internet, but the - "Waiting To Exhale," where she's throwing the cigarette behind her, and the car's in flame.
DEMBY: The car's on fire.
HARDYMON: And she is in a white satin, floor-length robe...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WAITING TO EXHALE")
GRAHAM GALLOWAY: (As Fireman) Ma'am, were you aware your car was on fire?
ANGELA BASSETT: (As Bernadine Harris) Yes.
GALLOWAY: (As Fireman) Did you start this fire, Ma'am?
HARDYMON: ...Full gold earings, gold choker, bustier, short length - and I was like, OK, this is main character energy. Like, that is so important to that character. And then later, to me, when I tried to find a white satin robe that wasn't too long...
DEMBY: (Laughter).
HARDYMON: ...'Cause I'm not as tall as Angela Bassett.
DEMBY: Did you try to burn down the car?
HARDYMON: I can't say on the radio.
(LAUGHTER)
FENG: Gene, what about you?
DEMBY: I mean, it's funny, listening to the Barrie talk about this because, like, one of the things you hear Hollywood costume designers talk about a lot is that contemporary costume design is often overlooked, right? Obviously, not in a movie like "Devil Wears Prada" or its sequel, right? But a lot of times, contemporary costume design is doing a lot of heavy lifting and telling you who the character is, and it is doing so in a less sort of maybe ostentatious, maybe less obvious way than, like, period pieces, right? - or as my wife calls them, bonnet films, right?
(LAUGHTER)
DEMBY: Like right? Like, and those movies...
HARDYMON: I love that.
DEMBY: Those movies are the ones that tend to get a lot of attention when it comes to, like, award season or whatever.
FENG: Yeah.
DEMBY: But there are movies which - and we're going to get in some of them, but that are much more contemporary.
FENG: Barrie, you're getting at this a little bit already. What you said about costume as character is so true. When I get dressed in the morning, I think about what character am I playing today?
HARDYMON: Oh, yeah.
DEMBY: (Laughter).
FENG: And the clothes I wear are kind of like my costume.
HARDYMON: Yes.
FENG: And my life, maybe not like a movie, but we can pretend.
HARDYMON: Yeah.
FENG: So I'm curious.
HARDYMON: Absolutely.
FENG: Are there any films that have impacted your personal style, that influenced the way you dress?
HARDYMON: Yes, all of them...
DEMBY: (Laughter).
HARDYMON: ...Depending on the character that I want to play that day. But I will say, when I was growing up, we watched a lot of really old movies in my house, and I can remember watching "Top Hat," which is a 1935 musical...
DEMBY: Oh, wow.
HARDYMON: ...With Ginger Rogers in it. And I became totally obsessed with the dress that she wears in - when she's dancing with Fred Astaire in "Cheek To Cheek."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHEEK TO CHEEK")
FRED ASTAIRE: (As Jerry Travers, singing) Heaven, I'm in Heaven. And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak.
HARDYMON: It is this totally diaphanous, entirely - and I now - and I realized today when I looked at it again, it's this - it's backless, but somehow she looks like the feathers are coming out of her, but in the most gorgeous way.
DEMBY: Yes.
HARDYMON: And I remember thinking, oh, that is a thing that changed this person into something otherworldly. And if you love clothes, you can take a little bit of each of those characters with you when you get dressed. And so, you know, I've never in my life worn a ballet flat and not thought about Audrey Hepburn in "Sabrina" or any of the Givenchy films.
DEMBY: (Laughter).
HARDYMON: You know, I don't - I always am like, OK, there I am. I'm a little bit Audrey Hepburn.
FENG: Gene, which characters do you take with you when you get dressed?
DEMBY: Oh, man. So from two different films, from two different decades, very different films - so the first one was "Love Jones," a beloved movie from 1997 that starred Nia Long and Larenz Tate.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LOVE JONES")
LARENZ TATE: (As Darius Lovehall) Who am I? It's not important. But they called me brother to the night. Right now, I'm the blues in your left thigh.
DEMBY: I'm not the biggest fan of this movie. I loved it when I was a kid, and I watched it recently and was like, oh, I don't know. It's kind of thin. But, like, the movie is almost entirely powered by the chemistry between the two leads and vibes. And so, like, the characters...
HARDYMON: (Laughter) Vibes.
DEMBY: ...Are, like, early career creatives. So, you know, there's a lot of, like, you know, big, thick sweaters, you know, oversized jeans, like...
HARDYMON: Yes.
DEMBY: ...Some gorgeous leather jackets. It's like, they just look so good. Everybody in this movie looks so good. And the movie is like, very - like, there's like, a lot of low light, a lot of shadows, a lot of jazz playing. So when I was in high school, it felt like the kind of - the cool that, like, a - that a bookish kid like me, you know, from the Inner City - like, it's kind of cool that I could attain. I couldn't be Method Man. You know what I mean?
(LAUGHTER)
DEMBY: So I spent a lot of my, like, young adult life with, like, way too many oversized, ribbed, thick, like, turtlenecks, long leather jackets, you know, in part because of that movie. But, like, a decade-plus later was this forgotten caper flick with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen from 2009, called "Duplicity."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DUPLICITY")
JULIA ROBERTS: (As Claire Stenwick) You actually think, what, I'm playing you?
CLIVE OWEN: (As Ray Koval) Oh, it's crazy, right?
ROBERTS: (As Claire Stenwick) This felt like an assignment to you - three days, all this? What was the objective, rug burn?
DEMBY: "Duplicity" is a sort of fizzy, maybe romantic comedy or maybe spy thriller. They're both playing two spies who are - kind of fall in love with each other. And they set up a con together, but they may be kind of, like, actually conning each other. And so there's a scene in that movie where Clive Owen, like, steps out of this convertible in Rome. It's a sunny day. And he's wearing this fitted, tailored khaki suit with the, like, white shirt unbuttoned at the top and these aviator sunglasses. And I'm like - I remember, like, being in the theater, like, do I need to have a tailored khaki suit? Like...
FENG: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
DEMBY: I would have no place to wear that thing. But I wanted to have the kind of life where, like, I needed to wear a suit like that. I wanted that suit and the life that required that suit.
FENG: Before we end this conversation, I want to leave listeners with an object of clothing that you continue to obsess over, that stays with you from a film that you've watched. Maybe it's the long, black vinyl trench coats from "The Matrix" or Marilyn Monroe's white dress in "The Seven Year Itch." Gene, do you want to go first?
DEMBY: I mean, we're just talking about (ph) "The Matrix," but in that movie, Morpheus, played by Laurence Fishburne wears these, like, very famous, like, rimless sunglasses? Like, sort of like the epitome of form over function 'cause there's no way you could actually rock those things, like, walking down street. Like, a stiff breeze will blow them off your face, but they look so dope.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MATRIX")
LAURENCE FISHBURNE: (As Morpheus) Unfortunately, no one can be told what the matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.
DEMBY: Like, but what if the glasses were just, like, stripped down - instead of, like, having all this architecture - stripped down to this basically nothing - right? - like, to just the things that made them the coolest.
HARDYMON: An iconic piece of clothing that I continue - every time I'm in a department store, I'm like, oh, look, polka dots. I am telling you, "Pretty Woman," when I saw her - it's not even the dress. It's not the red dress.
DEMBY: Not the red dress?
HARDYMON: It's literally a minor dress, but she has a matching hat. It's like a brown satin polka-dot situation. It's the one where Jason Alexander hits on her in kind of, like, a disgusting way.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PRETTY WOMAN")
JASON ALEXANDER: (As Philip Stuckey) Having a nice time, Vivi?
ROBERTS: (As Vivian Ward) Yeah, I'm having a great time.
ALEXANDER: (As Philip Stuckey) Must be quite a change from Hollywood Boulevard, huh?
HARDYMON: Every time - every time - I read in a magazine, which I recently did, that polka dots are back, I am like, they never went away.
DEMBY: (Laughter).
HARDYMON: Did anyone see "Pretty Woman," a problematic film that we all still love a little bit because of the fashion? So wear your polka dots with pride.
FENG: Thank you for your fashion insights, for watching all these movies for us. That's NPR senior editor Barrie Hardymon and Gene Demby, host of Code Switch. Thank you both so much.
HARDYMON: Thank you.
DEMBY: Thank you, Emily.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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