The Gentlewoman SS17 No°15
Since it was an unfortunate missed purchase
of the Gentlewoman AW16 issue last autumn, while Sofia Coppola’s black and
white portrait promoted on the social media in late February, the early arrival
at bookstore was my priority in a sunny March day. Photographed by Inez &
Vinoodh, with styling by Jonathan Kaye, the Oscar-winning director and
screenwriter for Lost in Translation in
2004, Sofia from the Coppola family opens up her love toward her Italian
tradition, her insecurities on the career path and her upcoming film, The Beguiled, to Holly Brubach on the
Gentlewoman SS17.
From The Virgin
Suicide (1999), is set amid the anomie of 1970s Midwestern suburbia, Lost in Translation (2003) in the
jet-lagged exile of a Tokyo hotel bar; Marie
Antoinette (2006) in the confectionery bubble of the French court at
Versailles; Somewhere (2010) in the
stagnant pond of celebrity privilege, and till The Bling Ring (2013), in the echo chamber of social media and Los
Angeles designer’s brands, we audiences think that we can tell a Sofia Coppola
film at a glace—all atmospheric long takes, winsome girls and pastel shades.
But at the age of 45, Sofia is tackling a new tense Civil War drama set in the
American South, while the young women were sheltered from the outside world, a wounded
Union soldier was taken in, and the unexpected events turn to the end. There is
a personal quality to the way it’s conveyed, the choice of music and colour
palette, pink runs through her movies like a leitmotif—we know that we’re
living through Sofia’s teen years. While the Golden Globe-nominee Kirsten Dunst,
also the actress in The Beguiled,
points out that Sofia does not only understand actors she works together with, furthermore,
“She understands people.”
During the interview with Holly Brubach,
Sofia shows the distaff side of life from the vantage of how to be herself
while surrounded by the extraordinary of family members: that she even holds
enough confidence to refuse to get any nose job, even she broke her nose at
juvenile, or, even she knows that she has a big Italian nose. She also points
out that her movie career chronicle, while she helped out at make-up team at
Coppola’s Godfather set, she has been
‘always around’ ever since. “You try not to let the fear take over…. sometimes
someone outside of your family sees something in you. My parents (Francis Ford
Coppola and Eleanor Coppola) were encouraging, but’s that’s just what parents
do…. (204), but I feel fortunate to be alive in this time when I get to do my
work”(212).
As a 15-year-old, Sofia interned at Chanel,
in 1994, she started her own clothing line, MilkFed, sold only in Japan. Her
friendship with designer Marc Jacobs (she mentions several time the designer’s
name at her 2013 The Bling Ring), the
Louis Vuitton handbag named after her, her appearances together with her father
in the company’s advertisement campaign, the way she wears effortlessly but
elegantly, sometimes a pair of Converse shoes during the filmmaking, those, only
make her participation in fashion world a kind of extracurricular outstanding,
since it is often the actresses’ privilege but no directors’.
One thing we learn about Sofia is that she
appreciates sophisticated things—art crafts or beautiful objects that are well
made. Her camera lingers on pyramids of macaron placed geometrically on golden pastel
plates, rows of satin pinky slippers, and dressing-table landscape of perfume
bottles and shiny make-up set. Therefore, as for photography, while choosing
the mini items echoing Sofia Coppola as the cover woman of SS17 issue, I adopt
Louis Vuitton Lucie vernis cerise mini sac, represents her collaboration with the
prominent French House, while three Chanel Camilla flowers cover the price
sticker and also make the photography more a bit of feminine touch. Chanel
Rouge Allure INK Choquant and Le Vernis nail colour Rouge Rubis reflects her
internship era at Chanel in 1994, and finally a Louis Vuitton golden pen tells
the intellectual side of a caring mother, an Oscar winner and a strong mind.
I find the most surprising part of The
Gentlewoman SS17 issue is that each article affiliated with several micro
photos, which usually refer to a special term between the lines. Turn to page
324-25 of SS17 issue, the further info according to the photos listed in a
numeral way. This is one of the best graphic designs of a magazine I have ever
experienced so far. Those micro photos carry a pictorial signifier, distinguish
the version from the iPad or on-line magazine, and they make visually
convenient to search the different paragraphs of the article, indeed, the breakthrough
design makes me fall in love with paper magazine ever more.
Keep going and carry on, the gentlewoman!
Works Cited & Photography:
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