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      in Music

      Looking Again at Amy Winehouse, 10 Years After Her Death

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      In “Amy: Beyond the Stage,” the Design Museum in London explores — and tries to somewhat reframe — the “Back to Black” singer’s life and legacy.LONDON — On the wall of a museum here hangs a handwritten page from Amy Winehouse’s teenage notebook, listing her “fame ambitions.” There are 14 goals, including “to be photographed by David LaChapelle” (the photographer who would later direct the music video for her song “Tears Dry on Their Own”) and “to do a movie where I look ugly.”A decade after her death at 27, the exhibition “Amy: Beyond the Stage” at the Design Museum displays both intimate items — like the goal list — and objects that point to the singer’s influences in an attempt to add new dimensions to how we understand Winehouse’s short career and legacy, both of which are often overshadowed by her struggles with addiction.Winehouse’s memory has been shaped, in part, by documentaries like “Amy” from 2015, which won an Oscar, and by artists who cite her as an influence — “I owe 90 percent of my career to her,” Adele said onstage in 2016.Speaking in an interview at the museum, Janis Winehouse, the singer’s mother, said that her daughter was “difficult” growing up. “We had a relationship: I would say, ‘Amy don’t,’ and she would take it as, ‘Amy carry on,’ and that’s how it worked,” she said.Winehouse’s stepfather, Richard Collins, added that the musician “was very strong, very charismatic, she was manipulative, she was loving, she was naughty, headstrong and she could sing — and it was obvious.”The idea for an exhibition that could touch on many of these facets was brought to the Design Museum by Naomi Parry, Winehouse’s friend and stylist, in the summer of 2020. After 10 years, Parry hoped that people would be receptive to thinking about Winehouse’s story in a different way.A wall of photographs in the exhibition depict the evolution of Winehouse’s style around the release of her first album, “Frank,” in 2003.Ed ReeveIn the years immediately after her death, “people weren’t ready to talk about anything but the tragedy, which I understood,” Parry, who is an adviser to the exhibition, said in a recent interview. But more recently, she has “needed the narrative to shift slightly to a more positive focus on her life because it was a real struggle constantly seeing books and stories and negative things about my friend.”There was also another motivation. Last month, there was an auction of a number of the singer’s belongings from her estate, which is administered by her father, Mitch Winehouse. . “It was kind of our last opportunity whilst we had things in our control to do this,” Parry said.The exhibition charts Winehouse’s evolution and influences, from her early years growing up in the Southgate suburb of north London to the Black artists who inspired her, as well as the clothes and hair that made up her distinctive aesthetic..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Here’s a look at some of the items on display, and what they reveal about the singer.Winehouse wore this yellow dress, second from left, to the BRIT Awards in 2007. She paired it with a black bra.Ed ReeveDress by PreenWinehouse wore a yellow dress from the designer Preen in 2007 at the BRIT Awards, an annual ceremony celebrating British popular music. That year, “Back to Black” was nominated for album of the year, and Winehouse took home the award for best British female artist.For Parry, the BRIT Awards marked a moment in which the singer’s signature vintage style — the beehive, short dresses and thick eyeliner — took shape.Winehouse customized the outfit by wearing a black bra underneath. “When we did the fitting, she tried it on without a bra, and I was like, ‘It looks incredible,’” Parry said. Before the event, however, Winehouse tried the dress on again over her bra and decided she preferred it that way.Parry said that Winehouse often personalized outfits: Before one performance, Parry had to cut off the bottom of a Dolce & Gabbana dress because Winehouse wanted it shorter. “It was always a conversation,” Parry said of the alterations. “But she would always win.”In one installation at the Design Museum, visitors may feel like they’re stepping into the London recording studio where parts of “Back to Black” were recorded. Ed Reeve‘In the Studio’ InstallationThis installation, created by Chiara Stephenson, a stage and costume designer, is inspired by Metropolis Studios, the London recording studio where parts of Winehouse’s 2006 album “Back to Black” were recorded and mixed. The constructed “booth” plays footage of Winehouse, her contemporaries and influences.“It kind of felt like it was overnight,” Parry said of Winehouse’s fame after the album’s release. “Suddenly she had paparazzi camped directly outside her house. For anybody, whether they had mental health issues or not, that is a lot.”A jacket from a 2008 collection that Karl Lagerfeld designed for Chanel.On the runway, models sported Winehouse-style beehives. Ed ReeveJacket From Chanel’s Métiers d’Art Pre-Fall CollectionThis piece is from Chanel’s 2008 Métiers d’Art collection, designed by Karl Lagerfeld. On the runway, many of the models sported beehives and heavy eyeliner, inspired by Winehouse.While Winehouse was confident in her abilities as a singer, Parry said, “I think it completely blew her mind when people, like Lagerfeld, knew who she was and were inspired by her.”Winehouse’s influence on high-fashion houses continued after her death — in 2012 Jean Paul Gaultier unveiled a line paying even more direct homage to the singer — as did her effect on street style more broadly.“In the wake of Amy’s death, there were women all over the streets of London, Paris, New York wearing beehives in all different forms,” said Priya Khanchandani, the show’s curator. “I think some people were doing it without necessarily realizing that it came from Amy.”After Winehouse’s death, fans wrote messages to her on the street signs outside her north London home.Ed ReeveCamden Square and Murray Street SignsFans and well-wishers wrote on these street signs outside Winehouse’s home in the aftermath of her death in July 2011. “The fans were in the square singing Amy’s songs and crying,” said Collins, Winehouse’s stepfather.The council had planned to take the signs down and replace them, Collins said, but Winehouse’s manager persuaded officials to hand them over to the family.Parry, who lived with Winehouse from January to May 2011, said of the public outpouring: “Looking back on it, it was such an amazing thing how many people felt like they experienced her to the point where they feel physical grief.”Fred Perry and Winehouse collaborated on a collection in 2010.Ed ReeveFred Perry CollectionThese selected items come from the 2010 collaboration between the clothing brand Fred Perry and Winehouse.Parry had conversations with Winehouse about starting a label together and thought that a collaboration with Fred Perry — a brand that Winehouse loved and that had strong connections to musical subcultures — would be a way for her to enter the fashion world.Remembering Winehouse’s excitement at the prospect of working with the brand, Parry described it as “like a child that was about to go into their favorite sweet shop.”Working on the collection was an escape for Winehouse, Parry said: “It was still doing something creative, but it wasn’t the pressure of music. It was something new and something she could get her teeth into.”During her lifetime, the media often fetishized Winehouse’s troubles or didn’t “treat them with the gravity that they should have,” said Priya Khanchandani, the show’s curator.Ed Reeve‘In the Limelight’ InstallationThese are a selection of articles written about Winehouse, many of which address her substance use.“The exhibition sets out to be celebratory of Amy and her legacy, but it would be impossible to do an exhibition about Amy and not talk about the struggles that she faced,” said Khanchandani, the show’s curator. At the time, the media often fetishized Winehouse’s troubles or didn’t “treat them with the gravity that they should have,” she said.Stories included here describe Winehouse as “a tortured soul” and “the nation’s high priestess of hedonism.”Khanchandani took care to properly frame this part of the exhibition, calling on experts who deal with addiction and body image to workshop the exhibit’s language. “I wanted to shift the discourse to approach these issues through a critical lens,” she said. More

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      in Movies

      Meet the Costume Designers of 'Sing 2'

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      The Rodarte designers on creating costumes for the sequel to the animated film “Sing.”What should an animated elephant, anthropomorphized as a shy teenage girl with a crush on an ice-cream vendor, wear onstage while she performs Aretha Franklin’s “I Say a Little Prayer” in front of said vendor?This was the kind of question facing Laura and Kate Mulleavy, better known for designing the fashion brand Rodarte, three years ago, when the sisters were brought on as costume designers for the animated movie “Sing 2” by the company Illumination, best known for bringing “Minions” into the world.It wasn’t the sisters’ first time designing costumes for a feature film about performers working thorough their issues onstage. In 2010, they cocreated costumes for Darren Aronofsky’s ballet gothic “Black Swan.” But it was their first time designing for an animated cast of zoo animals, which included a pig (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), porcupine (Scarlett Johansson) and lion (Bono) putting on a space opera in a Las Vegas-type town.The fashion designers and sisters Kate, left and Laura Mulleavy, the creators of Rodarte.Brinson+Banks for The New York TimesThere were more questions, of course — questions that came up for the entirety of production, Kate Mulleavy said: “How do we get the movement right? How do we get the texture right? How do we get this as detailed as possible?”Here, in an interview condensed and edited for clarity, the sisters discuss the complexities of fashion animation, including their inspiration for the film’s standout costume (worn by Meena, that lovestruck teenage elephant): a crystal-encrusted hooded cape in several shades of blue that cloaks a long white gown with a giant train — all ruffles and chiffon and unabashed innocence.A sketch of Meena.Illumination and Universal Pictures, via Universal StudiosMeena’s costume.Illumination and Universal Pictures, via Universal StudiosHow do you even start designing something like that gown for animation?Kate Mulleavy: There’s so much heart and soul in her character, and we wanted to reveal that in her costume change. When she takes off the cape and reveals this beautiful dress, the train kind of floats, and it’s actually so spectacular to watch. Trying to get that thing that chiffon does when you have a magic gust of wind … animating that was just a very long process.Laura Mulleavy: Her cape, if I’m correct, took a year. There were things on it that we really wanted to achieve, like hand-smocking detail. It’s so easy in animation to make something perfect. And what we wanted to bring is the fact that what we do is either handmade or a hand-done technique — something that makes it look special and interesting, not like a cookie-cutter item.Even down to the shape of this smocking and the crystal application and then the dégradé within the cape. It took such a long time because it wasn’t just like, “Oh, let’s make dark blue and teal come together.” We had to recreate an effect that you would get from hand-dyeing.Those details, going back and forth and making sure that the blue was swishing across her in the right part — that took a lot of work.You released a few Rodarte collections in this time period, between 2018 and 2021. Did any aspects of your work on “Sing 2” seep into those collections, or vice versa?Kate: Sometimes this question comes up when you costume-design — if you’re coming, in our case, from your own fashion company. How much should Rodarte show up in the costumes? We definitely have a viewpoint, creatively, and those things can become intertwined in a sense.Rather than having the movie influence what we were doing, it made us rethink things that we’ve done. Sometimes you compartmentalize. You do something and you never think about it again. With fashion, you’re always trying to move forward or take new steps in a different direction, even if it’s within your language; the handwork that we’ve done over the years — aging, beading, hand-dyeing and a lot of techniques that we said at the time we’re never going to do that again.A sketch of the look on the character Ash.Illumination and Universal Pictures, via Universal StudiosA still from “Sing 2” of Ash on stage.Illumination and Universal Pictures, via Universal StudiosThis was, in a sense, a pretty straightforward costume design project. But in fashion there has been a lot of attention lately on the “metaverse,” and brands translating their looks for avatars in video games or animated characters. For you, did working on “Sing 2” feel connected to that phenomenon at all?Laura: I don’t connect them. It’s definitely in the zeitgeist, but this is a feature film that took three years to do. It doesn’t seem like a gimmick, and that’s not what it is. Fashion going into those spaces is a way to make money, and I don’t think that’s bad. I think that’s great, it’s what we do. It’s exciting, and it’s a way to create brand awareness.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      in Movies

      Gucci Makes a Hollywood Entrance

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      LOS ANGELES — On election night in much of America, in the shadow of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and amid the panting anticipation for Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci” film, the actual Gucci designer Alessandro Michele brought the “Gucci Love Parade,” his first in-person show since February 2020, to Hollywood Boulevard.Style and stardom collided in a conflagration of marabou, lace and lamé bathed in pink and purple marquee lights. It was hard to escape the feeling that the whole thing was a movie and everyone there just a character in it. That, after 18 months of living through screens, the boundaries between fashion and celluloid fantasy had finally collapsed, split down the seams.Gucci took over Hollywood Boulevard for their “Love Parade.”Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York TimesDirector’s chairs lined the street.Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York TimesGucci, spring 2022.Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York TimesA full city block had been cordoned off, each side of the Walk of Stars lined with hundreds of director’s chairs in signature Gucci canvas. Gwyneth Paltrow, in a new version of the red velvet Gucci suit she wore to the VMAs in 1996, schmoozed with Dakota Johnson (in bristling black paillettes), who happens to be dating her ex-husband. Nearby sat Salma Hayek Pinault, in a silver and blue sequined shirtdress, who stars in “House of Gucci” and is married to François-Henri Pinault, the chief executive of Kering, which owns real Gucci.Jared Leto, who is a Michele muse, and also in “House of Gucci,” walked the runway in white denim, aviators and a double-breasted blazer. So did Miranda July, in a faux fur-trimmed strawberry cardigan, big Gucci logo briefs and stockings. On the sidelines, Billie Eilish (in a crystal skullcap) and Miley Cyrus (in sapphire fringe and butter yellow feathers) applauded.“It’s a dream come true,” Mr. Michele said in a news conference after the show, of why he had decided to eschew Milan for Los Angeles. “There was no better place to restart.”Jared Leto walked in the show.Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York TimesGwyneth Paltrow.Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated PressDakota Johnson, left, and Billie Eilish.Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated PressIt was back in May 2020, after all, when much of the world was self-isolating and the fashion world itself was in crisis, that Mr. Michele had first declared a rethink of the industry system, stepping off the four-city collections track and abandoning old categories of fall and spring. Since then, and perhaps more than any other designer, he has resolutely hewed to a separate path: creating “Guccifest,” a mini film festival complete with a Gus Van Sant-directed Gucci mini-series; “hacking” into Balenciaga in April (and letting Balenciaga’s designer, Demna Gvasalia, hack him right back).Coming to Hollywood, which Mr. Michele called “the American Olympus,” to come back to the runway was a logical next step.Not just because of the stories his mother used to tell him about Hollywood that inspired him to want to create clothes. Or because, as Mr. Michele said, Gucci has deep roots in the jet set and the larger-than-life, or because the brand has been sponsoring the annual LACMA gala for many years.But because increasingly the traditional gravitational and social rules of what to wear when and where no longer apply, and a lot of that is thanks to Mr. Michele’s work at Gucci. He routinely ignores old ideas about day and night or fancy and sporty or men and women, hopscotches through historical reference, and ultimately builds his characters in a way that used to be available only in the movies — or acknowledged only in the movies.

      .css-5h54w2{display:grid;grid-template-columns:2.271fr 1fr;grid-template-rows:repeat(6,1fr);grid-gap:4px;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-5h54w2{grid-gap:8px;}}.css-5h54w2 > :nth-child(1){grid-column:1;grid-row:1 / 4;}.css-5h54w2 > :nth-child(2){grid-column:1;grid-row:4 / 7;-webkit-align-self:end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:end;}.css-5h54w2 > :nth-child(3){grid-column:2;grid-row:1 / 3;}.css-5h54w2 > :nth-child(4){grid-column:2;grid-row:3 / 5;}.css-5h54w2 > :nth-child(5){grid-column:2;grid-row:5 / 7;-webkit-align-self:end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:end;}.css-rrq38y{margin:1rem auto;max-width:945px;}.css-dbjnm3{margin-top:10px;color:#666;font-family:nyt-imperial,georgia,’times new roman’,times,Songti TC,simsun,serif;font-weight:400;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-dbjnm3{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;}}Gucci, spring 2022.

      His clothes are unabashedly costume — they revel in the joy of playing dress-up, rather than pushing a silhouette forward or exploring construction. He designs at a pitch of maximalist emotion rather than modernism. (To say his collections look like the ultimate vintage store is a legitimate complaint.)So this time ’round there were Marilyn Monroe silver and gold goddess pleats and Rita Hayworth-worthy lacy nightgowns; souvenir palm tree-print shirts and just-off-the-bus cotton lawn and cowboy hats; Elizabeth Taylor Cleopatra gowns and Joan Crawford shoulders. There were the variables of the back lot and the era of Edith Head and Adrian, when costume designers were also celebrity designers because they understood that life, as much as the world, is a stage, and everyone is dressing for their entrance, darling.That’s why Mr. Michele put his show in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard: to underscore the fact that the sheer act of getting ready to go out and get some milk is a performance of self. Especially now that any moment could end up online and everybody is the director of their own social media series.And maybe then you want to throw on a big fake fur chubby over your corset. Sport a three-piece suit in mint green or shell-pink satin with big fake orchids on the lapel. Wear knit bike shorts under a yachting blazer with cowboy boots. Whatever! Add a sparkling cat mask. Or maybe a feather boa. It’s ridiculous (it is). It’s a blast (it is).Then strut out down the center of a city street as spotlights strafe the sky. And let everyone watching wonder what scene, exactly, this is. More

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      in Television

      Homer Simpson Was Made for Fashion

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      Behind the painstaking creation of the Balenciaga-Simpsons episode that took nearly a year to make.Clapping, whispering, cameras snapping, questionable music: These are the sounds of a classic fashion show. Bursts of laughter? Those are less common.Yet several were heard last Saturday night, rolling around the 19th-century Parisian theater where the great and storied house of Cristóbal Balenciaga skipped the traditional catwalk and screened a special 10-minute episode of “The Simpsons.”It was a surprise more than a year in the making, and the result of a sometimes grueling collaboration between two exacting creative entities known for their attention to detail. So far it has been viewed more than five million times on YouTube.In the episode, Homer writes to Balenciaga (“Dear Balun, Balloon, Baleen, Balenciaga-ga,” he says as he struggles to pronounce the famous fashion name) for Marge’s birthday, explaining that his wife has always wanted to own something by the brand. He asks for the cheapest item, which the Balenciaga team interprets as “just one of those American gags nobody gets” and sends him a dress that costs 19,000 euros. After wearing it briefly, Marge returns the dress with a note saying she’ll “always remember those 30 minutes of feeling just a little special.”Back in Europe, the Balenciaga artistic director Demna Gvasalia declares her note “the saddest thing I’ve ever heard, and I grew up in the Soviet Union. This is exactly the kind of woman I want to reach!” He then travels to Springfield and decides to “rescue” the “style-deprived” by inviting them to model his clothes in Paris, explaining that he wants “the world to see real people in my show.”The 10 minutes are packed with Easter eggs for die-hard fans of both “The Simpsons” and Balenciaga. A private Balenciaga jet has landing gear that looks like the brand’s famous sock sneakers; Waylon Smithers chooses a dress to wear when given his choice of outfit; Lisa at first acknowledges that walking a runway is “superficial” but then enjoys it immensely.The collaboration began in April 2020, when Mr. Gvasalia sent the “Simpsons” creator Matt Groening an email about working together.Marge in the golden ballroom dress from the summer 2020 collection.The Simpsons 20th TV AnimationMr. Gvasalia, 40, who was born in Georgia and watched the show when he was growing up, said the idea came to him during the first lockdown of 2020. He has a penchant for inserting Balenciaga into mass-market trends: Under his direction, the brand has collaborated with other American sensations, like Crocs and Fortnite.About “The Simpsons,” he said, “I always loved the tongue-in-cheek humor, the romance and the charming naïveness of it.”Al Jean, an executive producer and writer of “The Simpsons,” said that when he learned of the Balenciaga project in January, “my response was, ‘What’s Balenciaga?’” He turned to Wikipedia for answers.His first pitch to Balenciaga had a similar framing to the one they ended up going with — Marge’s birthday wish — but diverged with Mr. Gvasalia’s character deciding that the brand’s next show would be held in Springfield. When the Balenciaga plane lands there, its models aren’t allowed into the United States because they’re too thin and beautiful. Springfield’s residents become the models, their nuclear plant is the runway, and the ghost of Mr. Balenciaga makes an appearance.But Balenciaga preferred that Springfield be brought to Paris, Mr. Jean said. From there, the story was revised and tweaked — to the point that the writers joked about “Draft 52 of the Balenciaga script” — up until two days before the Paris showing.Mr. Gvasalia made specific contributions to the script, Mr. Jean said. For example, the episode ends with Homer embracing and singing “La Mer” to Marge on a post-show party boat on the Seine. But Mr. Gvasalia wanted one final joke, so he asked that Homer’s jacket be set on fire by a Frenchman smoking a cigar. Mr. Jean then suggested that Anna Wintour, who had appeared in the front row of the fashion show, try to put out the fire with expensive champagne, which Homer tries to drink instead.“She said, ‘Please don’t have me do that,’ so it became Demna,” Mr. Jean said. (Ms. Wintour otherwise approved of her likeness being used but declined to voice her character, he said.) And that earlier line about Mr. Gvasalia growing up in the Soviet Union? The “Simpsons” team had decided to cut it, but Mr. Gvasalia asked for it to be reinstated.He also asked, the day before the show, to change the color of a tear Ms. Wintour sheds while watching Marge model. The tear was too light, and it wouldn’t read onscreen unless it was a darker blue. Mr. Jean and the director David Silverman agreed.“They were definitely our match in terms of, to the last detail, making sure everything is perfect,” Mr. Jean said. “The animation crew, this is the hardest thing they’ve had to do since ‘The Simpsons Movie.’”Maggie and Lisa in Balenciaga crushed velvet jersey gowns from the spring 2021 collection.The Simpsons 20th TV AnimationBart in a Balenciaga look from winter 2020, including a Wifi vintage jersey XL T-shirt and black leather Cuissard boots.The Simpsons 20th TV AnimationMarge wearing a fictional Balenciaga dress in the “Simpsons” episode.The Simpsons 20th TV AnimationSmithers in a one-shoulder pantadress from the winter 2020 collection.The Simpsons 20th TV AnimationSherri and Terri wearing turtleneck dresses in bonded velvet from the summer 2020 collection.The Simpsons 20th TV AnimationMr. Silverman, who directed that 2007 film, said the biggest challenge was getting the “accuracy needed in the clothing,” which involved inventive post-animation effects to capture the distinct textures and movement of, for example, Marge’s runway look: a gold metallic ball gown.Balenciaga sent the “Simpsons” team 15 looks to choose from for the final show, all based on designs from the last five years. But putting them on the bodies of these universally recognizable cartoon characters wasn’t so straightforward.“It was tricky for us, capturing that balance of caricature and the integrity of the clothing,” Mr. Silverman said. “You’re translating the look of real clothing, real designs on these characters that aren’t exactly human proportions.”Mr. Silverman, who joked-but-not-really that this is how he spent his summer vacation, studied runway footage to figure out what the audience should be wearing and how the lighting should be hitting the catwalk.The script also had to capture the particular absurdity of the luxury fashion world and Balenciaga’s stature in that world — something that can’t be absorbed on Wikipedia. Mr. Jean said that in addition to the crash course in Balenciaga earlier in the year, watching the Netflix series about Halston, who was a great fan of Balenciaga, helped him understand the evergreen excessive culture of fashion.The supporting characters are also based on real people and animals, including Mr. Gvasalia’s husband, Loïk Gomez; their two dogs; the chief creative officer, Martina Tiefenthaler (who voiced herself); and workers from Balenciaga’s atelier who are finishing the collection on the plane while singing, “formidable, formidable.”Selma wearing a 3D double-breasted coat and a stretch velvet top from the winter 2018 collection.The Simpsons 20th TV AnimationPatty in a swing doudoune from Demna Gvasalia’s fall 2016 debut collection.The Simpsons 20th TV AnimationThis is one of Mr. Gvasalia’s favorite scenes in the episode, he said: “It just makes me so happy every time I watch it.”As for Mr. Gvasalia’s voice, “we had to try to talk him into playing himself, but he didn’t want to,” Mr. Jean said. He felt that was consistent with Mr. Gvasalia’s recent decision to fully obscure his face and body during public appearances, creating confusion among observers as to whether it was really him.When asked why he wanted to align Balenciaga with “The Simpsons” and whether he felt the brands had any commonalities, Mr. Gvasalia said that “it’s more personal to me.”“I did not want to align anything or make sense of anything. I just wanted to create an iconic visual story.”While the novelty of the collaboration made it feel surprising, the brands share a similar ethos. They have an appreciation for self-referentiality, breaking the rules of presentation (airing an episode with live animation; turning a red carpet into a runway show without telling anyone) and bridging the highbrow and lowbrow. Mr. Jean called Mr. Gvasalia an “excellent collaborator,” and Mr. Gvasalia described the experience as “the highest level of collaboration” and “a dream come true.”“I did not realize how complex it is to create a 10-minute-long episode, so huge respect to that,” he said.Whether the act was meant to challenge fashion’s self-seriousness or the public’s notions of luxury — to bring Balenciaga to the suburban masses or to bring the suburban masses to Balenciaga — is something he will let the critics debate.What did he want out of this? “A smile and a good dose of fun.” More

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      in Movies

      Have You Run Out of Netflix Shows to Watch? Try These.

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      Fashion week may be back in-person, but not every designer wants to give up the digital approach. Marine Serre, Thebe Magugu, Burberry and Dries Van Noten explore the connection.PARIS — The last year and a half of being stuck to the small screen for work and pleasure, desperate for any new piece of escapism be it blockbuster or art house or glossy series, has to have changed forever our relationship to the moving picture, raising the stakes and the expectations. And if, when fashion first went online, the idea of transforming a show into a video seemed like a potential savior for the industry, it also exposed some of the limits in the fashion imagination.Watching model after model stroll by onscreen, even with some fancy camera angles, it soon became awfully easy to look away.This is especially true now that in-person shows — like big-screen movie experiences — are back; now that video has become a conscious choice, rather than a necessity. For some, such as Dries Van Noten, it’s a matter of pandemic health concerns; for others, such as Marine Serre, it’s a creative imperative.Look made from vintage linens, Marine Serre, spring 2022.via Marine SerreWhatever the motive, though, it has become increasingly clear that for a designer to opt for a mini-movie instead of a runway, there needs to be a specific reason for the video to be; something you can do onscreen that you can’t do in person.The medium has to be part of the message. (Apologies to Marshall McLuhan.)Ms. Serre, a designer who thinks deeply about the current state of things, has always understood this. (Well, she tends to be first with a lot of things: an inveterate bicyclist, she also made masks before masks became a part of daily life, and she’s already moved on from dependence on her widely-recognized crescent moon logo.)She made two of the most successful fashion films of the previous digital seasons, in part because each contained a narrative thread that — like her fashion, which was built on upcycling long before it became a runway trend — was rooted in the world. Not just the world of environmental politics, but of the literal materials of everyday life.To that end, she said, film “lets me go deeper than I can with a show, break the bounds of fashion in a way,” to show people not just how to wear her clothes but how to live and how to act within them.Dresses inspired by the print top in the family photo behind, Thebe Magugu, spring 2022.via Thebe MaguguShe did it again, this season, in a garden in the Marais, where her movie, “Ostel 24,” could premiere on a big screen. A day in the life of a single close-knit community, it showed them meditating, driving, kneading dough, eating, dancing alone in their rooms, crushing cherries for dye — above all, tending to one another. Taking care. Paying attention.That they happened to be wearing clothes that were also deeply imbued with a sense of the personal alchemy that can transform vintage Dutch linens (embroidered napkins and tablecloths) into delicate tea dresses, or checked terry-cloth dish towels into Chanel-like lunching suits, or ’90s popcorn tops no one likes anymore into extraordinary collages of print and color (sometimes 15 tops in one dress), was part of the story. A reminder that the choices you make matter, from what you put on in the morning to what you eat and whom you share it with.As, in a different way, was “Genealogy” from Thebe Magugu, like Ms. Serre a relatively young, independent designer who has found a more intimate voice through digital than in the echoing environs of the runway.Note the ears, Burberry, spring 2022.via BurberryA sort of family memory/therapy session, as well as a startlingly personal guide to his formative influences, the film featured Mr. Magugu conducting a kind of round table with his mother, Iris Magugu, and his maternal aunt, Esther Magugu, as they went through old family photos from their life in the South African mining town of Kimberley and discussed their favorite clothes — which Mr. Magugu had translated into his new collection.So his mom’s prized trench coat became a beige and sky blue off-the-shoulder trench dress. A nurse’s periwinkle blue uniform became a neat shirtdress with trumpet sleeves, hem dipping down in the back. Ditto the paisley print from a beloved frock, given a sophisticated rockabilly edge. As an expression of how the past informs the present (and future), and how memories are contained in what we wear, it was elegantly and potently done.And it made Riccardo Tisci’s Burberry video seem calculated and antiseptic by comparison: a sort of mix and match version of house codes (trench coats! leather!) with a world of nature overlay (gimmicky deer ear prosthetics; bat-ear hunting hats that might become viral successes; butterfly and cow prints and fluffy faux fox tail accessories) paraded through a landscape of rooms. It turned out many of the most classic looking trench coats were cut away entirely at the back to expose the rear. Shock! Transgression! Chilly? Also: Why?Dries Van Noten, spring 2022.Rafael PavarottiAt least Mr. Van Noten’s stop-and-start compilation of movement, color and music communicated the intensity of the collection, which viewed in accompanying still photographs looked like nothing so much as a flood of pure fashion: blown-up couture volumes and ruffles, waterfalls of rainbow fringe, blurry firework prints, denim covered in diamanté — idea after idea, each seeming more tactile and maximalist than the next.In a Zoom conversation, Mr. Van Noten said he had been thinking about festivals, both the desert happening Burning Man and India’s colorful Holi, and how people come together to express joy. His clothes were all that. But it made the disconnect between what they represented and the fact they were trapped, onscreen, especially frustrating. When what the viewer really should feel was enthralled.Emotional and technological connectivity isn’t enough; you need context, too. That’s the place where the stories we tell ourselves get woven into cloth. That’s when you hit rewind. And watch it again and again, until it’s ready-to-wear. More

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      in Music

      The Uniform Cool of Charlie Watts

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      “Style is the answer to everything,” Charles Bukowski, of all people, once said in a lecture that’s still afloat in the ether of YouTube. Swigging Schlitz from a bottle, the pockmarked laureate of the underground discoursed on one of the few traits that, as is well known, one may possess though never acquire.Bullfighters have style and so do boxers, Bukowski said. He had seen more men with style inside of prison than outside its walls, he also somewhat questionably asserted. “To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it,” he then added — and that much, at least, seems indisputable.Nobody ever accused the Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, who died Aug. 24 at 80, of dullness. Yet so granitic and unshowy was he relative to his preening bandmates — in their face paint, frippery and feathers — that it was easy to be distracted from the ineffable Watts cool that anchored the Stones sound and that drew on a lineage far older than rock.Well before joining what is generally called the world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll group, Mr. Watts, a trained graphic artist who learned to play after giving up banjo and turning the body of one into a drum, was a seasoned sessions player. He considered himself at heart a jazzman; his heroes were musicians like Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Lester Young and phenomenal pop crooners like the unfairly forgotten Billy Eckstine.While the rest of the Rolling Stones dressed the part of rock stars, Mr. Watts found his style groove on Savile Row. Here, with Ron Wood, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, he celebrates the opening of “Let’s Spend the Night Together” in 1983.Carlos Rene Perez/Associated PressMr. Watts in London, 1989.John Stoddart/Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesIn a double-breasted suit, in 1992.Eamonn McCabe/Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesHe studied famously natty dressers like Fred Astaire, men who found a style and seldom deviated from it throughout their lives. A famous story about the Stones describes them starving in order to make enough money to recruit a drummer then in no great rush to join the band. “Literally!” Keith Richards wrote in “Life,” his excellent 2010 memoir. “We went shoplifting to get Charlie Watts.”Mr. Watts was expensive then and, as it happened, chose for himself an image that seldom looked otherwise. “To be honest,” he once told GQ. “I have a very old-fashioned and traditional mode of dress.”When his bandmates Mick Jagger and Mr. Richards began peacocking in Carnaby Road velvets, secondhand glad rags from Portobello Road, Moroccan djellabas, boas, sequined jumpsuits and dresses plucked from the wardrobes of their wives or girlfriends, Mr. Watts continued to dress as soberly as an attorney. And when, in the late 1970s, Mr. Jagger and Mr. Richards began adding suiting to their wardrobe, their selections tended to feature nipped waists, four-lane lapels, checkerboard patterns or Oxford bag trousers from the brilliant and flamboyant upstart Tommy Nutter.“I always felt totally out of place with the Rolling Stones,” Mr. Watts told GQ, at least in style terms. Photographs appeared of the band with everyone else wearing sneakers and Mr. Watts in a pair of lace-ups from the 19th-century Mayfair shoemaker George Cleverley. “I hate trainers,” he said, meaning athletic shoes. “Even if they’re fashionable.”Perhaps in some ways Mr. Watts was just ahead of the other Stones and the rest of us in purely style terms — more evolved in his understanding of convention and how stealthily to subvert it, a bit like a jazz musician improvising on core melodies. There may even have been something punk in his determination early on to forgo the likes of Mr. Nutter and instead patronize some of the more venerable Savile Row tailors, places still so discreet in the 1970s that they often had no signs on their doors. It was his brilliance to mold what those tailors did to his own assured tastes.Take, for instance, the 1971 Peter Webb images — lost for 40 years before rediscovery in the past decade — depicting the young Mr. Watts and Mr. Richards from “Sticky Fingers” at the very height of their fame. Mr. Richards is fabulously attired in zippered black leather, graphically patterned velvet trousers in black-and-white, a contrast-patterned shirt, a custom leather bandoleer belt and buccaneer shag. Mr. Watts, by contrast, is wearing a three-piece suit with a six-button vest in what appears to be stolid burgomaster’s loden.Or take the double-breasted dove gray morning coat the mature Mr. Watts is seen wearing in another shot of himself and his wife, Shirley, at Ascot. (The couple bred Arabian horses.) Beautifully cut for his compact frame (he was 5-foot-8), it is worn with a pale pink waistcoat and tie, a shirt whose rounded collars are pinned beneath the knot, a style he first glimpsed and copied from the cover of Dexter Gordon’s imperious jazz classic “Our Man in Paris.”Already by 1967, the Stones (with Brian Jones in rear) were venturing into Portobello Road glad rags, vintage scarves and their girlfriends’ dresses. A lilac tie with a velvet jacket was about as Mod as Mr. Watts would ever get.Tony Gale/AlamyIt takes gumption, and a good relationship with one’s tailor, to pair a morning suit with a waistcoat in powder pink, as Mr. Watts, seen here with his wife, Shirley Watts, did at Ascot Racecourse in 2010.Indigo/Getty ImagesEach of those suits was bespoke, the latter stitched by H. Huntsman & Sons, a Savile Row institution that has been dressing British swells since 1849. Theirs was one of just two tailoring companies Mr. Watts worked with throughout his life.“Mr. Watts was one of the most stylish gentlemen I’ve had the pleasure of working with,” said Dario Carnera, the head cutter at Huntsman, in an email. “He imbued his own sartorial flair in every commission.” He ordered from the establishment for more than 50 years, the craftsman added. (In the Huntsman catalog there still exists a fabric — the Springfield stripe — of Mr. Watts’s design.)By his own rough estimate, Mr. Watts owned several hundred suits, at least as many pairs of shoes, an all-but-uncountable quantity of custom shirts and ties — so many clothes, in fact, that, inverting a hoary sexist cliché about fashion, it was his wife who complained that her husband spent too much time in front of the mirror.Mr. Watts seldom wore any of his sartorial finery onstage, however, preferring the practicality and anonymity of short-sleeved dress shirts or T-shirts for concerts or tours. It was in civilian life that he cultivated, and eventually perfected, a sartorial image as elegant, serene and impeccable as his drumming. More

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      in Music

      How Kanye West Is Using Fashion in the 'Donda' Era

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      Kanye West may or may not be imminently releasing “Donda,” his 10th solo album, but over the course of the past few weeks, this era in his career has already established its own signature aesthetic: all black, military, asceticism on an epic scale.It’s a now familiar part of West’s album rollout strategy: clothes to match, or make, the mood. Given that nowadays he spends as much time focused on his fashion enterprises as his music (likely more), it’s unsurprising that shifts in those two creative areas move in parallel.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about West’s use of fashion as a signifier for musical evolution, the ways he has been alternately embraced and rejected by the fashion industry, and how musicians like Frank Ocean and Tyler, the Creator are walking in the path he carved.Guests:Rachel Tashjian, fashion critic at GQSteff Yotka, senior fashion news editor at Vogue More

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      in Theater

      Ankara Print Dresses? These Aren’t Shakespeare’s ‘Merry Wives.’

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      Shakespeare in the Park is back, and Dede Ayite’s West African-influenced costume designs are just as lively as Jocelyn Bioh’s adaptation.When Saheem Ali, the director of this summer’s Shakespeare in the Park production of “Merry Wives,” thought about which costume designer he wanted to create the clothes for the show, he knew immediately that it should be Dede Ayite. The two have been friends for years, and have worked together on “Twelfth Night” for the Public Mobile Unit, “Fires in the Mirror” at Signature Theater Company and the upcoming “Nollywood Dreams” at the MCC Theater.“Dede fit the bill for this particular project to a T,” he said. Not only because of her artistry, he added, “but because of her identity.” He knew the Ghanaian-born costume designer “would bring an authenticity and a truth to the world that I couldn’t imagine any other designer bringing up for this particular world.”In the playwright Jocelyn Bioh’s modern take on Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” the setting is Harlem instead of Berkshire, England; its characters West African, not English. Falstaff is a lifelong Harlemite; the Pages are Ghanaian; and the Fords are Nigerian. The costumes play as vital a role in reimagining and breathing new life into this work as the acting, the writing, the sets and more. In his review, The New York Times’s chief theater critic, Jesse Green, said Ayite’s costumes helped the production look “especially grand.”Ayite, a two-time Tony Award nominee for her work on “Slave Play” and “A Soldier’s Play,” knew that she wanted the costumes to reflect and highlight both the similarities and the differences between the cultures. She and her team sourced fabrics from Kumasi, Ghana, as well as from fabric haunts in Yonkers and the Bronx. She said she hoped that the costumes would add to the production’s celebration of Harlem and other immigrant communities and what contributions, cultural and otherwise, immigrants bring to the places they settle in.Dede Ayite gathered a variety of Ankara prints for her designs in the show.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe patterns and symbols reflect the play’s characters and their personalities.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesSara Krulwich/The New York TimesSara Krulwich/The New York Times“I’m hopeful that as people get to experience the show and see these Black beautiful bodies and shapes and people onstage, that they truly see them and embrace them and recognize that they exist and they matter,” Ayite said.She recently spoke about her process, the art of marrying traditional and modern West African styles with modern Western designs and creating costumes that flatter and feel natural on actors with different body shapes.The Pages and the FordsSusan Kelechi Watson as Madam Ford, left, in a lace blouse and wrap skirt that is usually worn by Nigerian women. Pascale Armand, center, and Kyle Scatliffe as the Pages. Armand is wearing a two piece jumpsuit.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe characters Ekua and Kwame Page are from Ghana, and for some of the couple’s clothes, Ayite got woven kente cloth from that country. Madam Page is a traditional woman who still has her finger on the pulse, Ayite said. For one of Madam Page’s dresses, Ayite leaned into a traditional silhouette reminiscent of the 1950s, but it also has modern-day cutouts and design details.“It feels like an Ankara print, but in some ways feels like an elevated or modern version of an Ankara print,” Ayite said, adding that she chose three Adinkra symbols with specific meanings to add a sense of playfulness to the garment. Those symbols — representing strength and humility; unity; and wisdom and creativity — speak more broadly to Madam Page’s personality and character, which viewers become familiar with throughout the play.With each costume, Ayite said, she wanted to create layers that symbolize where a character was from and who they are as an individual.Naturally, the Pages dress quite differently from the Fords, who are from Nigeria.Ayite dove into her own knowledge of the countries and into a well of research about different styles of dress not only within the two countries, broadly, but also within different tribes. The Nigerian couple, for example, are Igbo.For every character, Ayite played around with various silhouettes and shapes. Madam Ford’s dress at the top of the show is a modern take on the traditional aso ebi, a type of uniform dress worn as a show of solidarity for celebrations in Nigeria.Traditionally, Ayite said, “it’s a bit longer, but we shortened it a little bit, so we see a bit more leg.”Falstaff the HarlemiteJacob Ming-Trent as Falstaff, a Harlemite whose interactions with his West African neighbors are reflected in his clothes. The print for the Ghana Must Go bag inspired this pair of shorts.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesTo bring to life Bioh’s version of Falstaff, the loud, often clownish and inappropriate beer-bellied player of Harlem, Ayite wanted to create a conversation, through costume, of his Harlem roots and his interactions with his West African neighbors.In one scene, when Falstaff goes to speak with Madam Ford, he puts on a colorfully printed Stacy Adams shirt that looks as if it has paint speckled across it. Ayite pointed out that the shirt “is very American,” but there are elements of Africanness in his costumes that fit with his African neighbors. Falstaff has a pair of shorts with the print of the common Ghana Must Go bag. The print on the bag — a colorful red-and-white or blue-and-white plaid — has been around for decades.“It brings me joy just to highlight that as a people, we come from somewhere and the culture is deep, it’s rich, and as much as we might lose certain things, there are essences of it that never leave us,” she said.Doctor CaiusDavid Ryan Smith as Doctor Caius dressed in an agbada or Senegalese boubou. Shola Adewusi plays Mama Quickly, who runs a clinic with the doctor.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesDavid Ryan Smith plays the Senegalese Doctor Caius, whose personality is bold, as are his costumes. He’s educated, has a bit of flair, and he has money. Each of his costumes takes up space and demands attention thanks to the silhouettes and striking colors.“He wants to be seen,” Ayite said. “He’s a presence that we feel like we need to acknowledge. You can’t miss him.”Secondary CharactersAbena, right, as Anne Page, who is courted by three suitors, including MaYaa Boateng’s Fenton, left. Dede Ayite gave the younger characters a more fashion forward look.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAyite has traveled to several African countries and when she arrived in the United States 20 years ago, she settled in Harlem. These experiences are perhaps why the show’s costumes feel authentic to all the cultures they represent.The research and her experience come alive with each character, but especially stand out among the younger, perhaps more fashion forward characters, like Anne Page.She is a first-generation American, who wears clothes that could be seen on West 116th Street and in a viral TikTok post. Ayite explored how being a first-generation young woman could factor into how she would dress. One scene, for example, has Anne in a classic, long white button-down. But atop it is a printed corset that feels both old and new, African and American.“I changed the paneling a little bit and the silhouette of that corset, so it feels like it’s pushing against culture a little bit,” she said, “so it feels African, but also feels like — in terms of fashion — she has our finger on the pulse because she has access to YouTube, to Instagram, to TikTok.” More