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      in Movies

      How Elvis Measured His Success: With Watches

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      The legend’s hips weren’t the only things keeping time, says Catherine Martin, the production designer for Baz Luhrmann’s new biopic.Of all the swagger and style that defined Elvis Presley — the gyrating hips, the clothes, the cars, the smirk of all smirks, that hair! — his collection of watches probably didn’t elicit giddy screaming across teen-dom in the late 1950s.But “Elvis,” a new biopic of the singer’s life, celebrates it all. Directed by Baz Luhrmann (with, one assumes, the same panache that all but turned the music and the dancing into characters in films like “Moulin Rouge!” and “Strictly Ballroom”), the movie is said to be a homage to a humble man whose love of collecting and trading watches was often overlooked during his all-too-brief 42 years.Elvis Presley in 1968. “He would swap watches with strangers whose watches he admired,” said Catherine Martin, the costume and production designer for Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” biopic.Getty Images“Watches were a symbol of his success and a big part of his story, and he gathered more valuable watches as his career developed,” said Catherine Martin, the four-time-Oscar-winning costume and production designer for the film, in a phone interview from her home in her native Australia. “They were a status symbol, and yet Elvis traded and gave watches away. He would swap watches with strangers whose watches he admired. It was crazy.”Ms. Martin, who also is a producer on the film and is married to Mr. Luhrmann, said she saw Presley’s love of watches as essential to telling his story: The way he wore and collected and traded watches reflects the image he created for himself as “the King,” but blended with his folksy roots.“Elvis was an absolutely iconoclastic dresser, and he was always accessorizing watches,” Ms. Martin said. “He reinvented himself constantly throughout his career. We don’t think of him as shocking now, but in the ’50s it was like he was a member of the Sex Pistols.”That radical transformation of Presley, played by Austin Butler in the film, provides much of the story line for “Elvis,” including his tumultuous relationship with his manager, Col. Tom Parker (Tom Hanks), who discovered the singer in 1955.Watches are an ever-present, if not obvious, element in many of the film’s scenes, Ms. Martin said, particularly because Presley always put a great deal of thought into how he wore and accessorized timepieces.“Even in the 1968 TV special, in his black leather outfit, he had a custom leather wristband made for a Bulova Accutron Astronaut,” she said, referring to Presley’s famous televised comeback concert. “A lot of the watches he wore were about technological style advances. He was always interested in what the latest watches were.”The watch that started it all was one he owned just as he was hitting it big: the triangular Hamilton Ventura, created by the American industrial designer Robert Arbib and known as the world’s first battery-powered watch. It became a signature for Presley — showing up in a gold version in his 1961 film “Blue Hawaii” — and for the watch company, which reintroduced the “Elvis watch” in 2015 to mark what would have been his 80th birthday. (It also was seen in all four “Men in Black” movies.)The “Elvis” director Baz Luhrmann with the Oscar-winning costume and production designer Catherine Martin, who is his wife, at the Met Gala in May. Angela Weiss/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“It just happened that we didn’t end up with the ‘Elvis watch’ because it’s such an iconic watch and so well known that we didn’t want it to be a main part of the story,” Ms. Martin said. “There is so much more to tell over 40 years. I don’t want to deny that this watch was super important in the Elvis story, but watches were in general.”One example would be the Omega Constellation he wore while stationed in Germany with the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1960. Made of pink gold with a black “sniper” dial, it was one of the originals in the Constellation line. Presley later gave it to Charlie Hodge, a friend and fellow musician.Antiquorum auctioned the timepiece in June 2012, expecting it to fetch $10,000 to $20,000; it sold for $52,500.And there was a second Omega Constellation, given to Presley in 1961 by his record company, RCA. The 33-millimeter white gold watch has a silver dial, with 44 round diamonds accenting the bezel, and a case back that is engraved, “To Elvis, 75 Million Records, RCA Victor, 12-25-60.” Lettering beneath the Omega logo shows that RCA purchased the watch from Tiffany & Company.Legend has it that Presley swapped it for a fan’s watch, and the fan’s nephew put the watch up for auction with Phillips in 2018. It sold for 1.8 million Swiss francs (about $1.87 million today), making it at the time the most expensive Omega ever sold. The highest bidder: Omega itself, which added the watch to its museum collection in Bienne, Switzerland.“The character arc of Elvis is fascinating, as is the fact that he was an extraordinary stylist who created his own look,” said Ms. Martin, who oversaw Mr. Butler’s watches in the new film. “He became super famous super fast, and watches were important to him to show that he had made it.”Warner Bros.One watch that was prominent late in Elvis’s career was the Rolex King Midas, which has an asymmetrical case with a wide integrated bracelet and was designed by Gerald Genta, the name behind such legendary watches as the Royal Oak and the Nautilus. Concert promoters gave the Midas to Presley in 1970 for performing six days of sold-out concerts, and it is now on permanent display at Graceland, Presley’s home in Memphis, where he died in 1977.“The King Midas is a very unusual shape, and Baz happens to own one, so Austin Butler wore that in the movie,” Ms. Martin said. “Some watches were borrowed or purchased online. Some were so valuable that it was impossible to have them on set, so we had duplicates made.”The subject of the film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last month, certainly falls into the larger-than-life category that Mr. Luhrmann and Ms. Martin seem drawn to in filmmaking (like their 2013 version of “The Great Gatsby”).“The character arc of Elvis is fascinating, as is the fact that he was an extraordinary stylist who created his own look,” Ms. Martin said. “He became super famous super fast, and watches were important to him to show that he had made it.” More

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      in Music

      The Colorful Mozart of Gen Z

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      Jacob Collier, the singer, songwriter and composer, who fancies crayon colors, clashing patterns and tie-dyed Crocs, doesn’t fit easily into any box. He’s OK with that.Jacob Collier was about to cross Fifth Avenue when a stranger stopped him to take a picture of his outfit. A Grammy-winning musician with millions of followers across YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, Mr. Collier is used to requests for pictures, but it was a nice change of pace to be asked because someone liked what he was wearing — a color-blocked jacket, acid-green patterned pants and tie-dyed Crocs — rather than because they recognized him from the internet.“I was always curious how someone would perceive me from a fashion perspective because I’ve never really perceived myself that way,” he said later from his perch on a rock in Central Park, where he spent a sunny afternoon between shows on his “Djesse” world tour. “I’ve never overly contrived it. I’ve gone for things I like that are comfortable and expressive, and that’s about it.”Following his artistic instincts has served the 27-year-old Brit well, turning him into an internet-age success story. As a teenager, his videos of multi-instrumental covers of classic songs went viral on YouTube, earning him professional representation. Since then, Mr. Collier has won five Grammys and been nominated for four more. He is commonly described as a genius by fellow musicians, and the list of his admirers is long: Coldplay and Lizzo are fans; Hans Zimmer called Mr. Collier his “hero”; and SZA said she “stalked” him on Instagram until she convinced him to collaborate with her.That Mr. Collier attracts admirers from across so many genres is a testament to the uncategorizable nature of his music, which contains elements from jazz, folk, R&B and classical. His songs often comprise hundreds of tracks layered over one another, in which he plays and sings every sound. He recently attempted to translate this enjoyment of complexity into the visual realm by using the music software Logic to color-code the hundreds of tracks that went into his arrangement of “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire).” He printed the resulting pattern on a pair of pants in collaboration with the brand Skidz.“I find myself gravitating toward things that are highly patterned, because I’m quite highly pattern-minded,” he said. “Musically, I enjoy that exploration, and visually I think it follows suit.”Mr. Collier in Central Park in May.Isak Tiner for The New York TimesThrough it all, Mr. Collier’s look has remained remarkably homegrown. That’s not to say it’s tame: His wardrobe is wild and high-energy, full of crayon colors, power-clashing patterns and the occasional alligator onesie, paralleling the eclecticism of his whimsical and energetic soundscapes. But whereas many of his peers present a version of themselves to the world that has been polished by a team of professional image-makers, Mr. Collier has, for the better part of 10 years in the public eye, done his own thing. Until a few months ago, he’d never worked with a stylist. His biggest red carpet moment — when he wore a hot pink Stella McCartney suit to the 2021 Grammys (and promptly spilled ketchup on it, he divulged) — was a result of the brand reaching out to him directly.“You can tell when someone’s covering themselves up, and you can tell when someone is pulling things out from deeper within using clothes and colors,” Mr. Collier said. “That’s what I try to aim for.”Mr. Collier performing at Brooklyn Steel in May.Isak Tiner for The New York TimesAt his first of three “Djesse” shows in New York, that meant bounding joyously across the stage in lime-green corduroy pants from an upstart brand called Fried Rice and a shirt made of upcycled bandannas from Rcnstrct Studio. He went shoeless in mismatched socks, as is his custom when performing, partly because he uses his toes to play a bespoke instrument and partly because he likes feeling “grounded and in my body.” When he does wear shoes, they’re usually Crocs, because they remind him of the house where he has lived his whole life and recorded most of his music. (“Everyone in my family wears them,” he said.)Almost all of his signature wardrobe items are like that: If you ask him what he’s wearing, he’ll tell you about a relationship with someone he loves.The pair of patterned harem pants he wore to every show of his first tour, which started in 2015 and lasted for two years, came about when he tried on a pair of his sister’s. (Having grown up in a house full of women, he said, “I don’t think of clothes as having a gender.”)The T-shirt that he wore almost every night of that first tour also points to a major pillar of the Collier style philosophy in that it was handmade by a fan.“Fans like to give me things, and it has really sustained my fashion diet over the years,” he said. When he rifles through the suitcase that serves as his tour wardrobe, fan-made pieces abound: There’s a tie-dyed hoodie, a knit hat and a patchwork kimono embroidered with a “JC” logo. As an artist known for collaborating with his listeners — Mr. Collier regularly conducts live concert audiences as though they’re choirs and digitally duets submissions from followers on YouTube and TikTok — wearing pieces made by his fans allows him to feel as if he’s speaking “the same language,” musically and sartorially.Mr. Collier at Room 57 Gallery in New York.Isak Tiner for The New York TimesBut just as his musical trajectory started with him making songs alone in his room and has expanded to feature collaborations with world-class artists, he has recently decided it’s time to enlist others to help him with his look. Mr. Collier is working on a currently-under-wraps collaboration with an international brand that will be introduced later this year. And for the “Djesse” tour, he worked with the stylist Marta del Rio, who also creates looks for Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish and Tinashe, on his performance wardrobe.“He’s so advanced in his musical maturity, but he’s just starting to experiment with fashion,” Ms. del Rio said. “He communicates joyfulness and enjoyment, and we wanted to maintain that essence with the clothes.”At the beginning of their working relationship, Mr. Collier had a conversation with Ms. del Rio about sustainability in fashion, which he described as “a world full of possibilities to explore” that he is in some ways “just waking up to.” A onetime member of his school’s environmental club, Mr. Collier has started introducing climate awareness into his music-making process. He recently installed solar panels to power his music room, and he’s donating roughly 10 percent of net profits from merchandise sales on his current tour to Earth Percent, a nonprofit that raises funds for climate action.Mr. Collier’s most responsible dressing habit, though, is one that sets him apart from many of his social media-raised peers. While many young creatives associate self-expression with never being seen online wearing the same thing twice, he frequently wears his clothes again and again. A beloved striped Missoni knit, for example, appears in multiple music videos, at press events and in home videos.“I just really like it and wear it all the time,” he said, nodding at a group of street musicians whose eyes lit up in recognition as he walked by. “It’s a simple thing, but a lot of my friends and people in the industry will do something new for every show and event.”Though some of Mr. Collier’s fans have expressed a desire to imitate his look — there are Instagram accounts and Reddit threads devoted to documenting his style and parsing where to shop for pieces like his — he’s happy that his first concert in New York was attended by a crowd whose garb mostly didn’t mirror his own. More than anything, he said, he wants to inspire people to be their truest selves.“Certain people will wear a hat that looks like mine or something, but I get much more excited about people being really expressive as to who they are,” he said. “I love seeing people be themselves. I don’t want people to be like me. I want people to be like them. It’s that permission-giving that means the most.” More

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      in Television

      Fashioning ‘The First Lady’

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      The new Showtime series on Michelle Obama, Betty Ford and Eleanor Roosevelt makes the connection between substance and style.It is a coincidence, but a telling one, that the day after “The First Lady,” the series that is a revisionist take on presidential wives as seen through the intertwined stories of Michelle Obama, Betty Ford and Eleanor Roosevelt, premiered on Showtime, Dr. Jill Biden hosted the White House Easter egg roll. Or rather, the Easter “Eggucation” roll.There she stood, the current first lady and the only one out of more than 50 (official and acting) to keep her pre-administration day job, like a bouquet of hyacinths in a pink dress festooned with a veritable garden of florals, a coordinating purple coat and fuchsia gloves, flanked by her besuited husband and two life-size bunnies. She exuded warmth and family values, embodying the platonic ideal of a political spouse, while also promoting her signature cause (education).Dr. Jill Biden at the annual White House Easter egg roll at the White House this week.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIf ever there was a real-life illustration of the balancing act between role-playing and real issues that is part of performing one of the strangest non-job jobs that exists, this was it.After all, what is the first lady? Unelected, but part of the package; beholden to the West Wing, but in an office, if not an Office, of her own; emblematic, somehow, of American womanhood writ large. The human face of an administration.Which is to say, said Sean Wilentz, the George Henry Davis 1886 professor of American history at Princeton, she is supposed to be “the ideal wife as helpmeet: swearing (or affirming), to the best of her ability, to preserve (cook, care), protect (as in protecting time) and defend (no matter what) the president.”Exactly how strange that position is, forms the heart of “The First Lady,” a bit of historical didacticism dressed up as pop culture entertainment that makes the case for the presidential wife as the progressive social conscience of an administration, thus aiming to change the narrative from one largely focused on image-making (clothes! holiday events! state dinners!) to one focused on substance.Gillian Anderson as Eleanor Roosevelt.Boris Martin/ShowtimeYet what the series, which flips between moments in each first lady’s life that are connected thematically, rather than chronologically, may do best is illustrate just how intertwined the roles actually are — onscreen as in life. The first reaction of viewers (at least on social media) was not to the premise of the show, which gives its first ladies credit for, among other things, championing women’s rights and desegregation (Eleanor Roosevelt, as played by Gillian Anderson); changing the conversation around breast cancer, mammograms and addiction (Betty Ford, played by Michelle Pfeiffer); and fighting for gay marriage and exposing racism (Michelle Obama, by Viola Davis). Rather, it was to the facial tics, especially the lip pursing, of Ms. Davis as Mrs. Obama.By how they look, we think we know them. “The two things are intrinsically connected,” said Cathy Schulman, the showrunner and executive producer of “The First Lady.” When it comes to first ladies, how they present in the world becomes shorthand for who they are and what they do. It’s the bridge of “relatability” (in the words of the show’s Barack Obama) from the White House to every house. Onscreen as, perhaps, on the political stage.Viola Davis as Michelle Obama.Jackson Lee Davis/ShowtimeIt’s why, even as the characters themselves chafe against the strictures of their new position — as Laura Bush warns Mrs. Obama, people are going to judge everything she does, including what she wears; as Mrs. Obama rolls her eyes at attempts to make her a “Black Martha Stewart”; as Mrs. Ford announces her belief that you can be “ladylike” and yourself at the same time — Ms. Schulman and Signe Sejlund, the costume designer for the series, were focused on getting the clothes as accurate as possible.It was, Ms. Schulman said, “crucial.” Starting in late 2020, teams of researchers began collecting historical documentation and images from the periods represented, many of which had been preserved for posterity, the better to build wardrobes that could consist of about 75 changes for each woman. These included such major public sartorial statements as their wedding dresses, inauguration outfits and the gowns they wore for their official White House portraits.Jason Wu, who designed both of Mrs. Obama’s inaugural gowns, agreed to recreate the first one — the silver-white dress that seemed to proclaim a new dawn — for Ms. Davis. (In part because the original had been donated to the Smithsonian, and he wanted one for his archive.) Ms. Sejlund scoured the RealReal for a copy of the Milly dress Mrs. Obama wore in her portrait, and found it, albeit in the wrong size, so she acquired more fabric from the designer to reinvent it.Michelle Pfeiffer as Betty Ford.Murray Close/ShowtimeSome are clones of the originals, including Mrs. Ford’s shirtdresses, often paired with the silk scarves she favored, her many polka dots and her quilted bathrobes — especially the yellow robe she wore when she left the hospital after her mastectomy, when, Ms. Schulman said, “she knew the place would be crawling with journalists.” It was a canny choice that reflected her desire to be as transparent as possible about connecting her own situation to that of other women. (How many first ladies before her had been publicly photographed in their dressing gowns?)And some are conceptually the same, like the wide belts that, along with the pearls, cardigans and sleeveless sheaths, became a signature of Mrs. Obama, but which were shrunk down to be in proportion with Ms. Davis’s smaller frame. Then there was the giant floral necklace Eleanor Roosevelt wore to her husband’s first inauguration, which, while very au fait in the early 1930s, “looked almost ridiculous when you see it with a modern eye,” Ms. Sejlund said.From left, Gillian Anderson as Eleanor Roosevelt and Lily Rabe as Lorena ‘Hick’ Hickock.Boris Martin/ShowtimeThe necklace was ultimately left in the closet, unlike the collection of jaunty hats that were a Roosevelt trademark and that played a starring role in Mrs. Roosevelt’s 1941 visit to Tuskegee Army Air Field, where she demonstrated her support for Black airmen with a flight that was so smooth, she announced to the world, she “never lost” her hat.All such accessories are on some level recognizable because they serve as wormholes to the events portrayed. We may not remember them exactly, but we’ve probably seen the picture. It exists in our shared memory book, just as the photo of Mrs. Biden in her stylized florals with the rabbits will. Acknowledging that likelihood doesn’t take away from her achievements or the connection she made between holiday décor and learning. It supports it.They are, after all, effectively costumes for real life characters playing a very specific role in a show everyone can watch. More

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      in Music

      The Politics of Rihanna’s Pregnancy Style

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      When the right to control your own body and the right to dress how you like intersect.Ever since she announced her pregnancy in late January via Instagram and an artfully staged paparazzi shot of her and her partner ASAP Rocky strolling beneath the Riverside Drive viaduct, Rihanna’s maternity style has been marked more by what she has not worn than what she has.She has not worn tent dresses. She has not worn maternity jeans. In fact, she has barely worn much clothing at all.Instead she has bared her naked belly at seemingly every turn: in green draped fringe and ombré pants at a Fenty beauty event; in a bra, sheer blue top unbuttoned over her bump and low-slung gray jeans at the Super Bowl; in dragon-bedecked black pants, a vinyl bandeau and a crystal headdress at a Gucci show; in a sheer baby-doll dress over a lacy bra and panties at Dior; and, most recently, in a sheer organza Valentino turtleneck over a sequin skirt and bandeau at Jay-Z’s Oscar after-party.In the annals of public pregnancy, there has never been a display quite like it.Not surprisingly, the general reaction among celebrity watch sites has been a breathless swoon. “Rihanna Keeps Wearing the Hottest Maternity Looks Ever,” HighSnobiety crowed. “Rihanna Is Single-handedly Giving ‘Maternity Style’ a Rebrand,” Glamour U.K. sang.Rihanna at a Fenty Beauty event in Los Angeles in February.Mike Coppola/Getty ImagesAt a Fenty Beauty event in Los Angeles in March.Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Fenty Beauty by RihannaThey’re right, of course. But, really, the style choices are just the beginning. In dressing to confront the world with the physical reality of her pregnancy so consistently, Rihanna has gone way past just making a fashion statement. She’s making a “totally transgressive and highly political statement,” said Liza Tsaliki, a professor of media studies and popular culture at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece.It’s just all couched in the familiar trope of the “the celebrity bump watch.” Sneaky, right?The result is a dizzying swirl of contemporary phenomena, including: (1) celebrity culture, in which we increasingly take our consumer and behavioral cues from boldface names; (2) what Ms. Tsaliki calls “the aestheticization of the body and the monitoring of women’s waistlines”; and (3) modern politics.All of which take this particular pregnancy dress story far beyond mere “get the look” role modeling. (They also explain why this particular “get-the-look” role modeling has been so disproportionately exciting for so many.)After all, said Renée Ann Cramer, the deputy provost of Drake University and author of “Pregnant With the Stars: Watching and Wanting the Celebrity Baby Bump,” this is a time when “many people on the far right and even the mainstream right are promoting policies that challenge the continuing autonomy of women-identifying people over their bodies, lives and decision-making capacity.”At the Dior show at Paris Fashion Week in March.Jeremy Moeller/Getty ImagesBy dressing to showcase her pregnant belly, and in a way that has nothing to do with traditional maternity wear, Rihanna is modeling an entirely opposite reality. “She’s saying, ‘I’m a person still, and I’m my person.’” Ms. Cramer said. That she can be “autonomous, powerful and herself, even while carrying a life.” She’s connecting the right to dress how you like with all sorts of other, more constitutional rights.It’s a pretty radical move.The pregnant body, after all, has been celebrated, policed, hidden away and considered problematic for centuries.In ancient times, pregnancy was venerated and exhibited, seen as a physical embodiment of women’s connection to mother earth, but by the Middle Ages and medieval Christendom, Ms. Tsaliki said, it had been transformed into a shameful state, one connected not so much to the sacred as the profane.It had become a symbol of our base desires and a sign of female instability and lack of control and thus something best kept behind closed doors and (literally) under wraps. At least until the child emerged and the woman was transformed into a paragon of pure maternal selflessness.It was an evolution revealed in “Portraying Pregnancy,” a 2020 exhibition at the Foundling Museum in London that demonstrated how, since the 16th century, “the response to the unsettling physical reminder of mortality and sexuality engendered by pregnant bodies changed.” Or so wrote Helen Charman in a review of the show in the international art magazine Apollo.ASAP Rocky and Rihanna at the Gucci show during Milan Fashion Week in February.Victor Boyko/Getty Images For GucciAfter the Rams Super Bowl victory in February.Ab/BackgridIt revealed, she said, how paintings and other art forms moved from showing pregnant bodies “as affirmations of paternalistic structures of inheritance and power” to trying to pretend they didn’t actually exist (or the condition of being pregnant didn’t) to putting pregnancy front and center as an increasingly idealized state.That began in 1952, when Lucille Ball became pregnant during the filming of “I Love Lucy” and famously forced her producers to write her impossible-to-ignore condition into the script, and onto everyone’s screens (though they still couldn’t use the actual word “pregnant”), as dramatized in the recent film “Being the Ricardos.”That in turn gave way to the tent dress compromise. (Remember Princess Diana’s ruffled smocks and sailor dresses during her pregnancies in the early and mid-1980s?) At least until Demi Moore shocked the world by posing naked and heavily pregnant for the cover of Vanity Fair in 1991, inaugurating the age of the pregnancy art portrait.And that period extended through such belly-baring covers as Cindy Crawford, naked and pregnant on W; Britney Spears, naked and pregnant for Harper’s Bazaar in 2006; and Serena Williams, naked and pregnant on Vanity Fair in 2017. That phase reached its apogee with Beyoncé’s 2017 photo shoot/announcement that she was pregnant with twins, a heavily art-directed series of pictures that seemed to encompass such references as Botticelli’s Venus and a renaissance Madonna.As the pregnant body became valorized for its life-giving potential, it increasingly became “a place of safe transgression,” Ms. Cramer said. And that meant that “it’s one of the few times women-identifying people can safely disrupt some norms.”At Jay-Z’s Oscar after-party in Hollywood.Ngre/BackgridProgressive though they may seem, however, as Ms. Charman wrote in Apollo of such images, they nevertheless “conform to the glossy conventions.”Not so Rihanna. She has made confronting her pregnancy part of her every day. Or maybe more pertinently, our every day. “I was expecting the announcement,” Ms. Cramer said — perhaps even a few other, carefully calculated appearances. “But there has been no return to covering up.”Though it’s possible that this is a totally unconscious choice — maybe her skin is so sensitive that it’s uncomfortable to have anything on her belly — Rihanna herself has a history of consciously using her own physicality and profile to force reconsideration of old prejudices and social conventions about female agency and beauty. Most obviously in her Savage X Fenty lingerie brand, currently valued at around $3 billion.Indeed, her current approach may have been foreshadowed by her choice to have Slick Woods, at nine months pregnant, model in her first Savage X Fenty show in 2018 wearing only pasties and lacy lingerie. Famously, Ms. Woods went into labor on the runway, later posting “I’m here to say I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT WHENEVER I WANT AND SO CAN YOU.” (There were some additional words in there to emphasize her point, but they cannot be printed in this newspaper.)Change the date and those lines could easily be the motto of Rihanna’s maternity wear. She did characterize her own pregnancy style as “rebellious.”Now the question, said Ms. Cramer, is whether “an overt celebration of embodied power through pregnancy can make a difference.” Can the “performance of a powerful pregnancy by a wealthy woman at the top of her game filter down” to change how all pregnancies are perceived?If so, Rihanna will have done a lot more than influence how pregnant women dress. She’ll have influenced how we think about the rights of women. Pregnant or not. More

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      in Music

      Lizzo Makes Shapewear

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      The many, many people who have applauded, criticized and otherwise taken part in what often seems like an endless discussion around Lizzo’s naked form may be surprised to learn that she does not spend quite as much time undressed as they may think.“Sometimes when I look at the internet, I have an identity crisis because I’m, like, ‘Wait, who do these people think I am?’” Lizzo (birth name, Melissa Jefferson) said recently via Zoom from her home in Los Angeles. Behind her were many awards, an amethyst crystal for good vibes, and her Baby Yoda collection. “Right now I think people just think I’m naked all the time,” she said. “That’s the one thing I see: ‘Ooohhh, there’s old Lizzo, she’s naked again, I’m shocked she got on clothes.’”Sure, she has posted some nudes online, using her own body to force a reassessment of prejudices around size and beauty. Sure, she has gone to events like Cardi B’s birthday in a sheer crystal dress over a thong and pasties and set off a viral debate.But actually she has spent a good chunk of her time in the last three years not just on her upcoming album, or her new Amazon Prime reality show, “Watch Out for the Big Grrrls,” but also on an entirely different project. One that involves putting stuff on, rather than taking it off.It is, she teased recently on social media, “the biggest thing yet. Bigger than anything I’ve ever done.” It may also be the most controversial.Because Lizzo, champion of unfettered flesh, is making shapewear.You know, the type of underwear that traditionally has seemed the opposite of the message about loving yourself as you are, contained in such Lizzo songs as “Juice” and “Truth Hurts.” Not to mention her TV show.It’s the sort of potential contradiction that, in the social media echo chamber of personal sensitivities, can often end up viewed as a betrayal of the bond between fan and favorite. As Lizzo knows. Which is why she wants to be clear: She isn’t trying to change other people’s bodies. She’s trying to change the essence of shapewear itself.The line is called Yitty, after her childhood nickname, and it was created with Fabletics Inc., the parent company of Fabletics, the “active life wear brand” co-founded by Kate Hudson. It will be introduced this week with about 100 different pieces divided into three collections: Nearly Naked, Mesh Me and Major Label.Together, Lizzo said, they will “give everyone the opportunity to speak for themselves when it comes to how their body should look and how they should feel in their body.”“Shapewear was one of those untouched constructs in fashion people weren’t really messing with — or thinking about,” Lizzo said. ”At a certain point I started to make my own little pieces: little moments here, little moments there, little booty lift here. I wanted to share that.”YittyThe point is to do for the concept of so-called innerwear what Lizzo did for size in general, not to mention the flute, which she famously plays while twerking — what she has done for herself, really: break it out of the box where society and culture has stuck it. Get past body positive, which has become a sort of meaningless catchphrase for the mainstream, to body normative for everyone.“I’m selling that more than I’m selling thongs, more than I’m selling bodysuits or I’m selling shapewear,” Lizzo said. “I’m selling a mentality that ‘I can do what I want with my body, wear what I want and feel good while doing it.’” That whatever body you are showing off, it’s not, “‘Oh, how brave,’” she continued. “No. No more of that. Nothing to see here but a body, just like your body.”A Brief History of Shapewear“Shapewear” is a relatively new name for a very old concept (kind of like how “wellness” now encompasses “diet”) — that is, that a woman’s body should be altered via external means to make it more acceptable to the eyes of various beholders, most of them men. If that involved pain … well, such was the price of achieving society’s definition of beauty.What forms the alterations take have varied according to cultural norms; references to girdles can be found as far back as the “Iliad.” Panniers, those underskirt structures that exaggerated hips, were a 16th-century version of shapewear; so were steel or whalebone and canvas corsets. Come the mid-20th century, elasticated girdles were in vogue, which in turn gave way to pantyhose, which evolved, in 2000, into Spanx, which is what made shapewear modern-day famous.By swapping out cut-and-sew technology for Lycra knit, the Spanx founder Sara Blakely transformed Hollywood red carpets becoming a billionaire along the way.Still, Spanx, like all the corsets and girdles before it, was a kind of “foundation garment,” made to be hidden, its very existence suggesting that what was underneath was somehow not quite up to par, even as it acted as a secret weapon to allow bodies of all types access to clothes made for the few. Also, “comfort,” when it comes to shapewear, remained a relative term.In part to change that, lots of new players have entered the market, most notably, Yummie Tummie, founded in 2008 (and now rebranded as Yummie); Honeylove, created in 2016; and, above all, Skims, the Kim Kardashian brand, introduced in 2019, trumpeting comfort and a variety of skin color tones, and valued at $3.2 billion during a fund-raising round earlier this year.Allied Market Research recently issued a report predicting the global compression and shapewear market would be worth $6.95 billion by 2030.Lizzo: “The story goes that when I was born, my brother could not say ‘Melissa,’ so he would go, ‘Meyitta,’ and my Auntie Carmen would go, ‘Did he call her Yitty?’ From then on it was ‘Yitty, Yitty.’ Sadly, my auntie passed in May of 2020, and a few months later, I decided to call this Yitty in her honor. She would have loved this, she would have been so proud.”Bethany Mollenkof for The New York TimesThough shapewear sales declined during the pandemic (who needs it when you are lounging around at home in your sweats?), Kristen Classi-Zummo, an apparel industry analyst for the NPD group, said that there has been an uptick in interest as Covid-19 protocols have relaxed and nightlife has returned.Comfort remains important, she said, but growth was most apparent in “innovation, and pieces worn to shape and be seen,” especially among consumers under 40. Cora Harrington, the founder and editor in chief of The Lingerie Addict blog and the author of “In Intimate Detail: How to Choose, Wear, and Love Lingerie,” pointed out that for younger people, “Spanx tend to be more associated with their mothers. They want something more fashionable.”“I think there is space for another brand to bubble up and control that narrative,” Ms. Harrington said. Perhaps because, despite all the advances in the sector, the overriding aesthetic has remained tied to the Barbification of the body.That’s where Yitty comes in.A Briefer History of YittyThough it may seem, in the wake of Fenty and Skims, that Lizzo, 33, is simply jumping on the celebrity shapewear bandwagon, she has actually been thinking about the sector since she was 12.That, she said, was when she was growing up in Houston (her family had moved from Detroit when she was 10) and, starting in middle school, learning to be “ashamed of my body.” Later, once she had begun to assert herself musically, she rejected that mind-set, and the undergarments that came with it, entirely. And it was only after that, when she finally started to “have fun with my body, creating shapes and allowing my body to be curvaceous, loving the rolls that you’re supposed to hide, and exploring through fashion,” that she started to think about shapewear again.“I went to a store — I won’t name the store — looking for something for a party,” she said. “And the shapewear aisle was in disarray, like someone went in there in a mad dash looking for something they couldn’t find. There were pieces on the floor, and there were only three colors — jet black, ivory white or pink, the color of my nails.”Lizzo waved her hand, with its long, pointy nails the color of ballet shoes. “No one is that color!” she said. She got serious about changing that around the time of “Truth Hurts,” when she had a handful of meetings with different brands. “I was like: ‘Guys, I’m telling you, I’m trying to revolutionize shapewear and our relationship with it and with our bodies,’ and they were like, ‘Well, you could do a capsule collection with us for X, Y and Z,’ and I was like, ‘They’re not getting the vision!’”“It was important for me when I wear it and model it, I am not looking different than I normally look,” Lizzo said. “You see my rolls and see a belly, and sometimes you see me in super-high compression. A lot of times I will do red carpets and not wear shapewear at all, or not wear a bra. It depends on how I feel. You see me as I want you to see me.”YittyShe wanted shapewear that announced itself with pride — and felt like a hug. The kind of shapewear that if you sat down and your shirt rode up or your pants pulled down, you’d be happy to show off. The kind of shapewear you could wear with nothing on top. She didn’t even want to call it “shapewear.” She wanted to call it “bodywear,” but no one knew what that meant.Then Kevin Beisler, her manager, told her he had met with the Fabletics team, who had been doing a lot of customer surveys.Those customers had said that “the No. 1 category they wanted us to start was shapewear,” said Don Ressler, who founded Fabletics Inc., along with Adam Goldenberg. Mr. Ressler had seen what can happen when you combine celebrity power and a clothing sector in which the celebrity has some personal authority. (Fabletics was previously named TechStyle Fashion Group and had produced Savage X Fenty, which it spun off in 2019.)“They get it,” Mr. Beisler told Lizzo.“Those words alone were so incredible, because I hadn’t heard them,” she said. “Nobody had believed in my wild dream.”Actually, Mr. Ressler said, “we think it’s a multibillion-dollar opportunity.”The Lizzo FactorLizzo does not think the market is saturated or that she missed the boat because there are other brands ahead of her. “There’s nothing like feeling like you’re in the right place at the right time,” she said.Yitty is “something personal to me, something for the baby version of me,” she continued. “I have been parallel with the body positive movement for a long time, and people have made my name synonymous with it, and I’m always like, body positivity belonged to the people who truly created it, the Black, brown, queer big women, my girls in the 16 plus.” As an indicator of intended audience, the ad campaign features models of all sizes, including Lizzo’s best friend, who is an extra-small, as well as Lizzo herself.Lizzo is the chief executive and co-founder of Yitty; Kristen Dykstra, the former chief marketing officer of Fabletics, is president. The lines took three years to develop and will range from XS to 6X (which is one size bigger than any of Skims’ current offerings). Prices for leggings are $69.95 to $74.95, and bras will be $49.95 to $59.95.There are two compression weights, antimicrobial fabrics so the shorts and thongs and leggings can be worn without extra underwear, bras that hold their shape without underwire, a print that looks like a butterfly wing, and recycled packaging. Lizzo named all the colors, though her favorite inventions — for a bright blue and a bright pink — are unprintable here.”I don’t want to be the only one who can enjoy autonomy with my body because I am now in privileged position where people want to make me stuff and I can afford it,” Lizzo said. “I want to help other people out in that way too, so they’re not just looking at me and thinking, ‘Damn, I wish I could afford custom thousand-dollar pieces.’”Bethany Mollenkof for The New York TimesShe also tried everything on. “I love a cheeky panty, I really do,” she said. “It can be tricky when you’re using compression fabric because if it’s too cheeky, it can roll up.” But, she said, many times “I’d put a panty on and say. ‘Can you slide the side up this way?’” — she mimed raising the cut of the leg — “because it makes the booty look good.”She has very strong opinions about what she likes. “I could not take off the Yitty convertible bandeau for a long time,” she said. “I’m a bandeau innovator.” As for the shaping thong: “I’m like: ‘Hello, big girls wear thongs. Let us wear thongs and give me that little love up top.’”Yitty will be sold on its own website and on the Fabletics website. It will also be sold in shop-in-shops in the 76 Fabletics stores and have its own pop-up in Los Angeles on April 12. And it will be front and center at Lizzo tours and in her videos and TV shows. As far as she’s concerned, it’s the beginning of her next stage.“I want to be a world changer,” she said. “I wasn’t just making cool music — my art always had a bigger purpose. Now I’m just taking that usefulness and making it tangible.”“This is something I’m building that can hopefully last for generations — not just the company or the product, but the mentality of Yitty,” she continued. “This idea of liberation with your body and being able to express it in different ways can go so, so far.” More

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      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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      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