Fashion in Film festival begins today with two weeks of screenings, talks and events examining the relationship between fashion, film and time
The festival is divided up in to four strands: Past, Present, Future and Dream. Here we take a few minutes to explore this history of the future under the guidance of the festival’s co-curator Marketa Uhlirova.
“This strand highlights the cinema as an important vehicle for fast-forwarding us into the future of dress, and the different approaches costume designers have taken in envisioning it. To give a concrete form to one’s idea of the future involves taking an imaginative leap that crosses the limits of the familiar. But in design terms, this also requires great resourcefulness and creativity in re-using elements that already exist, giving them a new sensibility.
For the future to speak to us, we must be able to recognise ourselves in it; it has to show itself as an unfamiliar version of the present. Thus science fiction films are principally composites of already known elements, brought together in a manner that appears not so much new as strange. Future-ness has to be not only believable but also convincing, while holding on to the ‘out of this world’ moment of magic.”
The Future strand of the festival comprises Barbarella (25 March, Barbican Centre), Solaris (19 March Curzon Bloomsbury), Things to Come (15 March Prince Charles Cinema), Ikarie XB-1 (14 March, Prince Charles Cinema) and Space is the Place (12 March, Rio Cinema).
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