Abstract
This article examines the relationship between costume and character, self and appearance in Luca Guadagnino's film, Io Sono l'Amore/I Am Love (Guadagnino, 2009). As played by Tilda Swinton, Emma Recchi is a woman whose dress reveals a meticulous record of her emotional journey, providing an almost textbook case of costume performing emotional exteriority. Complicating any straightforward analysis of costume design in I Am Love, however, is a deep fashion consciousness that pervades the film and goes beyond the widely publicized association with fashion houses, Jil Sander, Fendi and Hermès, to a recognition of fashion as a complex discourse able to canvas multiple, even contradictory, interpretations. Just as Guadagnino draws on other narratives and other films to tell his story, Swinton's off-screen life and on-screen personae shadow her portrayal of Emma, constructing a character who is both the unique individual of I Am Love and the hollow image of fashion that is the Emma of 'I Am Style'.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 269-288 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Film, Fashion and Consumption |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2012 |
Keywords
- clothing and dress in motion pictures
- fashion in motion pictures
- Swinton_Tilda