It seems that if you want to be an iconic female figure, you need a green dress. I reached this conclusion after the recent obsession with Keira Knightley’s green dress worn in ‘Atonement’: I too wanted the dress. But there was also something else to it.
Apparently, the colour green is seen as a positive colour and conveys a sense of doing good. The designer of Keira’s dress, Jacqueline Durran, related this to the ‘environmental movement’. She also commented that ‘it also relays honesty, authenticity and just being modern’. How absurd. Last time I checked, it was a certain jealous ‘green-eyed monster’ that sent Othello a little cuckoo and gets us all occasionally.
Most interestingly, the design of this dress does not tally with photos of upper-middle-class dress in the ‘30s, who look rather ‘scruffy, clumpy and lumpy’, according to ‘Atonement’ director Joe Wright. But ‘the film isn’t based on reality. It’s more of a dream, a remembered past, a child’s distant memory of a perfect day before everything went horribly wrong’. Poignantly, the green dress, that has fast become so iconic is formative of a perfect ideal, does not reflect - in any way, shape or form - reality. Yes, fashion personified.
This reminded me of a ‘Newsnight’ discussion of Tamara de Lempicka’s work, in particular, the portrait of a woman in a green dress. Will Self commented that the viewers of her work ‘see a reflection of their own superficial vanity and obsession.’ Kwame Kwei-Armah continued to say that ‘I found every woman to be very cold and I found it art without soul.’
Most interestingly, the design of this dress does not tally with photos of upper-middle-class dress in the ‘30s, who look rather ‘scruffy, clumpy and lumpy’, according to ‘Atonement’ director Joe Wright. But ‘the film isn’t based on reality. It’s more of a dream, a remembered past, a child’s distant memory of a perfect day before everything went horribly wrong’. Poignantly, the green dress, that has fast become so iconic is formative of a perfect ideal, does not reflect - in any way, shape or form - reality. Yes, fashion personified.
This reminded me of a ‘Newsnight’ discussion of Tamara de Lempicka’s work, in particular, the portrait of a woman in a green dress. Will Self commented that the viewers of her work ‘see a reflection of their own superficial vanity and obsession.’ Kwame Kwei-Armah continued to say that ‘I found every woman to be very cold and I found it art without soul.’
Indeed, every woman in want of a certain Keira green dress will most certainly be without any sense of reality. But let a girl dream!
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