GenQ - For the not so straight individual

Fashion on Film By Oliver McCall Magic your minds back, if you will, to the Devil Wears Prada, the hit film portraying life at a fictional fashion magazine (Runway), based on Vogue. It was fun, a good laugh, and revealed the glitzy, glamorous side of the industry as well as its not so glamorous bits. Then came Ugly Betty, a hit American TV show also based around a fictional fashion mag. That continues to prove very popular. It seems that the age of fashion dramas is well and truly here. It should come as no surprise then that no less than 3 films based on the lives of famous fashion personalities are in the pipeline. One of these is about my favorite designer, Vivienne Westwood. The lady herself let news about the film slip at the Hay Festival and her spokespeople have confirmed that it is going ahead. It is also suggested that the producer behind A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13 is involved. So what can we expect to see covered in this film? Well, the fashion icon has certainly had an eventful and exciting life but I think that the main bulk of the film will probably centre on her involvement with the punk movement and the legendary band The Sex Pistols through her former husband Malcolm McLaren. No doubt her involvement with the birth of punk fashion through her stores SEX and World's End, which became locations in their own right, will be central. Her more recent charitable work and campaigning for British civil rights group Liberty should also be covered. The announcement of Ms Westwood's film coincided nicely with another fashion film announcement, as no less than two films documenting the life of legendary French designer Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel approach the drawing board. These movies will provide us with an insight into the life and times of the only person from the fashion industry to appear on the list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century in TIME magazine. What will be included in the plot lines is anyone's guess, with a wealth of features to pick out such as Miss Chanel's affairs with numerous wealthy men, the development of such classic products as Chanel No.5 and the Chanel Suit and her alleged Nazi sympathies during the war. For more than 30 years she lived in the Ritz Hotel Paris and the House of Chanel is still one of the world's most prominent design houses. These won't be the productions about Chanel, in 1969 she was portrayed by Katharine Hepburn on the Broadway stage. With so much out there the film loving fashionista will be spoilt for choice! It is definitely a positive thing too, as anything which portrays the fashion industry in a more personal light can help people to understand its workings. These films will give us an insight not only into the lives of some of fashion's most fascinating people but also into the development of the industry and different trends. They should be great fun, so look out for them at a cinema near you!