In Conversation with Joana Granero Sánchez | Founder & Director of Fashion & Cinema

If you're interested in Costume Design, there you need to check out this interview on the From Tailors With Love podcast. Some moments have been transcribed below, but it features Founder & Director of Fashion and Cinema, Joana Granero Sánchez.

Fascinated by the then underexplored relationship between fashion, cinema and costume design, Joana founded Fashion & Cinema in 2012.

Launched in 2012, Fashion & Cinema is a series of events created and produced by Tristana Media including film screenings, on-stage conversations and talks exploring the relationship between fashion and cinema.

Enjoy some moments from this Q&A. 

For those who may not be so familiar with your work, would you mind giving us a quick thumbnail sketch of who you are?

Well, I direct the London Spanish film festival and Fashion and Cinema, which is a series of events, exploring the relationship between fashion and cinema as well as the work of the costume design.

Can I ask what first led you to this topic?

I think being a big film fan, and being involved in the production of film events, and watching many films, meant the seed was sewn for fashion and cinema and has grown through time. At some point, I started formalising how fashion and cinema had always intertwined since the very beginning, and how films had influenced and communicated fashions and styles.

I thought it would be worth exploring this. Just think of how in 1931,  Samuel Goldwyn signed a contract with Coco Chanel to create costumes for the film's for Metro Goldwyn Meyers films. And that was just the tool that Samuel Goldwyn was trying to use to get Paris fashions through their movies.

There are so many more examples of how fashion and cinema have entwined. The film The Women, from 1939, the custom designer created these huge shoulder pads for Joan Crawford. It was conceived to compensate a large head with a tiny thin body. It set the trend for those iconic shoulder pads of the 40s.

Even in the 80s they were drawing back to those fashions. Annie Hall, where Diane Keaton showcases this masculine wardrobe with vests and ties and sets a huge trend and many more. So I wanted to create a series of events with film screenings and talks and conversations where these could be explored.

Paul Smith introducing the movie Breathless at Fashion & Cinema.

Do you find it that is a deliberate move sometimes that the filmmakers want to promote a fashion or the costume designer wants to have that influence or do you think it is something that happens more organically?

No, I think it's more organically I think when costume designers create costumes or create the image of a character, they're working with the whole team, with the actor with the director with a hairstylist with makeup designer, to create a coherent character. And so they're looking at sending a message about the character, about the story. They're contributing to create this whole story through image through the visuals. They are trying to send this message in a very efficient way. When the character appears on the screen, through the clothes, the way the character is dressed you know who that character is. So that's what the costume designer aims at.

I think Downton Abbey, you talked to the costume designers for that film.

Yes, yes. We had the pleasure of welcoming Anna Marie Scott Robins, the lead costume designer for the latest Downton film, Downton Abbey film, and also when she was responsible for the customs for many of the of the series and the previous film.

She talked about the weight of the previous existing kind of canon. The needs to be historically accurate, the need to convey something about the character, and then the details that'd be seen. 

Yes, yes. But still, you would think that some of those dresses you could wear them now. Maybe not for a meeting or something. But, I mean, some of them could be temporary.

Fashion and cinema does cover a broad range of topics. How do you select the topics? Is it a costume designer comes to you?

It depends there are different situations. Sometimes we come up with the ideas of exploring a specific subject like, the allure of the rebel which we explored. So we looked at Marlon Brando and Katharine Hepburn and Steve McQueen, so that was a subject that came from fashion and cinema. Then we have new releases, like the Downton Abbey film. We have been also interviewing and working with some costume designers for many years now. Last year we started a series of onstage conversations with costume designers to talk about their careers. We have found so many different experiences so many different career paths that we thought was interesting to explore. Also looking at the specific collaborations, like for example, Sandy Powell with Martin Scorsese. They have been working together for the last seven films. The next one is on Sunday 26th This month, and we plan keep going on. And we get in touch with costume designers. And so far, it's been great because everybody has said yes.

That's wonderful.

The first event that we had it was exploring the work of Chanel for the screen. And I went with a proposal to the V&A. And within one month, we had the date. That was a very enthusiastic welcome. We also worked with the house of Chanel. So that was also very encouraging. And we worked also with the cinema of the French Institute in South Kensington, and they also welcomed the idea.

You've had a very successful career with the Spanish film festival with the film and cinema. Do you have an idea for a future project? Is there a third thing, a third dream?

At the moment, I'm happy with these projects. And I will truly like to keep going on with them and take them even beyond and do more things. I think there's still much more that can be done. So at the moment, I'm focusing on this.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners?

I would really like to invite people to come to the events to see these conversations. It's very enlightening, the work behind the films about how these dreams are created. These stories are communicated and they then some of them are quite unique because they have access to these creative people, it's quite a treat.

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