Greenwich Entertainment

Happy Clothes: A Film about Patricia Field Review – Advanced Style

Meet the eye for style in TV and films, like Sex and the City and The Devil Wears Prada

6 mins read

Happy Clothes: A Film about Patricia Field
(USA, 101 min.)
Dir. Michael Selditch

 

“You’ve always said to me, ‘I’m not a costume designer, I’m a stylist,’” Kim Cattrall reminds stylist Patricia Field. The Sex and the City star and the woman responsible for Samantha Jones’ sultry ensembles are reminiscing about the Emmy winning fashion of Sex and the City. The hit HBO series gets a fair amount of space in Happy Clothes: A Film about Patricia Field. Collaborators consider how Field’s sharp eye for fashion helped to make a sitcom a cultural revolution with Sarah Jessica Parker’s iconic tutu in the opening sequence and signature styles for the series’ four stars, including Cattrall’s looks that brought new ownership of women’s sexuality into primetime. The candid conversation highlights Field’s atypical approach to Hollywood glamour: Relationships inform her inspiration for characters’ styles.

Cattrall is partly correct, too. Field’s “designing” days are long over. Give her a clothing rack and a body waiting to be styled, though, and she’s an artist. One could be brazen enough to dub Field an “auteur” stylist. Her creations are so distinctly authentic.

Happy Clothes offers an upbeat portrait of the New Yorker with the cherry-red hair who is forever on the cusp of contemporary fashion. Director Michael Selditch mostly does away with bio-doc convention to illustrate Field’s fabulous life, work, and fashion sense. The film takes a cue from Field’s habit for throwing seemingly disparate pieces together and making them work. It has some cinéma vérité on the top and some lifestyle docu-tainment tricks on the bottom, with one great stylist cinching the waist like a belt.

Field is a terrific character. The stylist, who celebrates her 80th birthday during the shoot, has a natural gift for gab. Her raspy smoker’s voice fuels nearly every frame of the film. She has a New Yorker’s breezy, straight-shooting candour, which illustrates her approachable nature and knack for personal expression. The film observes as Field styles for series like Emily in Paris and Run the World. She meets with stars and gets a sense of their styles. Field then scours fashion magazines, clothing racks, runways, and contact sheets for perfect pieces. She and her team of stylists then bring all the garments and accessories together. They assemble ensembles with an actor like a living art piece, finding the character’s signature using patterns and colours that don’t conventionally match.

These scenes are a delight to watch. Although the inspiration for Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) famously spins on Vogue editor Anna Wintour, one can’t help but think that Streep was taking notes during her style sessions with Field for the comedy, which earned them both Oscar nominations. As Field assess an actor’s body and spirit, she instinctively knows what pieces make a character click. Streep’s cerulean top monologue has uncanny echoes in Happy Clothes’ stream-of-consciousness style scenes.

Fans looking for Streep’s take on Field won’t find it here, unfortunately, as the doc spends little time on Prada. Field, however, shares that one of her style tips for Streep was Priestley’s ivory-white hair. She tells how studio heads didn’t like the idea, especially on a woman executive, until she walked them through her studio and introduced them to Streep in Miranda’s ’do.

Happy Clothes does get other notable names to dish on Field’s eye for threads. Interviewees include The Devil Wears Prada director David Frankel, Ugly Betty stars Vanessa L. Williams and Michael Urie, Emily in Paris’s Lily Collins, actor Laverne Cox—who highlights how Field’s self-named store was a haven for LGBTQ+ New Yorkers in search of a little flair as the out-and-proud Field used her style to elevate queer designers—and Sex and the City creator Darren Star and star Sarah Jessica Parker. Field also quashes rumours that she didn’t work on the SATC sequel series And Just Like That due to creative tensions. She notes that she simply was committed to Emily in Paris and it’s evident that her influence is all over it.

Everyone tells how Field makes styling makes a person pop. But nobody demonstrates the impact of a good wardrobe quite like Field does. Her delight in “happy clothes” shares a love for colours—bright ones!—and using perceived clashes to accentuate emotions. Her ideal model seems to be a bowl of fruit, which offers many colours—oranges alongside red apples—that defiantly pair together. Happy Clothes lets audiences experience this savvy-chic adventurousness for themselves as Field goes into personal shopper mode for her models. One can’t help but leave the film with some inspiration for new fits.

Happy Clothes:  A Film about Patricia Field is now on VOD.

Pat Mullen is the publisher of POV Magazine. He holds a Master’s in Film Studies from Carleton University where his research focused on adaptation and Canadian cinema. Pat has also contributed to outlets including The Canadian Encyclopedia, Paste, That Shelf, Sharp, Xtra, and Complex. He is the vice president of the Toronto Film Critics Association and an international voter for the Golden Globe Awards.

Previous Story

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story Review – A Different Kind of Superhero Movie

Next Story

Sing My Song Review: When Dreams Come Calling

Latest from Blog

0 $0.00