Catwalk (1995)
André Leon Talley, Christian Slater, Cindy Crawford, Kate Moss and Sandra Bernard walk into a bar...
There is a moment in the film Catwalk (1995) where the late André Leon Talley exclaims, “This man has no money!” Of course no stranger to fashion, the witty expert is talking of controversial John Galliano’s Spring Summer 1994 collection, one marked with Anna Karenina inspired gowns and silk satin trains, that John executed with little funding.
Catwalk is a film about the regal Christy Turlington as she navigates the Spring Summer fashion shows in Milan, Paris and New York. But this film is really about clothes, main characters here being bodices, Gaultier tattoed mesh, Armani silk crepe suits, Naomi’s white fur, and an Hermès leather horse saddle. The secondary characters in the film are the supermodels who wear these garments and the couturiers who design them.
Catwalk shows us a bustling fashion landscape filled with fantasy. Christy, clad in Armani suit, cabbing with a car phone from casting to casting, Kate waifish and sweet, laughing with her half-ashed cigarette, gorgeous Naomi sprawled on the hotel bed singing “this room is just like ours in LA!”, Isaac Mizrahi’s playful wit bantering with sardonic bestie Sandra Bernard, cigarette desperate Galliano in a pink graphic tee and fur trappers hat teeming with post show glow, a quiet Azzedine taking mental stock of Christy’s stature, André’s stately elegance and post show critique, Carla’s tiny torso and sage model advice and Francesco Clemente’s patient study of Christy’s profile, a drawing rendered in water color.
The enduring swag of Catwalk is of course sexy nostalgia. Like c’mon people! This was a time when the fashion world ran amok with analog paps and even Christian Slater is worn as an accessory (on Christy Turlington’s arm). But my favorite moment of all? That is the Galliano SS94 backstage. As John, manic and jittery, accepts flutes of champagne left and right then preps his models for the ultimate catwalk. Adorned in 19th century inspired petticoats, hair stacks billowing to the high heavens, faces and scalp powdered in light snow, John gives Kate Moss a pregame talk.
"As if you’ve heard a wolf Kate, I want you to turn your head and look”
Kate dashes full speed ahead, practicing the master’s choreo and quickly turns her head when the sudden inertia throws her crinoline skirt forward as if to greet the edge of the woods.
“Will you remember that, Kate?” Galliano coos to her as she hits her mark, practices again and nearly wipes out a sad white plastic chair in her giants underskirt’s wake.
Post show, Galliano is swarmed by over eager journalists and paps wolf hungry for his words. He reveals the fantasy “Anna Karenina, the endless inspiration of 19th century women”. One of the songs played as models walked? A Wild & Distant Shore from Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993), released the same year.
The wolf suddenly satiated, the victim snow covered and adorned in lace has escaped through dark Douglas fir while covered in white satin.
These are the fantasies that I fall for, and fall time and time again while watching Catwalk.
We have lost Andre, Alaïa, Gianni and some of the greatest names within the industry. This leaves us perhaps yearning for what we will never know. The visions that Andre, Christy and Kate once spun will never die. However what takes its place is shrouded in dull gray - suspended in pixels rendered in polyester. We are lost in the woods somewhere under a blanket of fresh snow.
While editing this piece, I received several emails at my day job for New York Fashion Week related reservations. I work as a restaurant reservationist while I’m not modeling and in just 2 weeks time our restaurants will once again be flooded with tastemakers, designers, models and creative directors. I don’t mind these requests, after all it’s my job to make the reservations and accommodate. When I sign off in my email signature I wonder and wish, silently, if these will be clients I end up meeting in a casting room. I always hope so and quietly smile to myself at the thought. I love putting a face to a name, sticking my hand out for a handshake and saying “Hi I’m Allegra, we have spoken over email before!” It’s 1:55pm now and 3 hours until I get to clock out. Emails are slow. The phone has not rang in half an hour. I remember André and Christy and my love for the distant past and I understand that maybe my present isn’t so bad at all.
this is literally my fave movie ever omg
dreamy 🙂↕️