Couture

At the high-octane Parisian fashion shows, three women meet behind the scenes. American filmmaker Maxine is now seriously ill and becomes close to a collaborator; Ada is fleeing the fate that awaited her in South Sudan; and makeup artist Angèle is exploited on the job. Amidst all the tensions and aesthetics, a natural solidarity arises between the women, transcending their different professional, cultural, and geographical backgrounds.

COMMENTARY
A screen drama which director Alice Winocour manages to turn into a genuinely human story, despite the glamorous setting. It’s as if the Dardenne brothers have taken on high fashion, as one critic put it.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
Fashion is a world far from me, with its race against time, like a desire to seize what is already no more, one collection after another, one season after another. Françoise Hardy gets it right in the song “My friend the rose.” Barely hatched and already death is there doing its work, and we don’t notice. I wanted to confront beauty with death, just as certain paintings show young women next to a skull or an hourglass, evoking the fragility of life. I also thought about the Three Roman Fates, the goddesses who are the spinners of destiny. Yes, we filmed at Chanel, but without the name or logo appearing because it was important for me, and for the coherence of the film.