The Modern Mode: film

Nicole Miller's Fall 2011 RTW collection was mostly inspired by the great sci-fi film Gattaca, a powerful work exploring a future in which people are genetically perfected prior to birth and those born naturally become second class citizens.

One look at the collection and you can instantly see the contrast between the intricately structured pieces and the more flowing and organic ones.

Miller also represents the film's philosophical struggle through the mixtures of fabrics, contrasting futuristic metallics with soft knits.

Without elaborating too much, there is also a very significant water motif throughout the film, from which Miller pulls her variety of blues, as well as particularly significant uses of fire, giving us the contrasting red in her later pieces.

[Photos from Style.com]

All in all, it's a great representation of a fantastic film, and not being present at the show, it made me wonder what music might have accompanied the models strutting the runway. If Miller were to envision the music as literally as the fashion, she would probably lean towards an artist who balances structured electronics with softer acoustic instruments. Several artists came to mind immediately such as Thom Yorke and Ladytron, but then I remembered Nine Inch Nails' 2008 release Ghosts I-IV, a 36-track compilation of unnamed instrumentals and I knew I had the perfect fit.

Like Gattaca and Miller's collection, there is great contrast between the artificial and the natural. Electronics are placed side-by-side with acoustic elements, an art at which Trent Reznor, the man behind Nine Inch Nails, has always been a master. Take a listen to 34 for a perfect example of this contrast.

"34" from Ghosts I-IV (2008)Nine Inch Nails
When it comes to the film, Miller's collection, or the Nine Inch Nails album, the struggle between artificiality and the natural world is ever present, but the end result, despite all the questions that may arise, is that despite this tension, and perhaps more likely because of it, there remains an ability to create extraordinary beauty.

GET THE LOOK: IRENE CASSINI

In Gattaca, Uma Thurman plays Irene Cassini, a woman whose parents chose to ensure that she had the best of their genetic qualities, but who nevertheless was born with a high probability of heart failure, placing her in a vague middle ground between the two social classes. Her wardrobe is muted, always high-collared business suits which make her almost indistinguishable from those around her. What Nicole Miller did was to take that concept and make it more extraordinary, such as with this suit or the high-collared coat.

Whereas Irene Cassini's wardrobe is ambiguous from the standpoint of time, Miller's looks have decidedly more modern touches. So here are some great pieces to put together your own forward-looking Irene Cassini look!

vintage 1980s Cummerbund midi pencil skirt

black belt-suzi roher adjustable pewterbuckle belt nickel

black ankle boot-chic stiletto ankle boots

Exaggerated Neck Black Sweatshirt by Subsequent $123

Vintage 1980s Cummerbund Midi Pencil Skirt from Slideshow Vintage $28

Suzi Roher Adjustable Pewter-Buckle Belt from Nieman Marcus $123

Black Ankle Boots from Forever21 $27

One of the things I loved right away about this film (aside from the fact that it's a western and a Coen brothers movie) was the unusual lighting choices. For what is typically a headstrong genre, the lighting effects were often hazy and indistinct, playing up muted colors and often shrouding characters in shadows that made them difficult to distinguish, like when Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) first appears on camera. He sits in a bright dusty courthouse with massive windows lighting him from behind so that it is impossible to see his face for about the first ten minutes he's speaking on screen.

Other examples of this hazy lighting occur throughout the film, like when a man emerges from the woods wearing a bearskin cloak and it's impossible to tell what exactly has just ridden out on that horse. There's also when Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) slips into a pit in the ground and the opening above her is vague, the light choked by kicked up dust or when she and Cogburn encounter some outlaws in a tiny cabin, and the lighting plays up the smokiness of the fire rather than its brightness.

What is so delightfully brilliant about these hazy lighting effects is that it really emphasizes how undefined these incredible characters. We're not always sure how we feel about Cogburn or Laboeuf (Matt Damon). Even Ross, once she finds her bounty hunters and puts on her father's hat and coat, stops being a 14-year-old girl and becomes some androgynous entity, unwavering in her convictions but disturbed by them nonetheless. The outlaws, too, are ambiguous, equal parts foolish, clever, honorable, and cruel, a truly fascinating mix.

The situations in which the characters find themselves are equally unclear. It's often difficult even for the characters to distinguish what they are seeing, almost always requiring closer examinations which risks putting them in greater danger, such as this encounter, shot from Ross and Labeouf's vantage point in which it is impossible to discern the events taking place below.

These indefinite qualities carried over into the film's score as well. Often the music is what you would expect for a western, grandiose and invigorating. But at other times the music is less bold, with melodies that barely emerge from quiet droning harmonies, such as in the excerpt below. It's only in the more powerful sections at other moments in the film that the melody is strong and distinct or in the more introspective moments at the beginning and the end when a solo piano plays a gentle hymn that there can be little question of the tune and simple, open harmonies.

In light of these hazy qualities which struck me as unusual for an otherwise gritty western, I was reminded of a certain similarity to the works of the late 19th-century painter Albert Bierstadt. His subject matter was often the American west, and though his works certainly glorify the beauty of the landscapes, he often uses muted, earthy tones for the land and trees which contrasts with the bright colors of his skies. However, the brightness of his skies is not blindingly clear, but hazy and misty, often capturing a dawn or sunset. That haziness blurs the boundaries of the sky and landscape just enough to leave the edges of everything undefined.

They are the kinds of paintings that look beautiful from far away, but which beg you to look closer so you can see how the brush strokes created those effects. When you look closer, and you see the uneven thicknesses of the oils, the colors that did not completely blend, and the bits that cling to the canvas so closely that its texture is visible through the paint, you realize what you saw from far away is not at all like what you see close up. And that while it's maybe not as beautiful as the hazy and indistinct landscape seen from afar, there is a truth and a honesty and thus a different kind of beauty. I think this very much like the film: a beautifully shot, hazy affair that when the light shifts or brightens and the dust clears so that we see the characters and situations more clearly, may be less attractive or pleasant but still beautiful in its own powerful way.

GET THE LOOK: MATTIE ROSS

It may seem a bit out there to want to emulate the fashion sense of 14-year-old girl from the nineteenth century, but that cinched-in over-sized coat she sports is a great look on women today and not a completely unheard of fashion trend. It's a great way to play on the whole women-appropriating-menswear trend. If not an over-sized coat, it can be a long loose cardigan, but in either case, the key is to wear a contrasting belt, rather than one that came with the coat or sweater. Here are some examples of the contemporary look: