Leo Barraclough International Features EditorParis-based Italian director Gianluca Matarrese took a deep dive into the world of fashion for his latest documentary feature, “Fashion Babylon,” which world premieres on Saturday at CPH:DOX film festival in Copenhagen.
Ahead of the premiere, he spoke to Variety about the film and upcoming projects.The idea for “Fashion Babylon” came to Matarrese after he met American musician and artist Casey Spooner in a bar in the Marais district of Paris, where the director lives. “He’s quite an extraordinary character, and he knows everyone,” Matarrese says. “He opened up the gates so I could enter this incredible world.”For Matarrese, the fashion world is like a royal court, ruled by its king, Jean Paul Gaultier, and queen, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, who is the one “making the rules,” he says.
Matarrese compares this society to that depicted in Elle Fanning series “The Great,” about Russia’s Catherine the Great. Around the monarchs, flutter courtiers like Spooner and the two other subjects of the film, Michelle Elie and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” winner Violet Chachki.
The film follows these three flamboyant characters as they attend the designer shows during the fashion weeks in Paris and Milan, where they are treated as minor celebrities.
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