Students from the Ecole Duperré created 32 costumes directly inspired by the world of Louis De Funès films. Further proof of the mark left by the man who remains one of the French’s favorite actors.
It was Nora Ferreira, the director of the Louis de Funès museum in Saint-Raphaël who had the idea of soliciting future stylists trained at the Ecole Duperré in Paris. Over the months the project grew. Six creations were initially planned. In the end, this exhibition, called Louis de Funès and the fanaticshas 32, to be discovered at the Saint-Raphaël Cultural Center from September 13 to 30.
Costume stories
From Louis de Funès, we of course remember the incredible facial expressions and expressions of his face but also a pronounced taste for costumes and disguises. Of Megalomania (1972) Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (1973) through Cabbage soup (nineteen eighty one), Wing or thigh (1976) and the Gendarme of Saint-Tropez (1964), Louis de Funès took pleasure in slipping into costumes which said a lot about the character of the characters embodied but also about the eras evoked.
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Character makes clothes
One of the best examples is one of the costumes worn by de Funès in Megalomania. The actor plays Don Sallust, a greedy and devious Minister of Finance to the King of Spain, who fell out of favor at the Queen’s court (played by the unforgettable Alice Sapritch). This costume inspired Tayna Debs, Master Fashion student at Ecole Duperré. She created a black organza dress full of pockets – a reference to the greed of Don Sallust – and inspired by Spanish mantillas for the headdress.
In the exhibition, we rediscover the drawing made at the time of filming by Jacques Fonteray, renowned costume designer. He had studied the work of Velasquez and his contemporaries to find inspiration for this flamboyant black suit with a hat that seemed disproportionate for the actor. “De Funès’s had to be disproportionate because the character wanted to ingratiate himself with the greats of Spain. And at the same time, we had to make him appear smaller than he was thanks to his costume” wrote the costume designer.
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Fashion and cinema
This project mobilized around ten students from the Ecole Duperré who are preparing a higher diploma in Applied Arts (DSAA, Bac +5). “We worked on the link between fashion and cinema, the relationship to mime, to posture, to attitude” explains the DSAA coordinator, François-Xavier Herody. The idea is not to reproduce the costumes but to draw inspiration from the universes deployed”. Example with a graphic reflection on junk food inspired by the film Wing or thigha film in which Louis de Funès plays a gastronomic critic fighting against standardized industrial food. For François-Xavier Herody, “fashion captures the spirit of the times, just like the films of Louis de Funès. If we decipher his comedies, we discover very current concerns behind the scenes.”
An observation which proves that forty years after his death, in January 1983, Louis de Funès remains an essential and inspiring figure in French cinema.
Louis de Funès and the Fantasques exhibition at the Saint-Raphaël Cultural Center until September 30 – Free entry from Tuesday to Saturday from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. – Information at the Louis de Funès Museum on 04 98 1 25 80 or at the Center reception cultural on 04 98 11 89 00.