I was watching Charlie Chaplin’s infamously funny film, The Kid, and it instantly reminded me of John Galliano’s Spring 2011 menswear collection. The first few looks consisted of pieces inspired by the funniest man of cinema. The baggie trousers, bowler hats, suspenders and shrunken double breasted coats all borrowed from Sir Chaplin’s wardrobe. Even the models walked in the comical style of the man.
The collection was based on Charlie’s Modern Times and not The Kid, but nevertheless, Charlie had a trademark style which carried through in all his films. Let’s take a closer look!
Charlie’s Sense of Style
Charlie, in most of his movies, played a working class man and hence his costumes were humble (and for his purpose, humorous.) His pants seemed to be oversized and were held up by suspenders. His coats seemed to have shrunk over the years. And he always wore his trademark hat (although when he wasn’t, his curly side-parted locks had a personality of their own!)
Galliano vs. Chaplin
Take a look at the Galliano collection that bore similarity to Charlie’s wardrobe. Even the colour tone was restricted to monotones in order to maintain the ‘black and white’ feel of Chaplin films. Though the garments were contemporized for modern day high fashion, the resemblance and homage to the man with the moustache was evident. Galliano also seemed to take notes from the movies and even created a piece to depict Charlie’s jail sequence from Modern Times.
The Other Charlie Chaplin-esque Looks
Modern Times is a film by Chaplin that deals with the The Tramp dealing with modern industrialization during the Great Depression. Released in 1936 the film is considered to be “Culturally Significant”. Galliano manages to squeeze a good deal of detail and drama into the collection with respect to Charlie Chaplin and the movie.
In case you haven’t seen The Kid or Galliano’s show, watch now!
P.S. Galliano seems to love Chaplin Movies; he also designed a woman’s collection based on Chaplin’s, The Tramp.