After the visual abuses of Snark Week, I wanted to watch something beautiful, a real “sit back and let the art wash over you” moment. Klimt (2006) fit the bill, being an appropriately arsty-fartsy biopic of Austrian painter Gustav Klimt (played by John Malkovich). The story plays fast and loose with history, but it does include the artist’s relationship with Austrian reformist fashion designer Emilie Louise Flöge (Veronica Ferres). Both Flöge’s historical fashion designs and Klimt’s artwork are interpreted by costume designer by Birgit Hutter into what the characters wear, making for some interesting looks.
The film bears a lot of similarity to director Raúl Ruiz’s other work that I’ve reviewed Time Regained aka Le Temps Retrouvé (1999) in that both are nonlinear and use similar visual techniques. The “plot” doesn’t make a ton of sense and doesn’t particularly adhere to the facts of Klimt’s life. Malkovich plays the artist as an egotistical, horny, obsessive jerk, when biographies suggest Klimt was more shy, introverted, and taciturn. There’s also a scene where he’s rude and dismissive to his mother and sister, when in reality, he lived with and supported them (he had two unmarried sisters) and held his family roots quite dear.
The film has it’s own point of view about Klimt’s relationship with Emilie Flöge, which historians agree was his closest lifelong partnership. It’s often suggested that his most famous painting The Kiss is based on him and Emilie kissing, but if their relationship was romantic, it was certainly not exclusive. Neither married, and Klimt had at least six acknowledged children with three different women. In this movie, Emilie is shown pining after Gustav while he lusts after other women, in particular a fictional French dancer, Lea de Castro (Saffron Burrows).
But as I said at the top, this is a flick where you sit back and enjoy the visuals, and don’t think too hard about the factual history. Though the costumes make decent use of the history and the art, so I’m going to focus on that. The action of the movie starts in 1900 and meanders towards Klimt’s death in 1918. This has become known as the artist’s “Golden Phase,” and it’s when he gained most success through painting portraits of society women.
That high society is shown onscreen with women like Berta Zuckerkandl, a journalist and art critic who ran an important literary and artistic salon. She’s first seen with Klimt at the Vienna Secession art showing. Here, in public, she’s wearing a very typical for the period dark suit with a GIANT hat.
The women’s hats in this movie are excellent and get the right historical proportions. Compare with:
Later, she joins Klimt at the home of Serena Lederer, where the latter has dedicated a whole room of her and her husband’s flat to Klimt’s paintings. At this intimate gathering, Berta wears a looser, more artistic ensemble.
Perhaps this is a nod to the real Berta, who was photographed and painted (although not by Klimt) in relaxed fashions.
At the same gathering, Serena is dressed conservatively, which feels like an odd choice given how Berta and also Emilie are dressed.
In another scene, Serena visits Klimt’s studio, and she’s wearing fur, a floral gown, and this amazing bulbous hat!
Her rounded hat is another great period style, reminiscent of the bottom left in this fashion plate:
In the film, that painting is supposed to be of Lea de Castro. It’s one of his later works, and generally if a Klimt painting isn’t a portrait of a specific woman, it’s of one of his many models.
The fictional Lea, unlike the historical Berta and Serena, is very manic-pixie dream girl. She’s introduced via a short film shown at a Paris luncheon where Klimt has won an award.
It’s a weird scene, and I don’t know what her costume is supposed to represent. Is she some kind of mermaid? Except the film shows her “meeting” Klimt (played by an older, balder Klimt double)? Huh?
After the film-within-the-film, the director and actors meet Klimt. Lea wears a big silver hat that doesn’t really go with her velvet outfit. But maybe the silver color is supposed to connect with the wacky silver crown she wore in the film? Yeah, I’m stretching here!
After seeing this one little flick and meeting her IRL for a hot minute, Klimt wants to fuck her, of course. So she sends him a note to hook up that night. He shows up at this apartment, which is pretty damn gorgeous:
That’s a Whistler painting, which Klimt says he’s not impressed by. eyeroll
Lea shows up, totally naked, and they get it on. Btw, for a movie that talks a lot about a guy fucking many, many women, there are no real sex scenes. It’s weaksauce “kiss and fade to black.” The nudity is just female artist models standing around.
Klimt and Lea are being watched by this guy, the Duke, who set the whole thing up.
Honestly this whole part of the so-called plot is beyond silly and doesn’t add anything IMNSHO. Blah blah blah, symbolism, dualism, voyeurism, beauty, art, ornament, etc. I watched the movie twice because I was screencapping and while I caught more details, I still didn’t care or get more out of this part which felt like an annoying digression.
What I was far more interested in was Emilie Flöge (only called “Midi,” Klimt’s nickname for her) and what she wore. The film downplays her as a person because, oh y’know, let’s prioritize the horny male artist over the woman whose art is fashion and who runs a successful business in said artistic pursuit. Flöge is less known, but she was a proponent of Reformkleid, or dress reform, which encouraged women away from corsets and towards looser clothing so women could be more physically and socially active. Every woman reading this right now wearing stretchy pants has more to thank her and her kind for than Klimt.
In 1904, Emilie and her two sisters opened a haute couture boutique to sell her signature designs which were loose-fitting with empire waists and wide sleeves. They also sold some mainstream clothing in the store, for those who weren’t quite ready to be seen in reform dress in public — and so the store could turn a profit. Emilie Flöge’s work was part of the design movement known as Wiener Werkstätte, which was also a workshop that brought together artists working in ceramics, silver, furniture and graphic arts. The workshop added textile and fashion divisions in 1909 and 1910.
An example of some reform dress fashions from this time:
While Klimt wasn’t officially part of the workshop, he did design the logo for Flöge’s store, and his clients shopped there, while the store’s clients posed for Klimt’s portraits wearing Flöge’s dresses.
Midi is first shown in this movie wearing typical clothes of the period.
Because even dress reformers wear “normal” ish clothes sometimes! You don’t have to be strident about it, and I suspect that it was good business for her to be seen in the mainstream fashions alongside her own unique styles to show how both fit into a woman’s lifestyle.
She also looks right out of one of Klimt’s paintings of women in hats. I had to lighten this one:
Midi accompanies Klimt to Paris (where he’ll first meet Lea), and she’s shown in this highly embellished ensemble:
Unfortunately, she’s on the other side of a glass case for most of the scene, but you can still see how the coat lapels are absolutely covered in beading.
Looks like she takes off the embellished coat, and underneath is this dress made of brown pin-tucked satin. The silhouette is accurate for the era, but I don’t know about that fabric. During Snark Week, I complained about pin-tucked satin because it’s often used in earlier periods. I rather doubt it was being made in the 1900s either…
Fabric aside, her outfit has the fashionable lines of the late part of the 1900s — even though these scenes are supposedly right at 1900, when the fashions would still be more pigeon-breasted with full skirts and not the mostly straight up and down shape. Hard to say if this is supposed to be reform dress or the movie is just unclear on the period (probably the latter). For comparison:
The Paris Exposition, which they’re at, is a lovely sea of hats. The guy in the blue robe at the center is another artist of some note.
At the luncheon, Klimt is seated next to this woman in a dark green coat made of a material reminiscent of Fortuny pleats (which would be appropriate to the period, though incredibly lux) and yet another fantastic hat.
My favorite scene is about halfway through the movie, and it’s set in Midi’s studio. She’s having photos taken of models wearing her clothing designs, including Klimt dressed in an exotic robe, and the two of them chat. It’s also a montage where she’s shown in different outfit, plus more of her work is shown around the studio. Really makes me want a movie just about her!
This orange dotted dress is only seen from the back:
It appears to have the sleeves with tiers of ruffles most commonly associated with Flöge, such as:
And the dots and pattern-mixing her designs would feature:
An even more dotty dress is shown on Midi during this scene:
The movie costumes really lean to the narrower style of the other Wiener Werkstätte reform dresses. Probably because a slim dress looks more flattering to modern eyes than the shapeless gowns Flöge often wore herself, such as:
Even her narrower dresses were fuller than in this movie:
Also shown in her studio is this outfit waiting on a dress form, and I appreciate how there’s more clothing and fabric pieces hanging in the background, but also dress-making pattern pieces on the left.
This model is being fitted in a plain brown dress with the tiered ruffle sleeves. Looks like the dress is full and only brought in at the waist with a sash or belt, so that one’s more accurate to Emilie Flöge’s designs.
The last dress Midi wears in her studio is this floral gown, while she dresses Klimt in a blue robe:
She also wears the floral dress at Serena Lederer’s apartment, where it’s easier to see details:
I don’t love this floral pattern, but I guess it’s reasonably related to the giant florals she’s pictured in. What I really don’t get is that sheer-ish neckline fill-in. It looks clunky as hell! The neckline isn’t obscenely low, nor are the shoulder straps so wide that they’d slip off, so I can’t figure out why the fill-in was added. It’s ugly!
OK, I’ll follow up an ugly costume with a gorgeous one — Midi wears this black-and-white outfit in a couple scenes, including a key one where Klimt is painting with gold leaf, and he imagines the gold leaf floating all around, gilding her lips. If you’re going to go all artsy on film, that’s the way to do it.
This photo is usually paired with her portrait as an “inspiration” for obvious reasons.
After Midi’s studio, the next most interesting scene for fashion is the Vienna Secession art showing. In reality, the Secession was an art nouveau movement started in 1897 by Gustav Klimt and several other artists. They were protesting the staid traditional art of the Association of Austrian Artists, and they held meetings, published a magazine, and held exhibitions. This is all simplified into one art show for the movie, and many of the women attending the show are wearing reform dress styles in black and white. It’s almost like a pretentious artsy version of the Ascot Gavotte scene from My Fair Lady! Except I can’t find individual costume photos like with the earlier flick, and all I can get are terrible screencaps as the women walk past. Doesn’t help that the director did some weird sideways, elongated filmwork here too. But let’s try…
That one has big black-and-white stripes on the front and sleeves, that remind me of this iconic outfit:
I find it fascinating that these reform dresses would be combined with perfectly ordinary, mainstream fashionable hats. I guess reform millinery wasn’t a thing?
Then there’s another ruffle-sleeve dress, this one in dark tones with a coordinating hat:
Midi shows up at the Secession, and it’s just barely visible that she’s wearing that black-and-white dotted dress. We mostly see her HUGE hat.
While this scene of the Secession as full of fashion-forward women makes a visual impact, it’s undercut by the plot because Klimt’s art is supposed to be unpopular at his exhibit. Which doesn’t make sense — the avant-guard should be into his non-traditional work, right?
In reality, the exhibition crowds could be quite traditional in appearance and Klimt’s paintings could be successful, such as at the 1908 Kunstschau (art show) that Klimt organized to showcase his and other Austrian artists’ work.
There’s a couple other women’s costumes in the movie that I can’t ID — they’re promo pix, and I can only guess that they show up in scenes that were cut from the version of the movie I watched on Kanopy.
This is a great costume, very evocative of the Viennese reform dress styles with a loose fit and mixed prints in rich colors. Would like to see more!
Then there’s a new black-and-white dotted costume on Serena, and she’s wearing the same hat as before. I wonder if that dotted dress has a solid black skirt or is that a black cummerbund / sash? Midi repeats her brown pin-tucked satin dress here.
Also, look at that sweet black cat! Yes, it’s true, Gustav Klimt loved cats, and he had dozens of cats roaming around his studio.
A few are shown in the film too.
Speaking of Klimt, yes, he really did wear that blue smock when he was painting and also when hanging around on summer vacations with Emilie and the whole Flöge family.
At least one of his smocks survives at the Vienna Museum — it’s a simple blue linen garment with pockets and a little bit of embroidery on the shoulders. The museum doesn’t state who made it, just that it’s machine sewn.
Are you a fan of Klimt, the artist? Would you watch this movie about him?
Find this frock flick at:
