There’s a brilliant photograph of Sofia Coppola on the set of Marie Antoinette in which she appears, mid stride, amid dozens of actors dressed in 18th-century courtly attire: britches and elaborate waistcoats on the men, robes à la françaises on the women, white powdered wigs on all. Coppola, meanwhile, is dressed in a white men’s button-up shirt by Charvet, layered tanks, and a pair of dark slacks. In the swirl of all that pastel-toned period finery, she cuts a rather amusing figure. “I like to have a bunch when I’m shooting,” she told Self Service magazine of her Charvet shirts, “so I don’t have to think about what I’m wearing.”
This and other snapshots make up A24’s latest book, How Directors Dress, out this week.
Assembled by Hagop Kourounian (of the Instagram account @directorsfits), Jon Dieringer (editor in chief of Screen Slate), film critic Caitlin Quinlan, and fashion journalist Charlie Porter, How Directors Dress is filled with rare snaps of filmmakers dressed for the job and sometimes—in the cases of people like Kathryn Bigelow, Chloé Zhao, and Baz Luhrmann—what they wore to accept their Academy Awards. Though this is not a fashion book, per se, it’s no doubt a book about style (Coppola looks the picture of effortless chic), and so a group of esteemed fashion writers—including Lynn Yaeger, Lauren Sherman, Rachel Tashjian, Sami Reiss, Claire Marie Healy, Adam Wray, Brad Phillips, and Shumon Basar—were called upon to contribute essays musing on the directors’ fashion choices. “This is a book that uses clothing to tell new stories about directors, their lives, their movies, and the times in which their films were made,” Porter explains in the book’s introduction.
Below, Kourounian and Quinlan walk us through a selection of images from How Directors Dress.
John Ford
A friend close to John Ford once described his typical on-set attire as “mangy old khaki pants, tennis shoes with holes at the toes, a sloppy old jacket, a beat‐up fedora, and a dirty scarf around the neck.” Safe to say he’s living up to his reputation in this photo on the set of The Searchers.
John Carpenter
Want to look as cool as John Carpenter on the set of Big Trouble in Little China? Get yourself a cigarette and some Nike Waffle Trainers 2s, and you’re all set to go.
Wes Anderson
This photo of Wes Anderson with Rushmore cowriter Owen Wilson documents the director just before his corduroy-suit uniform was dialed in. Elements of his signature style poke through in moments like these in the early days of his career.
Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar eclectically layers conflicting fabrics and patterns over each other as he poses with the cast of his film Kika.
Lina Wertmüller
Lina Wertmüller and the essential element to her uniform—her white glasses. On her 90th birthday, she said that her obsession with her square white frames was love at first sight, so much so that she claims to have once ordered 5,000 pairs of them.
Spike Lee
The god of sportswear, Spike Lee, rocks an era-appropriate oversized Tommy Hilfiger windbreaker, cuffing the sleeves to show off its bright yellow lining.
Marielle Heller
Forget method acting, Marielle Heller went for method directing on the set of her 2019 Mister Rogers biopic, It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, in a fitted red cardigan worthy of the man himself.
David Lean
This photo of a windswept David Lean wrestling against the weather to get his shot on the set of Ryan’s Daughter is possibly one of the coolest images ever of a director at work. Head to toe in waterproof gear, Lean still manages to look effortlessly in control while those around him struggle on.
Sofia Coppola
Donning a white shirt (her favorites are Charvet) and loose-fitting jeans, Sofia Coppola sweeps across her Marie Antoinette set with a giddy smile as her costumed cast prepares for the next scene. At the eye of the storm, Coppola shines in a timeless look she’s worn to work again and again.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
In a pinstripe suit, snug over a knitted roll-neck, Fassbinder was the definition of louche on the set of his 1973 film World on a Wire. The cigarette dangling from his fingertips and the peek of bare midriff, though, are really what make this whole look sing.
Andrei Tarkovsky
Despite the deep snow gathered in the backdrop, Andrei Tarkovsky looks impeccably warm in his impressively dense sheepskin coat, fluffy ushanka, and extra-wide black collar as he grips his clapboard for the camera.
Paul Thomas Anderson
It’s a little hard to tell—with his sheer, beachy button-up and orange-tinted shades—whether Paul Thomas Anderson was directing his breakout feature Boogie Nights or starring in it. Blending into his set, Anderson has an air of breezy Californian ease, while the directorial trademarks—a headset and pack of cigarettes peeking through his pocket—make for the perfect accessories.
Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg rests for a moment on the set of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in the coolest of ’80s ’fits: perfectly fitted double denim and a pair of just-scruffy-enough sneakers that signify both considered effort and aloof restraint.
John Singleton
John Singleton crouches low to frame his shot in a pristine, baggy streetwear ’fit that combines comfort and cool on the set of Shaft.
