What is it about film makers and their fascination with the fashion industry? And I am not referring to who they will choose to design the wardrobes for their film, which these days can mean an immediate interest and an increased chance of box office success if chosen well and with the movie’s target demographic in mind. I am talking about the constant need to satirise, send up and generally poke fun at models, magazine editors and the whole business of presenting and selling clothes to the general public, in new and even more demeaning ways.

Bruno: avis a chaud, photo from www.cine-serie-tv.portail.free.fr

Since the two industries are now so closely connected, an actor’s movie premiere outfit is almost as important as their performance in the film itself – witness the number of actors you will find sitting front row at the fashion shows these days to see how seriously they take it – so you would think that continually taking nasty swipes at your partner in crime would be a foolish move. But it would appear not. In fact, it seems to be drawing them even closer.

“Pret-A-Porter” (1994 ) attempted to satirise the Paris fashion shows and the journalists and editors who attend them; “Zoolander” (2001) made fun of the rivalry between two narcissistic male models with an assassination sub-plot; and “The Devil Wears Prada” (2006) took an ‘insider’s look’ at the apparently cut-throat world of magazines and the people who run and work for them.

And now, with the current release of “Brüno” (2009), in which Sacha Baron Cohen portrays a gay Austrian fashionista wannabe who travels the world disrupting fashion shows and insulting politicians and pastors alike, we have possibly been presented with the nastiest of them all so far.

But even after all these exposés the magazines are still selling their take on the trends, models are still being asked for their fashion and beauty tips, and designers are still feted for producing ground-breaking work. In fact, the whole concept of the spoof often presents a great opportunity for models and industry professionals to get in on the joke as well, to show that they are good sports about the whole thing, not to mention it being a means to help along a budding film career into the bargain.

So why do it? The public certainly seem to love being reassured that fashion is all a vacuous bit of nonsense and everyone involved in it is as empty-headed as the characters on the screen; but if this is really the case why do they then still clamour to own the dress as worn by the actress – think Keira Knightley in Jacqueline Durran’s emerald green gown in “Atonement” (2007) or Sarah Jessica Parker’s Vivienne Westwood wedding dress in “Sex and the City: The Movie” (2008)?

And does the fashion industry do the same but in reverse? Not really. More often than not a designer will cite a movie as their inspiration for a collection, with Jean Paul Gaultier going one step further in his latest collection for Fall 2009 at the Paris haute couture shows, where every look was named after a movie from the ‘Golden Age’ of cinema and each section of his Paris headquarters where the parade took place given the name of a film studio.

So in a way they seem to tolerate the jibes and simply respond in a more sophisticated manner, as if to say they are above the muck-raking and low-brow nonsense and only want to get on with the business at hand – producing beautiful garments that can make anyone feel like a movie star and putting their creativity to better use.

Thana Kuhnen (NATHALIE) in a

And if the entertainment industry still sees this as an invitation to keep coming up with new ways to put their friends down, whilst in effect making them more in demand than ever, then maybe in the end the joke is on them?

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