When The September Issue was created 10 years ago, it sparked new demand for the fashion documentaries category. While we’ve seen numerous pop up since then, 2020 is set to bring us a handful of must-watch tales that follow some of the most iconic designers, fashion brands and style entrepreneurs of our time.
Here are three to add to your must-watch list next year.
Martin Margiela: In His Own Words
Belgian fashion designer Martin Margiela lets us in on his life in this documentary, which focuses on the 20 years from 1989 to 2009 when Margiela operated his eponymous label. While his face is never shown on screen (“anonymity for me was a kind of protection of my person,” he tells the documentary’s director, Reiner Holzemer), you’ll get to see him reveal his drawings, notes and personal items as he offers a first-hand glimpse into his vision and career. Interviews from Jean Paul Gaultier, Carine Roitfeld, trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort, fashion critic Cathy Horyn and fashion historian Olivier Saillard also offer insights into the fashion legend.
House of Cardin
Get a front row seat into the mind of a genius during this authorised feature documentary chronicling the life and design of Pierre Cardin. Plenty of fashion greats are interviewed in the documentary – including Naomi Campbell, Amy Fine Collins, Alice Cooper, Jean-Paul Gaultier, and Sharon Stone, as well as the man himself.
The Australian premiere of House of Cardin will take place during the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival in March 2020.
Calendar Girl
Ruth Finley kept New York’s fashion schedule in order for decades, from 1945 to 2014. Ruth started the Fashion Calendar with a $1,000 loan from a college friend, and basically ran and operated it single-handedly throughout her career. The documentary, which has been five years in the making, has been created by filmmaker Christian Bruun. Bruun described the documentary to WWD as being about “who Ruth was, what made her special and what gave her those superpowers to be able to do this for so long and to keep going. When we started filming in 2014, she was 94. She just had endless energy and she was so funny.”
