What do the movies Girl, Interrupted, The People Vs. Larry Flynt, Tank Girl, and A Single Man all have in common? Costume designer and styling whiz Arianne Phillips of course!
Considering that Tank Girl (both the comic and the movie) has been hugely influential on my personal style, and that the character of Lisa Rowe from Girl, Interrupted I kind of always wanted to be just because of her swag, I was absolutely delighted to come across an article from the August 16, 2009 New York Times Style magazine which profiled both Phillips' career trajectory and unique attitude towards the industry in which she works.
Daphne Merkin interviews Arianne Phillips, who has been working with Madonna since 1997 on everything from CD covers and videos to TV appearances and concert tours. Despite the implied glitz and glamour of working with Madonna, Phillips declares that she does not do red carpet dressing or event styling, and is uninterested in the so-called "Sex and the City culture." (A-MEN!)
Characterizing herself as "sympathetic and unthreatening," it should not be doubted that within that unassuming exterior is a well of ambition, tenacity, and imagination. According to Merkin's article (posted in full below) Phillips moved to New York City in 1985 with nothing to show save for a portfolio of her friends modeling thrift store clothing. After a few false starts, including a cold call to Arthur Elgort's studio, where he told her to seek out younger more experimental photogs to work with, Phillips landed an internship at a fashion news television program, which led to her styling midnight photo shoots at the Palladium and eventually to a gig dressing Lenny Kravitz. Although his record company was less than enthusiastic about her vision of "a Jackson 5 silhouette with a little Bowie thrown in," what is notable is her use of vintage clothing in the styling process: something that while now is commonplace, at the time was unusual.
Her career took off after working with Kravitz, and Phillips went on to do the costume design for movies, befriending Courtney Love on the set of "Larry Flynt," who introduced her to Madonna.
What I took away most from the article, besides the sense that Phillips is kind of a wallflower who prefers to stay in reality while creating worlds of fantasy for her clients, is how important research is to forming her visions. From her beginnings as a Rocky Horror Picture Show fan (seeing this movie was a watershed moment for me as well), to priding herself on being knowledgable of the "sub-sub-sub-culture" of obscure musicians and artists, Phillips still relies on plentiful culuture references to inform her work. She states that research is everything, and that she and her assistants create reference books that contain multimedia collages, with images gleaned from biographies, periodicals, photos, and art books. Armed with ideas about the desired look and feel she wants for a project, Phillips then goes "hunting and gathering," calling in clothes from designers and vintage dealers across the country, as well as thrifting in remote places like the San Bernadino Valley.
Phillips is a truly inspirational figure to me, because both her work and her perspective speak to the nerdy, punk-rock, eccentric girl who loves to express herself through the transformative power of fashion, which is kind of me in a nutshell. I identify with the conflict Phillips feels as a member of an industry that has become less about creativity and more about celebrity. The rebelious stance in opposition to such "Devil Wears Prada" buffoonery is also resplendent in the strong and autonomous leading ladies that Phillips has clothed throughout her career: Althea Flynt, Tank Girl, Lisa Rowe, June Carter-Cash, and Charley all jump off the screen as bad-ass bitches with the help of Arianne Phillip's impeccable styling choices.
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