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The ballsiness of beige, the audicity of taupe*

Monday, December 20, 2010 10:55 AM

tags: Absolutely Fabulous, Angelina Jolie, beige, Fashion, Faye Dunaway, Marlene Dietrich, The Tourist

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In one of the earliest Technicolor movies, 1936's Garden of Allah, Marlene Dietrich wafts about the desert in scene after scene wearing... sand-colored evening gowns! "Why the fuck are we paying for Tecnicolor?" David O Selznick reportedly bellowed when he saw the rushes. But it worked. It was a mesmerizing study of texture and light with Marlene's disembodied head seeming to float out of the screen.

In the middle of the Psychedelic movement of the '60s, costume designer Theodora Van Runkle dared to dress Faye Dunaway in a brilliant series of monochromatic flesh tones in The Thomas Crown Affair. And we're still talking about it today.

I have a feeling those were the gods that Angelina was invoking in the clunky fashion fantasy The Tourist, which YES I SAW THIS WEEKEND, only because I was determined to see that cream-colored outfit on the big screen to see if she could pull it off. It takes a goddess to pull off non-colors, and it's only been done twice before, to my knowledge, but yes she does it. Impressively. Gloriously. Fabulously. Droolily (new word). Angelina has officially joined the ranks of boldly beige-wearing screen goddesses Marlene Dietrich and Faye Dunaway. Go see the movie. It's not as bad as the critics will have you believe. See it for the beige, stay for the eye makeup (it's legendary). Swoon over the diamond necklace she wears to the ball. And marvel that EVERY SINGLE GUY IN THE MOVIE – FROM THE BIT PLAYERS TO THE EXTRAS – IS BETTER LOOKING THAN JOHNNY. No seriously. EVERY GUY.

* Apologies to Arianna.