In Easy Virtue (2008), the adaptation of Noel Coward’s play, John Whittaker (Ben Barnes) is a young Englishman who impetuously marries Larita (Jessica Biel) a glamorous American woman after meeting her in Monte Carlo at the end of the 1920s. When the newly married couple visits the husband’s upper-crust English fam-ily at their estate, the bride is expected

with shock, excitement and above all frosti-ness.

The mother in law (Kristin Scott Thomas) has many reasons to re-sent the new bride, as the hopes that her son will remain at the es-tate to help manage it go against the couple’s wish to live in London.

He was also supposed to marry child-hood friend Sarah from the castle next door thus uniting the two domains and restoring the estate’s former glory.

Larita is a feminist, avant-garde char-acter, she is an American, when Amer-ica was considered freshly different from the old world, she dyes her hair platinum blonde, wears trousers, drives a race car, is slightly older than her new husband and she is at her second marriage. She is also against blood

sports, which gains her no favors with the fox hunting uptight English gentry and insists upon knowing the name of the cook.

Biel delivers the witty and fast paced dialogue with elegance and poise in what could be a carrier-making role. The music score is particularly cheeky with modern songs like Car Wash and Sex Bomb interpreted in the style of the Thirties and with actors Biel, Barnes and Colin Firth performing some of the score’s songs.

The Whittaker family does not under-stand nor likes Larita much, with the sole exception of her father in law—played by Colin Firth—an ex soldier traumatized by the First World War.

To prepare for her role, Jessica Biel drew inspiration from the golden age

of cinema: “I looked at a lot of old Katharine Hepburn movies like ‘Phila-delphia Story’, ‘Bringing Up Baby’, for that kill-’em-with-a-smile, fantastic, witty, dry delivery,” . She also studied Jean Harlow for her “sex appeal, diva quality.”

According to award-winning costume designer Charlotte Walter, dressing the characters in Easy Virtue was “gift”. “Jessica was the alien arriving in the English countryside from America and

FASHION IN FILM Easy Virtue

”It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.” (Noel Coward)

“Jessica was the alien arriving in the English coun-tryside from America and Europe. I decided her palette would be black and white, silver, cream and grey - straight angles and no frills or fuss like the art deco of the time.” says award winning costume designer Charlotte Walter.

Europe. I decided her palette would be black and white, silver, cream and grey - straight angles and no frills or fuss like the art deco of the time - a complete contrast to the greens and browns of the English countryside. She looked so elegant in the clothes and embraced the period feel by bravely wearing 1930s underwear every day even when it was freezing, to get the correct feel and shape or her clothes,” adds Charlotte.

Jessica Biel was delighted with the designs: “My wardrobe on this film has just been amazing. I literally wanted to walk away with every piece! Because Larita is such a modern woman, she is almost ahead of her time. Everything is very streamlined but all of her outfits have a little cheek to them somehow, so for me, wearing the clothes every day really brought her alive.”

Neil Coward’s description of Larita in the first act of the play is similar to her depiction in the film: “She is tall, ex-quisitely made-up and very beautiful. Her clothes, because of their simplic-ity, are obviously violently expensive.”

The high-waisted, wide-legged tai-lored trousers are in the collections of many designers for fall-winter 2011. The jackets, cute hats, vests, mini-mal jewellery and monochromes that Larita wears in the film are particularly actual.

Colin Firth’s character is “shabby chic” while Kristin Scott Thomas is a tradi-tional old-fashioned English woman.

John’s older sister Marion is a religious zealot on the road to becoming a Miss Havisham character and her costumes reflect her obliviousness to her clothes and her mother’s influence. The trou-ble making little sister Hilda starts to imitate Larita as she is both jealous and in awe with the American.

The interiors also played an important part to emphasize the differences be-tween Larita and the dying old world. The house had to look frayed and the director went to great lengths to elimi-nate any bright colours from around Jessica Biel to preserve the alien qual-ity of her character.© snappystyle.blogspot.com