2016 has been an off year for the human race. It happens, we’re getting through it (well, some of us are) and if the universe can hold itself together just a few more months, we’ll have another miraculous Paul Thomas Anderson movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
The rumor has been circulating for quite some time, but until today, there hadn’t been any confirmation. Universal and Focus Features won the bid to distribute the film which will transport us to the dynamic world of 1950s fashion. But what does that mean? Anderson has made a habit of conceiving fictional characters heavily influenced by real life figures. Given the casting of Daniel Day-Lewis, Vulture came up with several ideas as to what (or who) the basis of his character could be:
If you presume that Day-Lewis’s character is a notable fashion designer — and given that the actor is in his late 50s, it’s not likely he’d be playing some mere lackey — then there are only a few notable, New York–based designers from that time who seem like they could be plausible subjects.
Pierre Balmain. Cristóbal Balenciaga. Christian Dior. Some signs point to Main Rousseau Bocher, who created the premiere mononymous fashion house, Mainbocher, in 1920s New York. But most signs are pointing to someone else:
We suspect that if Anderson is indeed making a movie inspired by a New York fashion designer in the 1950s, he’d be most drawn to Charles James, who created some of the most audacious, expensive gowns in the world and even dressed other titans of couture like Coco Chanel. His was a life full of terrific drama, and like several other Anderson protagonists, James was a mercurial mastermind, a prodigy around whom an interesting adopted family formed.
They even kind of look alike?????
