Catherine Deneuve, her doll-face, innocent eyes, and the donkey skin elegantly embracing her silhouette. This is the very first thought that comes to my mind when I think about fashion in movies. Not the dress “Couleur de Soleil”, not even the white nightgown that matches the Prince’s white set when they’re wandering in the woods nor the matching outfits of the Rochefort sisters. Just the skin of a dead donkey on the most angelic girl.

I was about 10 years old when I first watched Donkey Skin and you would think that it’s because of my young age that all these sequins, gems, and strass felt so hypnotising and poetic. But no, almost 20 years later I am still madly obsessed with Catherine Deneuve’s Aura.

Of course this led me to discover more about Demy’s art as I grew up. And as I could better understand the serious topics that I couldn’t perceive as a kid, I realised that this was all Demy’s work : a cruel life disguised in fancy costumes. This was his way to make topics such as incest, lost love, and doubtful morals light and joyful. 

Lola, played by Anouk Aimée, is certainly Demy’s first icon with her black corset, black boa, and black khôl on her eyes. She’ll be the one Demy brings to Hollywood with Model Shop. Then come Delphine and Solange, the twin sisters from Rochefort, played by Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac. With their matching retro dresses and large trim hats. Again Catherine Deneuve as Genevieve and her umbrella matching her dress, longing for her first love. And Peau d’Âne, played by Catherine Deneuve as well, with her magnificent dresses Couleur du Temps, Couleur de Soleil, and Couleur de Lune. And of course the donkey skin she wears effortlessly on her shoulders.

If the costumes in Demy’s movies first suggest the fashion of his time, the 70s and 80s, it is more than the portrait of an era. They’re central to the narrative, a part of the storytelling. They evoke the characters’ complexity and vulnerability but also the inspiration he draws from Hollywood musicals.

What first comes to mind when one describes Demy’s art – besides the singing and dancing maybe – is certainly the kaleidoscope of colors he splatters (literally repainting buildings in the decor) in his movies: pastel, bright, and candy-like; leaving a fruity and tangy aftertaste. It feels as if Demy is obsessed with colors as much as he is with love. Perhaps they are both a way to counterpoint the darker tone of his stories. Or could he be making up for the colors he couldn’t afford in his early movies? Doubtful. I believe that the color codes and outfits pairing with the decor are too recurring to not be mindful. They’re clues to the emotional state of the characters, just like subtext to mirror their emotions, moods, and evolution.

The costumes seem to even be supporting the plot, just like in Lola and The Young Girls Of Rochefort, everyone is always on the move, on the departure. Chances of meeting, crisscrossing. Characters that keep missing each other. But the outfits and color coding remind us of the past or future relationships. 

In Lola, her dress matches Michel’s white suit, just like Peau d’Âne and the prince when they’re wandering in the woods, this pairing evokes their future (re)union and pure first love. Or in The Young Girls Of Rochefort, how Solange’s white dress matches Andy’s outfit when they finally get reunited. As they dance together they seem like two doves or two swans, incarnating pure love. Delphine is wearing just white as well, only for a thin blue collar and pastel blue shoes that matches Maxence’ outfit waiting for his idéal féminin.

On the contrary in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Genevieve’s beautiful white wedding dress clashes with Rolland black suit, and Guy and Madeleine give in their relationship with a sad camaieu of blue, green, and brown. This shows how they both settled for a different love than the one they were longing for.

Earlier in the movie when Madeleine meets with Guy again after he returns from war, she is wearing a pastel pink that suggests the relationship they could have. The sweet love she could offer him. But when Elise dies and they meet again, she’s packing that pink outfit while she tells Guy she does not like the man he has become. This translates perfectly to her emotions.

The costumes often suggest one main idea in Demy’s movies which is fate. Fate either as a choice or as something that just happens to us, that life throws at us. Just like how Genevieve wears a white coat when she meets Rolland for the first time, we already know she will marry him. Or her blue scarf and dress matching Guy’s shirt when they learn they’ll be separated. This same blue scarf she will only hold onto and never wear as they spend their last moments together before he goes to war. Like her love for Guy that she will hold onto but eventually let go.

When the characters’ outfits aren’t matching with each other, it’s with the set and decor that they pair. It’s almost amusing to notice the outfits matching with the buildings, props and wallpaper : like Madame Yvonne’s yellow dress matching with a bowl of lemons, or Genevieve’s outfits’ patterns perfectly paired with the tapestry.

In The Young Girl of Rochefort towards the end at the fair, there’s a big show on the main stage with dancers wearing red, orange, and yellow and the crowd below wearing darker tones of a camaieu of blue. I can’t help but see a landscape, just like a sunset over the sea.

The costumes suggest a duality expressed on many levels – realistic and fantastic, cheerful and wistful, tragedy and musical – making  Demy’s movies surprising, astonishing. When talking about The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Damien Chazelle says : “It’s a movie that doesn’t make sense. It’s real but completely fake.” And that’s exactly what I love the most about the movies I watch. When the absurd becomes so poetic that I just have to believe it. And when something fantastic is so raw that it becomes beautifully realistic.

This bridge between the tragedy and the musical creates a poetic realism. In Donkey Skin I would even risk to say that the fairytale theme, the “impossible-to-make’ and magnificent costumes are justified by the trivial and almost obscene topic : incest, a dad seducing, almost forcing his daughter to marry him. Demy wishes to embellish the cruel side of life, and what could seem kitsch turns out to be extremely realistic. This feels like what a fairy tale would look like in real life, extravagant and mesmerising just enough to cover up the darker side of life. A rueful and disenchanted fairy tale. It feels as if Demy is offering the same escape we’re looking for when we wear costumes ourselves. Allowing his characters to escape their reality, transform their personality, and liberate themselves.

The costumes are also a window into Jacques Demy’s life and interests. Of course if you’ve seen him on set with his one and only outfit : a shirt under a pullover, you might wonder what made Demy’s unique taste in costumes. Is it the influence of his grandma who was a seamstress and inspired him from the earliest days as he was creating costumes for his puppets in his first movies. Or maybe his love for Hollywood and its musicals which he made a few allusions to with Michel’s suit in Lola, or the godmother’s dress in Donkey Skin. The twins sisters outfits remind us of the Gentlemen Prefer Blonds.

We can also notice the recurring sailor uniform in most of his movies which evokes more than Demy’s love for the coastal cities or a reference to On The Town ; it also portrays the war that torments the lovers, forcing them to leave and make inevitable choices.

As I said, I first entered Demy’s world through the lens of a child amused by the colors, the dancing, and the singing, mesmerized by the costumes. Later I would rediscover his movies just like how you discover the adults you used to idolize, have dark sides as well. Except that Demy never disappointed me even when he was cruel with Guy.

The costumes in Demy’s movies made his work timeless just like The Little Prince from St Exupery, allowing me to reread the meaning again and again. Relating to the characters in a different way every time I would rewatch it. Sometimes I would dream of pure love, a true fate, just like Delphine and Solange experience. I would be longing to discover the world, travel, let my ambition drive me like Lola does. I would want to free myself from my parents just like Peau d’Âne flew to the woods. 

Even though the costumes were all I could see as a little girl, I didn’t yet know their power, how they had already crystalised the portrait of resilient women in my mind. How they had birthed my love for modern fairy tales and set my taste for movies with this very peculiar aesthetic. 

As a kid, my cinematographic world would boil down to Demy’s Donkey Skin, Miyazaki’s movies, Zorro, and Alf. (I would dress up as Zorro at any given chance.) And like any kid, I would believe almost anything, these movies and shows strongly built my SoD (Suspension of Disbelief). It’s only with time that I realised I could tolerate fantasy only when it was paired with a focus on human fragility, with an absurd realism. A bit just like how we fall for the villain that shows insecurities.

In some ways the accent that Demy put on the costumes, paired with the singing and dancing, just helped me forge my taste for one kind of romance. The one where the aesthetic only distracts us from the pain, from the inevitable truth that all fairytales don’t always have a happy ending. And when rom-coms make me cringe, movies about falling in and out of love enchant me, absurd tales and raw truth obsess me. And each of Demy’s icons created a path toward the stories that I would be drawn to : bittersweet love, the grief of a relationship, missed chances, and regrets.

Yet the costumes are the ones who can bring me back to Demy’s movies so easily, they soothe me as much as the music does. And just like the young girl I was as I first discovered Peau D’Âne I let myself be tricked into the poetry of his world, looking through the eyes of that 10 years old who couldn’t see past the shimmering costumes and lulling songs. I find the same excuse for escapism wherever I’m the one wearing the costume or just admiring actors playing dress up – escaping reality, going back to our childish self. And I’m pretty sure that if finding a donkey skin wasn’t so difficult I would have dropped my Zorro cape more than once.