The elite world of fashion, with its royal luxury and splendor, has its own international courtiers, courtesans, and conventions. They are in the spotlight at the shows, flying from fashion week to fashion week. The rest of the year, they strive to survive, hoping that sheer excess will be enough. Fashion Babylon is a documentary about this particular tribe of celebrities, inhabitants of an environment in constant flux.

Production notes

From the glitter of the catwalks to low-cost hotel rooms, in search of recognition and, possibly, money to pay the rent, against the backdrop of a fashion world caught in the transition between two eras, straddling the pandemic – written and directed by Paris-based Italian director Gianluca Matarrese – –, [Fashion Babylon] is a documentary that illustrates the other side of the glittering coin of the fashion system, and it does so by following the exceptional everyday life of three characters who gravitate around it and try to shine by reflected light, between one fashion week and another in Paris, Milan, New York. – –

‘Grandeur’, ‘Splendeur’ and ‘Décadence’ are the three chapters that punctuate the film, which has the gift of rendering, with vivacity and through a few significant episodes, the ambivalence of this world made of luxury, beauty and appearance, but also of frustration and uncertainty, where one goes from the stars to the stables at the speed of a pirouette on the catwalk, and sometimes tears flow from heavily bistreled eyes. 

Vittoria Scarpa, Cineuropa

The director Gianluca Matarrese is present in the screenings on Wed, Feb 1 and Sat, Feb 4.