Shirley MacLaine as Coco Chanel? The movies just don’t get fashion | Chanel | The Guardian

That somebody, somewhere, keeps giving Guy Ritchie money to make movies proves that Hollywood rarely learns from its mistakes. And the upcoming slew of fashion designer biopics is testament to the blithe short-term memory that afflicts so many film producers.

First up is Coco Chanel with two, possibly three, film versions of her life. The first was screened on US television this summer and starred the very American Shirley MacLaine as the very French designer, which is like casting Kevin Costner as Robin Hood. And lo, the reviewers described the film as “dull and embarrassing”.

Undeterred, the second Chanel film has just gone into production with Audrey Tautou, who can presumably do a French accent more convincingly than MacLaine. Now it is rumoured that there will be a third version with Chanel played by none other than Demi Moore. Let’s all think about that for a moment: Moore in a tweed twinset, cigarette holder dangling from her lipsticked mouth, shouting, “Zut alors! Noir et blanc sont les couleurs de la saison!” Book those tickets now!

Meanwhile Vivienne Westwood is said to be the subject of a forthcoming film, played by Kate Winslet, and there are even rumours that someone has come up with the genius idea of making a movie about Kate Moss.

You can see the appeal designers have for film-makers: the glamour, the scandal, the excuse to have lots of pretty girls on camera for no reason. Certainly Chanel, Westwood and Moss have led lives that could be described as eventful. But fashion rarely does well on screen, because filmmakers parody it beyond credibility, or they swoon so much at its glamour that the movie becomes unwatchably sycophantic. Robert Altman’s Prêt à Porter and The Devil Wears Prada provide plenty of examples of both of the above.

Fashion works best when it is done with a sense of fun, such as in Funny Face or Zoolander. Biopics, however, tend to be overly reverent and sentimental.

Anyway, can’t they be more imaginative with their subjects? The fashion movie I’d most like to see would be Matthew Williamson: the Early Years, in which we follow a young Matthew as he first discovers hot-pink chiffon and celebrates by having an all- night Ibiza party with Kate, Jade and Sienna. Swell of triumphal music, roll end credits.

· This article was amended on Friday October 10 2008. We misspelled the name of the French actor Audrey Tautou as Tatou in the article above. This has been changed