The director wears Prada

Joanna Hogg chooses not to wear “something that shouts, ‘She’s the director! She’s in charge!’ No jodhpurs, no extravagant hats,” she writes in the introduction to a new book, How Directors Dress. “There’s an invisibility to the role of a director. You’re trying to enter into a world you’ve created and be an observer within it. You want to bring out the best from other people – not be the focus of attention yourself.”

Through essays by Hogg, designer Yohji Yamamoto and others, the book poses the question of what clothes mean on a film set and, more broadly, the decisions involved in leading a creative team. As Hogg writes, it asks: “Does what you wear change who you are?”

Derek Jarman directed The Tempest in a padded jacket and several shirts, preferring a different kind of workwear to Hogg’s tailored shoulders. “It’s clear there was no budget for heating,” Hogg observes. “Jarman’s clothing embodies an elemental kind of functionality, indicating that the film is all that matters.”

Paul Thomas Anderson played up to his cool-boy reputation by wearing a bucket hat and sliders on the red carpet in 1998. Pedro Almodóvar dressed in Prada sweaters and shirts while making Parallel Mothers, which was set in fashionable Madrid. He “uses clothes almost like mood enhancers for his film,” writes Rachel Tashjian in another essay. Similarly immersing himself into the cinematic world, John Ford wore a cowboy hat and an embellished serape that was believed to have been given to him by the Navajo community that hosted the film shoot, on set for his 1956 western The Searchers.

Hogg opts for a suit not because it makes her look like she’s in charge but because of how it makes her feel. “A structure holds you together,” she writes. It’s about “playing the role of a director”.

How Directors Dress: On Set, in the Edit, and Down the Red Carpet is published by A24 at $40, shop.a24films.com