The Fashion Narratives of Tom Ford: Nocturnal Animals and Contemporary Cinema

AbstractTom Ford adapts a second novel and once again transforms the environment of the central protagonist; Susan, mother and part-time teacher, now becomes a successful art gallery owner married to a millionaire. These changes create problems within the film, though they provide a perfect showcase for fashion. If the main narrative is centered on Susan, the second dramatizes the events of the novel she reads, while a third strand provides flashbacks. But Ford has created what is arguably a fourth narrative of dress, decor, and lifestyle. Consequently, this film characterizes more general trends involving the contemporary fusion of fashion and film, the appropriation of fashion imagery by the feature film and vice versa, and the overall impact of the promotional fashion video. The essay explores the prevalence of fashion within the contemporary mediascape, and the new ways in which fashion and film are interlinked.