No more French ‘fashion police’: Emily in Paris costume designer relishes move to Rome
Costume designer Marylin Fitoussi says Italy understands the show’s wardrobe is ‘about breaking rules and having fun’
Netflix’s famously frothy romcom Emily in Paris has long divided critics and Parisians alike, but as it returns for its fifth season it seems to have won a presidential seal of approval. On Monday, Emmanuel Macron named the series’ creator, Darren Star (best known for Sex and The City), a knight of the legion of honour for boosting France’s cultural prominence and soft power through the show’s global success.
It is a long way from the initial backlash, which partly centred on the brash wardrobe of Emily Cooper, the American in Paris played by Lily Collins. Brightly coloured, print-heavy and over the top, the outre outfits were received as a personal affront by many Parisians, who even objected to her embrace of archetypal French chic.
A beret caused particular consternation. As the Toulouse-born costume designer Marylin Fitoussi (the Sex and the City legend Patricia Field consulted on the first two seasons) told the Guardian this week: “I was really surprised by the Parisian audience, that they were offended by the beret – please!” But the backlash only spurred her and Collins on: “We didn’t just want to upset the French – we wanted to make them cry,” wrote Fitoussi in a new book, Emily in Paris: The Fashion Guide, published by Assouline.
To Fitoussi, the Parisian resistance to Emily’s audacious American style was testament to the self-seriousness underlying the fabled French chic. “We are so boring and so posh sometimes. Nobody wants to smile because it looks stupid, nobody wants to be colourful because it’s tacky, no one wants to be a maximalist because they thought Coco Chanel said that you always need to take something off.” According to Fitoussi, tell a French woman she is overdressed and “she will jump out of the window”.
Emily might have finally won over France, or at least its president and the first lady – Brigitte Macron made a cameo in season four last year and Emmanuel Macron even vowed to “fight hard” to keep Emily in Paris – but the new season, which landed on Netflix on Thursday, finds Emily settled in Rome, having had her head turned by Italy – and an Italian man – in last year’s finale.
Fitoussi drew on classic cinema, including La Dolce Vita and, of course, Roman Holiday. Emily’s styling is more refined. She is seen in romantic 1950s silhouettes, such as tulip skirts and coordinating sets, along with exaggerated power suits and, more frequently, flat shoes.
Her look is also more vivid in Italy. Suddenly her wardrobe is full of polka dots – a nod to the on-screen wardrobes of Sophia Loren and Claudia Cardinale, Fitoussi said. “In several movies, they have a white dress with black polka dots or vice versa … I think it’s really something related to the DNA of Italy.”
Iconic Italian brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi and Moschino are not just featured in the wardrobe but are namechecked. Emily’s new beau, Marcello, is the heir to a family-owned cashmere company, clearly inspired by the actual brand owned by the designer Brunello Cucinelli. In episode two, Emily dons a Dolce tie shirt with an exaggerated rose print, “because she stayed in Italy for love, and she’s blooming”, Fitoussi said.
For Fitoussi, the change of scene meant freedom from the French “fashion police”. In Italy, Fitoussi found a more receptive setting. “Italy understood since season one what I understood – that it was about breaking rules and having fun with fashion.”
Emily has also had a haircut – a new bob prompted by Collins’s own decision to get the chop, subsequently approved for the character by Star. Fitoussi said it meant rethinking some of her planned outfits: “The proportions needed to be different, but for me it was much more modern, sexy, Parisian, powerful.”
Fitoussi sought to put a youthful twist on old-world classics. For a dinner of cacio e pepe, followed by dancing in the piazza, Emily wears a polka-dot denim bra top and short outfit (from the Los Angeles brand For Love & Lemons). For the season finale, set in Venice for fashion week, Fitoussi selected an off-white two-piece from the Danish label Stine Goya with giant spots.
Fitoussi is looking forward to seeing how Emily’s Roman holiday wardrobe is received, namechecking the unforgiving fashion critics @ideservecouture and @dietprada. “They kill me all the time, with their mean comments, but they make me laugh a lot.” She said the polarising response to the show’s fashion was a mark of success. “She looks spectacular, or hideous; it needs to be punchy.”
A sixth season of Emily in Paris has not yet been confirmed, but Fitoussi is hopeful she will get the chance to fully realise the character and her “vision of the French chic, with this spicy Cooper touch”. She has already sourced a skirt suit, designed by John Galliano for Dior in 1997: it would be “the first time in Paris she will be fully dressed in grey, with no print”, Fitoussi said. Maybe then the Parisians will finally be happy.