Back In Fashion
2017 · 8m · España
Directed by Belinda Bonan
Genres: biography, documentary
Tones: contemplative
Legendary designer Pascal Benard returns to fashion after his sudden retirement in the late 1990s, and the iconic BPC films a special on his comeback for its documentary series.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A documentary about a designer's comeback is basically the opposite of subversive—it's the industry congratulating itself—but Bonan seems aware enough of that trap that I'm curious whether she's using the form's earnestness as its own kind of provocation.
Bonan positions this within the lineage of fashion documentary as aesthetic inquiry, and the restraint of the piece—its contemplative pacing, its refusal to sensationalize the 'why' of his retirement—suggests a filmmaker thinking formally about what a return actually means in the archive of creative work.
The decision to let silence and still frames carry the weight of Pascal's absence during those years is where this works; a lesser director would have filled that gap with voiceover or archival footage, but Bonan trusts the negative space to do the emotional labor.