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Image it: A spare live performance ticket comes your means, resulting in an opportunity encounter with an internationally famend pop star. When acting at one of the crucial well-known music festivals on the earth, they stare previous the blinding stage lights into the gang to lock eyes with you. What transpires, naturally, is a whirlwind romance on the European leg of their bought out tour.
It’s a fantasy that — in some variation or one other — has captured the human creativeness for many years. Movies reminiscent of “What Value Hollywood” and “A Star is Born” first dabbled within the concept of well-known and non-famous relations virtually 100 years in the past. By 1999, the style had reached new heights after the discharge of “Notting Hill” — the seminal Richard Curtis movie which noticed Julia Roberts, a swish American film star, fall for Hugh Grant, a bumbling British bookstore proprietor. Much more just lately, “Starstruck,” the coincidental title of each a 2010 Disney Channel unique film and a 2021 BBC Three sequence, introduced the agony and ecstasy of relationship an A-lister as a mere member of the general public to the small display.
Now, director Michael Showalter breathes new life into the trope with “The Thought of You,” out on Amazon Prime Could 2. Based mostly on the 2017 Robinne Lee novel by the identical identify, Showalter’s model is ready in LA — the birthplace of lofty pipe desires — starring each Anne Hathaway as Solène Marchand, a glamorous 40-year-old artwork gallery proprietor and divorced mom of 1; and Nicholas Galitzine as 24-year-old Hayes Campbell, the fan favourite of fictional boy band du jour, August Moon.
After a meet cute in Hayes’ trailer at Coachella, sparks fly and Solène finds herself being pursued by not solely a totally fledged superstar, however somebody 16 years her junior. The web hasn’t been shy in drawing parallels between Lee’s novel and the age hole relationship of Harry Kinds and Olivia Wilde. And though the guide was printed 4 years earlier than the pair started relationship, Lee admitted she was intrigued by Kinds’ life particularly. “Impressed is a robust phrase,” she told Vogue in 2020.
However greater than only a piece of starry-eyed fan-fiction, “The Thought of You” is a Bildungsroman in disguise. Notably in relation to the acutely feminine wrestle for identification and individuality after motherhood. “We speak about coming-of-age tales as being one thing that occurs in (the) earliest a part of your life,” stated Anne Hathaway on the movie’s SXSW premiere. “I don’t find out about you, however I really feel like I maintain blooming.”
Flawed, hopeful, weak but composed, Solène’s three-dimensional character disrupts the misogynistic binary of cougar or crone. It was a consideration costume designer Jacqueline Demetrio took critically when sourcing her wardrobe. “Solène’s 40. I imply, 40 isn’t previous,” she stated. “I didn’t need it to be this older girl meets this youthful boy… and has this ‘Fairly Girl’ (makeover) second.” There wasn’t a sew of leopard print, teenage vogue or “Golden Women” type pussybows. “She has her look,” stated Demetrio. “She’s not attempting to look younger, however (her type) has advanced with time and together with her physique. You make changes, however you continue to gown cool.”
From the primary scene, Solène’s sartorial compass is established in a denim puff-sleeve gown from Chloé’s Fall-Winter 2023 assortment and a pair of blonde suede Isabel Marant boots. It was the primary look Hathaway tried on throughout fittings with Demetrio in New York. “I used to be like, ‘Yeah, that is Solène.’”
Her vogue needle doesn’t deviate a lot all through the movie, as we see Solène in additional Marant (a suede tote bag makes a number of appearances as an intentional nod to life like rewearing), Etro, Gabriella Hearst, Valentino and classic Chanel. These are the varieties of refined but understated labels you would possibly count on a profitable gallery proprietor to purchase — quietly luxurious, generally sustainably minded and with a price ticket accessible to a lady in her peak incomes years.
However whereas Demetrio — who’s an analogous age to each Solène and Hathaway — was in a position to attract on private style and expertise to flesh out the character, entering into the thoughts (and closet) of a 20-somethings heartthrob was completely different. “I attempted some completely different instructions with the wardrobe,” she stated. “At first I went a little bit David Bowie, a little bit androgynous with the silk blouses and flared trousers. However I felt I used to be getting a little bit too showman and I didn’t need it to be a distraction.” And if the style sense of 1 younger musician felt laborious to pin down, there was additionally the query of outfitting August Moon. “There’s so some ways to go along with a boyband,” Demetrio stated. “There’s the BTS fits and matching Prada, or classic items blended in with streetwear, which is the place I went with that.”
Harry Kinds was in fact on the moodboard for Hayes — the patchwork tattoos and tender knit cardigans had been a useless giveaway — however Demetrio insists this wasn’t an impression. “I didn’t need it to be, you understand, he’s Harry,” she stated. “Nick and I had been sending photos backwards and forwards and one in all his (concepts) was Matty Healy.” (On display Hayes carried out at Coachella in a pair of swimsuit trousers and cotton vest — an outfit components beloved by The 1975 singer). What caught had been elevated classics: A Bottega Veneta tank prime, expertly fitted Loewe trousers or luxurious cardigans (once more, by Isabel Marant). “Somebody of his degree would have his stylist go and purchase designer items, regardless that it’s simply (say) a cardigan. It’s the best way it sits,” she stated. And for many who need to recreate the A-lister off-duty take a look at residence: Tailor your T-shirts, says Demetrio. “Nick would usher in his private wardrobe like, ‘Can I’ve this shortened? Can your tailor come and shorten this?’” she laughed. “I created a monster of excellent T-shirt proportions.”
Maybe a very powerful component of Demetrio’s work was precisely reflecting the character’s 16 yr age hole by means of garments. When Hayes tracks down Solène at her Silver Lakes artwork gallery, for instance, Nick seems in a slouchy cardi, white tank and snapback cap whereas Hathaway is wearing a structured velvet blazer. They’re star-crossed lovers, their doomed destiny spelled out in attire somewhat than astrology. Throughout one in all their final encounters, Hayes stands on the door, his enveloping outsized hoodie rendering him as diminished and slight as a wide-eyed adolescent. “I went backwards and forwards on that,” Demetrio stated. “As a result of I assumed, does he look too juvenile? However that is exhibiting the emotional wrestle by means of the wardrobe. It was actually due to what society was saying in regards to the age hole, so I needed it to be in your face a little bit bit.”
But when “The Thought of You” subverts any clichés on this specific rom-com style, it’s that the superstar should be extra glamorous than their normie love curiosity. Constance Bennett in “What Value Hollywood” is found in her waitress uniform by Lowell Sherman, a suited-and-booted big-time director. In “Notting Hill,” Grant was relegated to a rotation of periwinkle blue button-downs whereas Roberts swanned about in her leather-based blazer and black beret. As for Hathaway, we discover her in Chanel and depart her, fortunately ever after, in a rust-red Gabriela Hearst swimsuit.