Tilda Swinton and Olivier Saillard Play Dress-up With Costumes From Famous Pasolini Films

Though words were hardly spoken, the audience watched in rapt silence for close to two hours while Swinton unpacked the raiment of films past like so many treasures salvaged from oblivion. Comparing this staging to the one he saw in Rome last summer, front row guest Haider Ackermann noted “the same fade of colors, the concentration, the centimeters and millimeters. Time stands still, it’s beautiful to look at. You sense that, despite time passing, everything remains.”

As for Swinton, the designer said, “I have no words. It’s very strange. We’re so close and yet every time I am amazed by this person and her beauty. Her excellence, every single time. Sometimes in fashion we make these huge spectacles, and here she goes to the core, to the essence.”

Backstage after the final dress rehearsal on Friday night, Swinton offered that, ultimately this new project had nothing to do with fashion and everything to do with child’s play and fantasy. “I’ve always wanted to work with cinema costumes,” she said. “Normal clothes have a life, and even clothes in a museum archive have had a life. But cinema artifacts have this one fantasy moment, and that’s it. We know them from the films, but if it’s a coat, you may never see it open, or sit, or on the floor, or in the air. It was like these works of art were calling to us to come out and play. There’s still a spirit in them—they hold energy and can spark new dreams and new inspirations. With these pieces, we’re on a new series of relationships.”

To that point, Saillard said he has a few dream archives on his list, among them costumes by the multi-Oscar-winning costume designer Milena Canonero for Barry Lyndon, or anything from Stanley Kubrick. “Doing these performances is a moment of creation, recreation, and laughter, it’s a real pleasure project,” he said. “Even if we get sick of each other someday, we’re going to keep on doing more.”

“Embodying Pasolini” starring Tilda Swinton will run at the Fondation Sozzani through December 10th.