culture max mara
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nlike many a Hollywood union, the marriage between fashion and film has proved eternal. Just ask the star face of luxury Italian fashion house Max Mara, the inimitable Amy Adams. “Fashion and film have had such a symbiotic relationship
— many actresses have been muses for designers over the years, and clothing can really inform a character and their personality,” says Adams, who will play Lois Lane to Henry Cavill’s Superman and Ben Affleck’s Batman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (out March 2016).
Also set to grace the screen alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Australian actor Isla Fisher in the upcoming thriller Nocturnal Animals — directed by Tom Ford, the very embodiment of fashion meets film — Adams says this role had her seriously rethinking her wardrobe. “We’ve been doing costume design for this character and it’s made me want to go home and throw away my entire wardrobe and start over. Tom dressed my character in such a beautifully elegant way and I was like, ‘I’m doing it wrong!’ So we’ll see what the future brings, because his vision of how I could look was pretty fascinating.”
Her turn as a con artist in the 2013 retro-inspired hit American Hustle, for which she landed a Golden Globe and her fifth Oscar nomination, also proved something of a fashion experiment. “Of all my films, I felt really confident and comfortable in those clothes for American Hustle, which was strange because I would never, ever wear them in my own life, though I have since done a few more plunging necklines. For my character, dressing like that was a kind of armour.”
To shoot the Max Mara S/S 2016 accessories campaign with famed New York-based snapper Mario Sorrenti, Adams, who evokes the sexiness of an old-fashioned Hollywood screen siren, says she didn’t in fact need to get into character. “I’m completely obsessed with Mario Sorrenti. I don’t feel I have to be something in order for him to capture me — he draws out this organic sexiness in women and likes to tell the story in his pictures. It feels like we’re doing a scene together,” says the actor, who in addition to being the label’s face also inspired the creation of the “A” bag, so named for her first initial.
F I L M
TYPE AWith a happy home life and
stellar film career, what more could Amy AdAms ask for?
Well, maybe a handbag named after her … The Max Mara face
talks work and style with NAtAshA silvA-Jelly
With photographer Mario Sorrenti at
Max Mara S/S 2016. Right: in Max Mara
S/S 2016 dress with the “A” bag.
Amy Adams in a Max Mara S/S 2016 dress with Hollywood bag.
U
CULTURE-
From playing a prim governess to a sexy con
artist to a real-life painter, Amy Adams is a casting
director’s dream. Here are just some of the characters (and looks) she’s brought
to life on screen.
CLASS ACT
Clockwise from top left: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008); as Sydney Prosser and Lady Edith Greensly in American Hustle (2013); Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009); Sunshine Cleaning (2008); Big Eyes (2014).
Clockwise from left: With husband Darren Le Gallo at the 2015 Vanity Fair Oscar party; with her “A” bag; at the opening of Max Mara’s new flagship store in London.
“Tom [Ford] dressed my character in such a beautifully elegant
way and I was like, ‘I’m doing it wrong!’ … It’s made me want
to throw away my entire wardrobe.”
“I’m definitely more of a bag girl. I carry them everywhere, even if I’m going for a workout. I like a big bag, as I carry around lots of things, including my iPad, which I put all my scripts on, and then there are my daughter’s things.” Like her personal style, the “A” bag is chic yet understated. “I prefer the word ‘classic’ over ‘plain’, but I’m definitely not into a lot of embellishment. We talked a lot about colour and versatility.”
Don’t, however, expect to see her posting her latest street-style looks anytime soon; Adams eschews all social media. “When it started, it wasn’t something I really identified with. I strive for balance in work and life and I feel like if I’m presenting my life to the world the whole time, then it makes it harder for me to be an actor, because really I just want to play characters; if you’re looking at my food, then maybe that makes it harder.”
Ah, yes, the old “B” word. Does the mother of a young daughter (Aviana, five) and in-demand actor really believe in finding a balance? “What is the saying? You can have it all, you just can’t have it all at the same time,” she says. “There is balance on both sides. I was reading that book Lean In [by Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg], and it’s a fascinating concept.”
That said, Adams’s idea of luxury — apart from a designer handbag — is “getting to spend time with my daughter. Though I also love getting dressed up and going out to dinner with my husband [actor Darren Le Gallo].”
And if she weren’t doing this? “Who knows? Maybe teaching,” she says. “I have considered going back and getting a counselling degree.” Or could we see her taking over the airwaves? She did, after all, shoot to fame as Princess Giselle in the 2007 fantasy musical Enchanted. “I love singing and karaoke but, no, there won’t be an album.”
163 H A R PE R S B A Z A A R . C O M . AU January/February 2016