Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Prologue: Questions of Colours: Taking Sides
- NONFICTION AND AMATEUR CINEMA
- NATURAL-COLOUR PROCESSES: THEORY AND PRACTICE
- INTERMEDIALITY AND ADVERTISING
- ARCHIVING AND RESTORATION: EARLY DEBATES AND CURRENT PRACTICES
- Archival Panels (Edited Transcripts)
- Authors’ Biographies
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgements
- Index
9 - Kodachrome’s Hope: The Making and Promotion of McCall Colour Fashion News
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- Prologue: Questions of Colours: Taking Sides
- NONFICTION AND AMATEUR CINEMA
- NATURAL-COLOUR PROCESSES: THEORY AND PRACTICE
- INTERMEDIALITY AND ADVERTISING
- ARCHIVING AND RESTORATION: EARLY DEBATES AND CURRENT PRACTICES
- Archival Panels (Edited Transcripts)
- Authors’ Biographies
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgements
- Index
Summary
ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the multifarious relationship between fashion, film, and colour through an examination of McCall Colour Fashion News, a series of eight shorts filmed in the Kodachrome process between 1925 and 1928. Made in conjunction with McCall’s, the films feature well-known actress Hope Hampton modeling the latest in Parisian fashion, in colour. Parsing together the making, promotion, screening, and reception of the films, this chapter navigates the relationships between the various individuals and companies involved with the series, including: the designers whose creations were featured; the screen personality who wore them; and Eastman Kodak, the company that introduced and actively promoted Kodachrome as a viable colour motion-picture film process.
KEYWORDS
fashion, colour, Kodachrome, consumerism, promotion, tie-ins
In November 1923, Jules Brulatour, Kodak's head of distribution, contacted George Eastman with the following proposal:
I have been trying since I saw you last to interest the McCall Publishing Co., to put out at regular intervals a fashion film, in colors. This publication as you know, are devoted exclusively to women readers. They have a very large circulation and a tie up with them would prove I think most desirable.
With this letter, Brulatour set in motion the production of a series of eight short films starring actress Hope Hampton modelling the latest in Parisian fashions, filmed with the Kodachrome motion-picture process. The making and promotion of the McCall Colour Fashion News series, released between 1925 and 1928, provides us with a case study through which to explore the multifarious relationship between the complementary industries of fashion and film. This particular campaign reveals a calculated collaboration between colour acting as the driving force in the promotional efforts brought forth by the fashion and film sectors. This chapter navigates the mutually advantageous promotional relationship between the various individuals and companies involved with the making of the films, focussing on: McCall’s, the popular women's pattern magazine that attached its name to the series; Hampton, the screen personality modelling the French fashions seen on-screen; and Eastman Kodak, the company that introduced and actively promoted Kodachrome as a viable colour motion-picture film process at the time.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Colour FantasticChromatic Worlds of Silent Cinema, pp. 179 - 194Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2018