Friendship has style, and Sofia Coppola proves it with Marc by Sofia, her very first documentary, soon to be unveiled at the 82nd Venice Film Festival. A minimal title for an emotionally-charged 97-minute film about her platonic yet passionate love affair with iconic fashion designer Marc Jacobs.
Back in the early '90s, Sofia hasn't yet shot Virgin Suicides, Marc hasn't yet been fired for his grunge collection at Perry Ellis. And yet, backstage at a fashion show, the magic happens. The meeting was instantaneous, the tastes shared (same music, same artists, same deadpan humor), and very quickly, the filmmaker and the designer became inseparable. Glamour, yes, but with worn Stan Smiths, and a lot of second degree.
Marc by Sofia is not the umpteenth fashion docu, but rather promises to be a delicate film. The director unravels the thread of a relationship woven over the years: muse for her very first perfume shot by Juergen Teller, director for the Daisy campaign, complicit presence on the red carpet in a Jacobs dress... A couture relationship, both tailor-made and never overplayed.
And because with Marc Jacobs, fashion never stays in the box, the film moves away from the catwalks and predictable bling. It includes an urban performance with Kim Gordon, on the bangs of the official shows - a nod to the designer's free spirit, always guided by instinct rather than rules.
No outpouring of glamour here, but an ode to instinctive creation, a nuanced look at imperfect beauty, and that famous pop melancholy that is Coppola's trademark. Marc by Sofia? A film that promises to be sensitive, elegant, indefinable - like a Marc Jacobs look you didn't see coming, but won't forget.
