29 thoughts on “Previewing Keira Knightley in Colette

  1. I’m so looking forward to seeing this flick. Although Ms Tomlinson’s dress on the standalone shot looks uncorseted.

  2. Loving these beautiful costumes—and that they clearly referenced images of her. :-) I don’t really know much about Colette, but she seems very unique.

    1. Judith Thurman’s biography is the best–she really gets both Colette and the part she played in French literature and social history.

  3. The evening/dinner hat is definitely a thing I’ve seen in illustrations and artwork. Can’t recall specifics offhand, apart from some famous shots of Camille Clifford (the inspiration for the Gibson Girl) wearing a black evening dress and huge hat, which I imagine is what’s being referenced here. I agree it’s jarring in this context though.

    1. Camille Clifford was dubbed “the quintessential Gibson Girl,” but this was because she won a contest to find a woman who matched Gibson’s popular drawings, and she capitalized on this in her stage career.

      Gibson’s wife, Irene Langhorne (sister of Nancy Langhorne, later Lady Astor) was said as well to have been the inspiration for the drawings, but Gibson himself made it clear that there was no specific woman that inspired “the Gibson Girl”:

      “I’ll tell you how I got what you have called the ‘Gibson Girl.’ I saw her on the streets, I saw her at the theatres, I saw her in the churches. I saw her everywhere and doing everything. I saw her idling on Fifth Avenue and at work behind the counters of the stores… [T]he nation made the type. What Zangwill calls the ‘Melting Pot of Races’ has resulted in a certain character; why should it not also have turned out a certain type of face?…There isn’t any ‘Gibson Girl,’ but there are many thousands of American girls, and for that let us all thank God.”

  4. I’m also slightly disappointed that I don’t seem to be seeing anyone wearing a claudinet/Claudine collar which was a fashion directly inspired by the Claudine books, essentially a pre-Peter Pan collar with long trailing scarf tied in front.

    1. Well, at least those photos with Willy are supposed to be the little schoolgirl child-bride who inspired “his” Claudine novels.

      1. Finally saw “Colette” yesterday, and the latter part is full of would-be Parisian Claudines in school girl attire. The movie itself is beautifully produced and trying very hard to respect Colette and her writing–to be authentic–but Keira’s likable and kind of boring, as usual. I don’t know who could play Colette, who was not sweet and likable.

  5. I might actually be willing to put up with Keira-leads-with-her-jaw-Knightley for this!

    1. Literally LOL’ed at this. I like Keira Knightley, but your description of her is spot on!

      I still want to see her & Keeley Hawes play either daughter and mother or sisters ASAP.

  6. This is so wrong. Colette was a fascinating, complex woman who deserves better than the platitudes in the preview, and her posture was nowhere near as slouchy as Keira’s. And the clothing descriptions in Claudine at School are amazing.

  7. Ah, the can-can….which still can’t be shown accurately except in an X-rated film.

  8. I guess I’m not done grousing. She’s too damn thin; it detracts. The costumes look wonderful. But agree that bolero/cape print is definitely Civil War.

  9. I didn’t recognise her facially in most of these photos, and yet her body doesn’t look much heavier. They must have done something to her–filler, whatever–or maybe she had a child? I forget. No, I am not interested in seeing this film, although I hope it is good. The facial skin quality in the bathing suit is odd and looks injured–do we know if that is the case?

  10. Looking at the cancan photos makes me wonder. Did those dancers in period wear closed crotch drawers when dancing?

    1. Nope! Which was sort of the whole point, really… But that film looks like it has potential, even if it’s SO easy to go wrong with Colette. The costumes looks gorgeous, anyway.

  11. The real woman has a gorgeous hourglass figure paired with a round, cute face. How anyone thought Knightly was a dead ringer for Colette, is beyond me.

  12. To be honest I’m fed up with Keira Knigtley in period films. Must she appear in very second costume film? Aren’t there more talented and prettier actresses around to work in period films? Keira Knightley must have very good connections in the business that allow her to work in this kind of films, despite her moderate talent and physical flaws (she is too thin for period films and don’t get me started on her jaw).

    1. Wow, there’s some serious shade being thrown on here towards Keira Knightley’s jaw. Was not expecting that (haha).

    2. It’s the same I thought when I heard about her playing Catherine the Great! Is there not anybody in the buisness who can say: “Please look at any painting! She is not looking like Catherine the Great! She is not looking like the Duchess of Devonshire either! And she plays many of these roles just very very boring with one face for happiness and one for sadness”. I loved to see the costumes in “The Duchess” and I had to go in the theater, but it was hard to do so. Just because Keira Knightley refused to Play the character. Hey, the duchess was a sexy, very inspiring person. She was a Beauty in the 18th century style of taste!

  13. My fingers are crossed it’s as nice as the trailer looks, and an good movie for other reasons as well. Turn of the century is one of my favorite periods, and seems to rarely be done well

  14. Could it be that, after years of wearing period dresses, Kira Knightley has finally learned to (sort of) walk in them?

  15. I was obsessed with Colette in college -after reading an omnibus of her Claudine novels I read every biography our library had. If nothing else this looks a thousand times better than the terrible movie about Colette they made in the 90s. And I’m excited that they seem to be dealing with her sapphic side as well! My biggest gripe is honestly that her bob is way too long and flat!

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