Cinema du Look, No.2

Cinema du Look is a new biannual publication that exists as a magazine, a reference book and a keepsake: a bridge between the worlds of film and style, with leading voices from both fields exploring the parallels and differences of these two industries that collectively shape our cultural landscape.

In this issue:

Our second issue centres on a shared instinct: that cinema’s visual language is not peripheral, but central to how we understand a film. We turned our attention to material – prints, fabric, paper. Surfaces marked by memory. We looked at how a setting, a silhouette or a single frame can hold the emotional shape of a scene.

In Lost in the Archive, we explore the material afterlife of film. Michael Chaiken reflects on the work of preserving cinema’s ephemera. Jeannette Montgomery Barron shares photographs from the set of The Loveless. NJ Stevenson and Vicki Russell revisit the legacy of costume designer Shirley Russell. And Susan Wood opens her archive of on-set photography, spanning decades of cinema.

Our Pleasure and Power section, created in collaboration with Jouissance Parfums, explores the relationship between film and feminine power through the concept of jouissance. Mary Wild reflects on spectacle and autonomy in Basic Instinct and Showgirls. Sarah Kathryn Cleaver traces the presence of perfume in cinema. Rachel Pronger turns to the symbolic interiors of Nelly Kaplan’s films, where female independence takes form through space and design.

In Responses to Cinema, photographers engage with film as something lived and felt – led by mood, memory, or material. Among them: sculptural silhouettes that echo 1940s Hollywood, a beauty story shaped by Fellini’s casting archive, and a diner tableau charged with Lynchian unease.

Elsewhere in the issue: Ava Pearlman spends a cinephile’s weekend in Rome. Dal Chodha speaks with artists Athen Kardashian and Nina Mhach Durban about cinema, inheritance and glamour. Claire Marie Healy selects six fashion pieces from Éric Rohmer’s Comédies et Proverbes. Theodora Hawlin explores costume, gaze and authorship in Eyes of Laura Mars. Christina Newland revisits Luchino Visconti’s cinematic vision through his collaboration with costume designer Piero Tosi. And in Off the Shelf, Glen Luchford shares his personal history with film.

Contributors include: Vasily Agrenenko, Monica Ainley, Michael Barry, Patrick Bienert, Cabinet Milano, Michael Chaiken, Angèle Châtenet, Dal Chodha, Christopher Ciancimino, Sarah Kathryn Cleaver, Yaniv Edry, Pierre-Alexandre Fillaire, Darcey Fleming, Hazel Gaskin, David Brandon Geeting, Charlotte Ghesquiere, Julia Gilmour, Lu Philippe Guilmette, Steve Harries, Theodora Hawlin, Claire Marie Healy, Athen Kardashian and Nina Mhach Durban, Hannah Lack, Kolton Lee, Glen Luchford, Finlay MacAulay, Emma Matell, Naomi Miller, Jeannette Montgomery Barron, Christina Newland, Ava Pearlman, Rachel Pronger, Vicki Russell, Matilda Sadeghi, NJ Stevenson, Ellen Stewart, Patrick Waugh, Mary Wild, Susan Wood, Jens Wortmann