17 fashion documentaries that would be en vogue to watch or rewatch this weekend

Before the Live Event lockdown, DAIMANI offered for sale official VIP Hospitality to all of the major fashion shows around the world and had great feedback from clients who attended. That’s why, for this weekend, we thought we’d turn our cultural attention to some of the great fashion documentaries we’ve come across recently.

Savage X Fenty Show (2019)

The buzz around last year’s New York Fashion Week was that Rihanna had put on the runway extravaganza of the year. Now it’s your chance to witness this with your own eyes: the singer-turned-designer debuting her latest collection of celebrated, size-inclusive lingerie line, Savage X Fenty. Although the show follows a Victoria's Secret Fashion Show concept  – because it’s about the lingerie – the vibe is so very much different and the results are simply brilliant: modelled by incredible, diverse talent; celebrating all genders and sizes; and featuring performances by the hottest music artists, nowhere else will you feel this kind of empowerment.

Martin Margiela: In His Own Words (2019)

There is a mystery at the heart of this documentary. How to create a film around someone [Belgian fashion designer Martin Margiela] who was so deliberately anonymous. Margiela refused to do interviews and managed to keep his identity a secret in order to give maximum opportunity for his work to speak for itself. More than a decade after he left the fashion industry and the label that bears his name, he has finally consented. Great credit goes to director Reiner Holzemer, who clearly won the designer’s trust, and whose film maps a singularly attractive portrayal of a singular genius. He turned the fashion system on its head and then left it all behind.

Very Ralph (2019)

Ralph Lauren is and has been for the last 50 years the one name that represents all-American style. Famously, he started small, selling his Polo-branded ties for a chest of drawers in the Empire State Building in 1967. But he is now a colossus global lifestyle brand, and his half-century career is what the American Dream is meant to look like. His longevity and empire building are hard to beat. Director Susan Lacy takes the viewer along on the most extraordinary ride, on a brand built on how America was and is, and is supposed to be in the future.

Halston (2019)

It was Roy Halston Frowick’s burden to be the man, the designer, who put American couture on the map during the 70s. He owed his fame to the pillbox hat that Jacqueline Kennedy wore at her husband's 1961 presidential inauguration. From that point on Halston would become wildly celebrated as much for his minimalist 'all-American' designs as the vast numbers of celebrities who cheered his every move. Director Frédéric Tcheng's looks at the wonderful rise and then inevitable fall of the designer as he tried the transition from 'class' to 'mass'.

7 Days Out, Episode 5 – Chanel (2018)

The Netflix docuseries 7 Days Out focuses on the incredibly intense 10-day lead-in to to a significant sporting, historical or cultural event. The series’ fifth episode follows the late creative director and designer Karl Lagerfeld as he prepares for Chanel's spring-summer 2018 Haute Couture show. Lagerfeld drove Chanel to fresh heights in what would be his final spring-summer collection, creating an exquisite floral kingdom around an 18th-Century fountain.

The Gospel According to André (2018)

André Leon Talley  is a fashion icon through and through. He has very much seen and done most things in the fashion world: a former editor-at-large of American Vogue who was a regular at Warhol's Factory in the 70s, then hosted his own radio show, danced with Diana Ross and was a tough invigilator at the judges' table of America's Next Top Model. What is less known is the full arc of the life he travelled before getting to the top table: ‘for a long time my grandmother would not allow white people to come into our house. That was her rule. The only white man who ever came into the house was the coroner.’ His love for fashion was cultivated at an early age by that same grandmother and his discovery of Vogue magazine, which he first found in the local library at the age of nine or 10. This documentary seeks to scrutinise André's life at a more personal level than ever before.

Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex, Fashion & Disco (2018)

This documentary, directed by James Crump, is a sneaky peak into the vibrant life of renowned Puerto Rican fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez who, along with his dazzling circle, took New York by storm in the 70s. Viewers are privy to archive footage, interviews with the likes of Jessica Lange, Grace Jones, Patti D'Arbanville, Jerry Hall, Karl Lagerfeld, Yves Saint Laurent, Joan Juliet Buck, Tina Chow, Grace Coddington, the photographer Bill Cunningham, Pat Cleveland, Bob Colacello, Jane Forth, Corey Tippin, Paul Caranicas and Donna Jordan among others, as well as untold stories of nightclubs with Warhol and racism within the industry.

Manolo Blahnik: The Boy Who Made Shoes For Lizards (2017)

If you, like Carrie Bradshaw, have a thing for Manolos, then The Boy Who Made Shoes For Lizards is a straightforward home run [in a Sex in the City season 3 episode, ‘What Goes Around Comes Around’ Carrie is mugged. During her assault the assailant demands she surrender her shoes, asking for them by the brand's name]. The documentary follows the master of shoemakers, Manolo Blahnik, as his business continues to set the pace for the industry. With appearances from Rihanna, Naomi Campbell, John Galliano and Karlie Kloss, this is a fun, in-depth portrait with plenty of behind-the-scenes action.

The First Monday in May (2016)

The Met Gala is hosted annually by American Vogue's Anna Wintour. The Gala serves as the launch each year for New York's Metropolitan Museum exhibition, and draws together the biggest names in fashion and music for one of the most important dates in the fashion calendar. Who could forget Rihanna’s gigantic yellow gown and Sarah Jessica Parker’s headpiece and the endless comment pieces on who was wearing what, and why? As Wintour herself explained: 'it's a kind of theatre'. In this film, named after the date on which the event falls, we follow the planning and execution of the gala in 2015, with access beyond the catwalk and into fashion’s best fancy-dress party. [Inevitably the 2020 Met Gala was ‘postponed indefinitely’ because of the coronavirus; this is how UK Vogue reported matters.]

Absolutely Fashion: Inside British Vogue (2016)

For nine months, documentary-maker Richard Macer slipped behind Vogue House's closed doors. The film is the first time in British Vogue's 100-year history that any such thing has been allowed. In this candid, two-part documentary series, Macer gets a rare, access-(almost)-all-areas look at the 'impossible glamour' of the fashion world where, he says, 'things are not quite what they seem'. In this first episode, Alexandra Shulman (then in her final year as editor-in-chief) tackles New York Fashion Week. Of her own life, Shulman once explained in 2004: ‘Leaving aside the obvious but unlikely criteria of beautiful and thin, I realised that there was no look that was achievable which was going to make me happy. In my mind I am a free spirit of about 25 wafting around in second-hand cocktail dresses; in reality I am a 47-year-old businesswoman and journalist. The pictures unfortunately, tell the whole story.’

Dior and I (2014)

Raf Simons' departure from the Jil Sander Parisian fashion house in 2014 was a volcanic, earth-shattering moment in high-fashion. The fact that he moved immediately to Dior as creative director was equally stunning. This documentary covers the eight short weeks in which he and his atelier created an entire collection from scratch. The film draws on narration, quoting Christian Dior's personal diary with Raf and his closest colleagues’ hopes, opinions and fears. We see Simons' evolving relationship with the maison, its petites mains (seamstresses), and the emotions inspired by designing for one of fashion’s most revered brands. The documentary is a fascinating insight into the life of Paris’ haute-couture heavyweight in a most turbulent time.

Mademoiselle C (2013)

Carine Roitfeld is French Vogue's answer to Anna Wintour (check out her opening line in the trailer below: 'non, non, non, non’). After leading the magazine as editor-in-chief for 10 years, she resigned in 2011 to launch her own fashion publication, CR: Fashion Book. This is where the documentary starts and we’re quickly introduced to a who's who of French fashion, providing an almost conveyor-like stream of household names, including models, designers, photographers and editors. Everyone is highly polished and often over-the-top, as you’d expect.

Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel (2011)

'I wasn’t a fashion editor, I was the one and only fashion editor' – so spoke the legendary Diana Vreeland. She ruled the world of fashion throughout her career at Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, teasing beauty from unlikely sources, creating images which combined art, celebrity and the beguiling faces of the day. The documentary tracks her life and how she oversaw the changing face of fashion, along with her discovery of Edie Sedgwick and mentoring of Oscar de la Renta. Despite her death back in 1989, the strength of the pages she masterminded and the words which left her mouth still retain their relevance today, as the film highlights.

McQueen And I (2011)

Lee Alexander McQueen was fashion’s enfant terrible. He worked hard to defy convention with his designs: the infamous ‘bumster’ trousers and Armadillo heels made famous by Lady Gaga. Whereas Savage Beauty, the show which attracted hordes to the V&A, was primarily a celebration of McQueen, this Channel 4 documentary is a more immersive look at a life, sadly cut short by suicide in 2011. Built around archive footage and interviews from those closest to him, McQueen and I explains his unique genius, the transformative runway shows and the energy and pressure of production. He began as a tailor on Savile Row, was discovered by the equally eccentric Isabella Blow, ended as one of the industry’s most innovative and troubled talents. An

Bill Cunningham New York (2010)

He was both the godfather of street-style and a New York City icon. Photographer Bill Cunningham would cycle around town capturing the city's style for the New York Times, which he worked for from 1989 until his death in 2016. He was known to be charming, enigmatic and discerning. It was his life-long passion to capture the best-dressed women of New York. In return the fashion industry fell in love with Cunningham, his idiosyncratic talents and his obvious eye for style. Be prepared to be moved by someone whose palette was so big yet lived so small.

The September Issue (2009)

American Vogue’s editor-in-chief is Anna Wintour, fashion's most significant voice. The September Issue captures her drawing together and composing the publication’s largest annual magazine issue. Wintour's vision is set against the unique eye of creative director at large, Grace Coddington. Wintour’s trademarks are steely, steadfast and harshly cutting blows to her staff and those designers seeking her approval. The documentary reels you in with behind-the-scenes knowledge and begs the question how much like Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada Anna Wintour really is. This is fashion and editorial coming together for one (extremely stressful) issue of the greatest magazine in the game.

Valentino: The Last Emperor (2009)

Only Valentino could get away with saying 'Après moi, le déluge', and have that singular sentiment make sense. He was a total and unique force in the world of couture, leading his label from 1960 until he retired in 2008. As well as designing countless gowns and he was responsible for the wedding dresses of Elizabeth Taylor, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Lopez and Princess Madeleine of Sweden. Valentino is shown in this film as an unswayable character, locking horns with new investors after the label was bought in 1998, and weathering the industry’s increasingly stormy climate.

As much as we recommend these titles, please be aware that due to broadcast rights restrictions, these documentaries may not be available in all territories around the world.