The re-release of Blue Velvet this week serves as a reminder of how stylish it was – perhaps a strange notion for a film in which Dennis Hopper wearing a gas mask is it’s most enduring, see-it-when-you-close-your-eyes image. But, as with all the best David Lynch productions, it’s the tension between a best-face-forward American glamour and a dark, stay-with-you horror that makes it so compelling, even 30 years after it was first screened. The opening shot of a white picket fence, blue sky and bed of roses is followed by the camera burying under the flowerbed to find an ear crawling with ants: the two sides of American suburbia for all to see.
Isabella Rossellini’s blue velvet floorlength gown, red lipstick and big hair is the most iconic look of the film, of course, worthy of a costume party, or Lana Del Rey video. At home in her claustrophobic flat, she’s a fantasy femme fatale, whether in bed with Kyle MacLachlan’s super-square Jeffrey Beaumont or abused by Dennis Hopper’s terrifying Frank. Transformed to a nightclub singer, in sequinned strappy slip dress, she’s another image of seduction. This dangerous, 40s-style glamour contrasts starkly with the strictly-daytime-hours, 50s wholesomeness of Beaumont.
Blue Velvet introduced two frequent Lynch collaborators – MacLachlan and Laura Dern, who plays Sandy, the daughter of the detective out to discover who the ear belongs to. Both exist in a kind of Norman Rockwell painting – one of diners, old-fashioned fire trucks and aforementioned picket fences. They have the look to match – pretty floral dresses and ponytails for Dern, and khakis and freshly parted hair for MacLachlan. Expect more of the same in the new series of Twin Peaks planned for next year.
Clothes spell out the dark and light in Blue Velvet – and how one can’t exist without the other. Lynch’s costume designer, Patricia Norris, who died last year, was responsible for this contrast, and they worked closely together. “On Blue Velvet, we collaborated on the sets and things like that,” said Lynch. “We’d talk about colour, where things were going and what was happening, the feeling and the mood.” It all combines to make Blue Velvet’s look – beguiling, horrible, beautiful and haunting – feel completely unique, even now. As Beaumont says, it’s a strange world, with strange style. Time to get lost in it all over again.
