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We already got a mini-preview of Tiffany & Co's Great Gatsby collection courtesy of Carey Mulligan's May Vogue cover, the opulent, Deco-inspired pearl and diamond creations were officially unveiled this morning during a breakfast at the Fifth Avenue store.
Aside from the chance to see these decadent creations in person, this was exciting for two reasons: First, Baz Luhrmann, the film's director, and Catherine Martin, the film's costumer designer, were on hand for a Q&A session. And second, we literally got to have breakfast at Tiffany's this morning. Wins all around.
Head after the jump to hear what Luhrmann and Martin had to say about working with Miuccia Prada, the symbolic role of jewelry in the film, and hip hop.
Tiffany's Vice President of Visual Creative Merchandising Richard Moore, Catherine Martin, and Baz Luhrmann
Catherine Martin on working with Miuccia Prada for The Great Gatsby:
"The second reason was that Fitzgerald had an enormous love of the modern. Anything that was new, dynamic—he was looking towards the future, the new era, the Jazz Age where all the rules that you once knew were revolutionized. And we don't understand that anymore, because we forget that 1922, the summer in which the book is set, is only two and a half years after they'd just finished a Great War. And that was like being in Transformers.
This is a revolutionary time. It's a time in which women are much more employed because of the war. You also have women fashion designers—like Coco Chanel, like Jean Lanvin—all actually speaking to women and making clothes for women. And that is something that Muiccia Prada does today. Just like those designers spoke to women in the 1920s, she's speaking to women now: What is beauty? Who are we? What roles do we encompass? All those things. She constantly has that dialogue and I thought that was incredibly appropriate."
Catherine Martin on collaborating with Tiffany's:
"We didn't want a nostalgic 1920s. We wanted a modern 1920s. So there had to be a sensibility about history, but there also had to be an actuality about it. And I think that's why Tiffanys just felt so right. Because there's a sense of history, but also a modern company moving toward the future."
Baz Luhrmann on the importance of making the film feel modern:
"Our big focus was to find a way not to be looking back. How can we make the audience feel like it wasn't a nostalgic experience? Today, the African American music that speaks is hip hop. Which led to the collaboration with Jay Z. If Fitzgerald coined the term the Jazz Age, we're living in the hip hop age. So these collaborations didn't just come out of the idea that wouldn't it be great to work with Jay Z—although, wouldn't it be great to work with Jay Z? And wouldn't it be great to work with Miuccia Prada? And it was."
Catherine Martin on the inspiration for Daisy's hand jewelry:
"In the case of the hand piece, it comes from an illustration I found at the Met of a compact that was sort of mounted on these elastic strings from the 1920s, and some Indian wedding jewelry I had."
Baz Luhrmann on the symbolic role of jewelry in the film:
"Tom Buchanan had a thing for wrapping his women in jewelry. Think of the pearls that he bought [Daisy]. $350 thousand dollars in 1922, do you know what that might be today? The idea that Tom Buchanan would wrap his women—his Daisy, his captured Daisy—in jewelry, we extrapolated that into the hand jewelry. She's literally bound in jewelry. In the Miuccia Prada collaboration, the frock is made of what appears to be giant, acetate diamonds. He's wrapped her in diamonds, and pearls, and jewels. He's caught her—it's going to sound corny—but he's got his Daisy in a gilded cage."
The film comes out on May 10. Until then, relive the trailer here.
· Carey Mulligan's Gatsby-Themed Vogue Cover Is Finally Here [Racked]
· The Great Gatsby Trailer Is Here In All of its Glittery Glory [Racked]