Movie Inspiration of the Week – Easter parade (1948)

Costume Designers:

This is a somewhat obvious choice for this week because it’s Easter. Around here we do not have “Easter Parades” and there’s no tradition of Easter bonnets (which is an absolute shame). I wished we had imported this instead of Halloween. We do keep the tradition of wearing brand new clothes as a symbol of renewal and probably of remembrance of “fast-fashion free” times. Despite the lure of new clothes and chocolate eggs, I never liked Easter, I’ve never thought about it as a time of joy. I blame this on the nuns at school and the suffocating weight of tradition in Catholic countries.

Easter Parade is not one of the movies shown around here on TV during Easter break, most probably because in this case Easter just serves as a context and not as a theme. Trumpeted as the “happiest musical ever made”, even if its making seems to have involved quite a lot of suffering and unhappiness), this is the perfect antidote for whatever gloomy feelings I might nurture for Easter. There are 17 Irving Berlin songs, in this movie, stunning dance routines, and a world “in which, it seems, no man leaves the house without top hat and tails; all the women, meanwhile, swan around in fabulous gowns and fantastical Easter bonnets.”