How Directors Dress

by Shumon Basar, Thom Bettridge, Claire Marie Healy

How Directors Dress uses clothing to tell exciting new stories about directors, their lives, their movies, and the times in which they were made.

Along with pieces by some of the best style writers, How Directors Dress features hundreds of incredible photos of what directors wear to work, including Sofia Coppola in her signature button-up shirts, Hayao Miyazaki in his aprons, and Spike Lee in his sports caps and varsity jackets.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film, Fashion, Coffee Table Books

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2024

Reviews

[Matan Tal · Rating 2 out of 5]

It shows you how some directors dress… the pictures are great, but the text, they way the book is written - is just awful. It’s written like it’s straight out of People magazine or the likes of. It doesn’t read like a book, and the point of view that the different authors provide on the dress etiquette is so low-brow.

[Josefine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was surprisingly very sexist. Women were almost featured not at all, and there was a section assuming the reader believed all directors were men. This was very off putting coming from A24.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pictures of directors on set in their various outfits are wide-ranging and excellent, but the essays that accompany them are far more hit and miss. At first, I thought they were gonna be almost completely a miss, but it turns out all the worst essays are bunched together at the beginning of the book. Things get a lot better after those first few misfires, and there is some interesting insight later in the book, though even the best essays here could have used a little more actual research -- there were a few too many "here's why he or she MIGHT have decided to wear this item" throughout the book for my liking.

Also, for a book literally put out by a film production company, there were some WILD and distracting errors here. For example, BLUE STEEL was Kathryn Bigelow's third feature, not her first. And Robert Forster is the star of MEDIUM COOL, not Robert Mitchum (!).

Overall though, I'm glad I have the book for the photographs, which again, are truly excellent, especially if you're into movies and/or fashion.

[Chris Beiser]

theoretically thin but great pictures

[Parker Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

beautiful images of directors ripping darts and accompanying essays about why those directors look so cool ripping darts.

[Liam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty breezy all told if not a little too obvious. You can very much feel the “oh shit we’ve just spoken about white men for 4 pages better do some lines on everyone else”, though I’m not sure you can entirely blame them when the writing is so generalist and the profession is historically so male dominated. Did NOT give me tips to look sick as hell either. Sad.

[Josh Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

all style no substance

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hab’s mir besser vorgestellt