PatternVault

With the 78th edition of the Festival de Cannes starting today, here’s a look at a couture pattern with a fun cinematic connection.

When Vogue’s Clifford Coffin photographed the first batch of Paris Originals on location in Paris, circa 1949, he shot the Lanvin design in a museum setting, beside a fantastical red figure that’s mostly out of the frame.

It’s the Selenite from Georges Méliès’ Voyage dans la Lune (1902) — revealing the location as the Musée de la Cinémathèque, in its old digs at the Palais de Chaillot on the Trocadéro. The model of the moon-dweller in Méliès’ landmark film was recreated for the museum ca. 1947, not long before Vogue’s photo shoot.

Vogue’s suggested fabrics match the colours in Coffin’s photograph: grey wool jersey like the couture original, and “flame Foreman silk Shantung” like the red of Méliès’ lunar being.