The Fashion Industry Is a Real Life ‘Hunger Games’ Says Designers Wolk Morais
Models at the Wolk Morais fashion show in LA. Photo: Getty Images
In a tribute to Victoria Beckham at last night’s Glamour Women of the Year Awards, Anna Wintour conceded that fashion was an industry that “is not known for its generosity.” Consider that a polite way of saying that you need to have the skin of a rhinoceros to survive in fashion. Keeping that in mind, and with the Hunger Games cast touring all across Europe, we polled the attendees of Wolk Morais’s latest fashion show in Los Angeles to ask if in the cutthroat world of design might similarities exist between the fashion industry and Hunger Games?
“You mean is everyone trying to kill each other?” laughed Greg Lauren. “No, no!” Though, the designer does feel the film has influenced fashion. “I think it’s either had an interesting impact on what you’re seeing aesthetically or the aesthetics of what’s happening in fashion in our sensibility is affecting the costumes of the Hunger Games.” He added, “I’ve actually done some things for the Hunger Games and designed some pieces that have been included in it, so I can speak to that. I love creating costumes for dystopian worlds particularly.”
Elizabeth Berkley was quick to point out that he also designed for Shailene Woodley in Divergent. “He’s done a lot of signature pieces for the key characters,” she said, ever the proud wife. So will his work appear in this final Hunger Games installment? “You know what? Sometimes I won’t know until I see it, but I know we worked with the costume designers and they used a lot of stuff that was scattered through out,” he said. “My stuff speaks to a lot of the different Districts. See, I know my Hunger Games terminology.”
Isabelle Fuhrman and Ashley Hinshaw at the Wolk Morais fashion show in LA. Photo: Stefania Rosini
For her part, Isabelle Fuhrman, who starred in the first Hunger Games film, said comparison was apt for battling the red carpet. “When we were doing the press tour, we were all joking that it was kind of like being in The Hunger Games,” she said, of playing dress up night after night while promoting the film. “And Jen in a way—she was this indie film actress and then she did this big [movie] and they’re touring her around and taking her everywhere and now she’s this staple of being a bad ass woman in Hollywood who can talk about things like equal pay and also at the same time is building new ways to create interesting characters and more interesting film leads for women. In a weird way, life imitates art or art imitates life.”
Fuhrman divulged that she wishes her character hadn’t been killed off quite so soon. “I mean, I would have loved to stick around because the cast, the crew, everybody involved became such a great family….when we said goodbye, it was so hard,” she admitted, adding “my mom actually became really good friends with [Jennifer Lawrence]’s mom. I’m going to be at the premiere. It’ll be like a big reunion. We’ll all get back together and see each other and it’ll be like we never missed a beat.”
While most attendees wouldn’t admit they wouldn’t fight over a dress—Ashley Hinshaw understood the comparison. Fashion is Hunger Games-esque “in terms of survival,” she said, then paused. “And I’m not winning. I had about a year or two when I first entered the business where I thought, ‘I’m going to be that fashion girl,’ and I realized very quickly that I was terribly losing the battle. So I gave up.” When told that couldn’t possibly be true, she laughed, “Well, somebody else dressed me for tonight, so thank these guys!”
Designers Brian Wolk and Claude Morais at the Wolk Morais fashion show in LA. Photo: Stefania Rosini
Speaking of, designers Brian Wolk and Claude Morais drew comparisons between the two worlds. “Fashion is survival. I think it’s a good parallel,” said Morais. “As a designer, you fight, you look for inspiration, you change cities, you work with different people. It’s always a challenge to make it happen until the model leaves and she’s on the runway. Maybe there is a parallel with this idea of survival.”
“Youth is always a battle ground,” added Wolk. “This idea of rebelliousness and youth and fighting is something that is inherent to anyone working in fashion and anyone working in the entertainment industry. You’re always fighting to express your vision, but at the same time there’s so much beauty in that kind of rebelliousness. There is beauty in that kind of struggle.”
Their struggle—and thus success—was on full display during the designers’ show which featured cotton jumpsuits, silk satin skirts, pleated day dresses, and denim cocktail dresses that, as Lauren best put it, “had a global, bohemian kind of feel to it, but without sacrificing the luxurious nature of it.”
Meanwhile, Jurnee Smollett said the designers were rebels in their own right. “We never get fashion shows in LA! Ever! I think it’s so cool of them to rebel and say, ‘We don’t care what everyone else in the world is doing. We’re going to blaze our trail. We’re going to do it when we want to do it and where we want to do it.’ I just love their rebellious spirit,” she said. “The real trendsetters are the ones who rebel. Those are the ones who everyone in fashion eventually follows.”
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