2023-05-16 18:36:48
Sneaker ban on the red carpet
Kristen Steward’s shoes at Cannes 2016
What: WireImage/Dominique Charriau
The Cannes Film Festival opens on Tuesday. Time to ask yourself the most important question again: What should I wear? Because even after a few scandals, the festival does not want to let go of its strict dress code.
In Borrowing from a 1954 Dr. Oetker ad that stated that a woman has two questions in life: “What should I wear and what should I cook?” find out in 2023: A film critic has two life questions: What should I wear and how do I get tickets?
Even for accredited visitors, the press tickets are almost completely sold out at 7 a.m. when the ticket service for the next four days is activated. Do you still have a chance to get a seat for Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” five minutes before the start of the performance in front of the cinema? You will see that later, the outfit dilemma has priority.
Cannes is the cocktail dress among film festivals. The gender-neutral formulation of the dress code for the gala evening performances in the Grand Théâtre Lumière is: “evening dress/tuxedo”. With the addition of the friendly “tip”: “You can wear a cocktail dress, a dark suit, an elegant top with black trousers, a ‘little black dress’, a black or dark blue suit with a bow tie. Elegant shoes with either flat or high heels are desirable (no sneakers). We ask that you do not come to the gala screenings with a backpack, tote bag or any other large bag.”
Faced with the question of whether you should stagger around all day in an evening dress without a large bag, or drive to the hotel and change clothes in between, or use one of the lockers (they are emptied half an hour after midnight, many performances last longer) , it takes a certain amount of hermeneutic intuition to decipher the final clue regarding daytime screenings: “Appropriate attire is required for all other screenings.” Appropriate in the sense of: It’s the beginning of summer and we’re lounging on the beach between films with cocktails? Or appropriate in the sense of: The pandemic is over and now it’s time to leave Couch and Berlin, which usually – even at the Berlinale – demand the same outfit, behind for a few days?
Even if flat heels are explicitly allowed into the program, most people still stick to the unofficial high-heel rule. The history of Cannes seems closely linked to the history of fashionable prohibitions and their transgressions. In 1960, juror Henry Miller was disqualified from opening night for not wearing a tuxedo. In 2015, a scandal broke out when a group of women were turned away from the premiere of the romantic film “Carol” because their shoes weren’t high enough. Festival director Thierry Frémaux denied this on Twitter, but the wife of the director of the “Amy” documentary Asif Kapadia also reported problems that she got at the festival because of flat shoes.
Sexism, conservatism, classism, even ableism—you’ve heard just about it all when it comes to the dress code that the French Riviera makes a name for itself each May. It’s now been eight years and even more gender debates on #Flatgate. In 2018, Kristen Stewart ditched her heels in the middle of the red carpet at the BlacKkKlansman premiere. She made a sign and continued barefoot on her way to the cinema.
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