Pret A Porter (1994) (VHS Tape)

---

---

Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
Robert Altman's much-anticipated broadside at the world of fashion, Pret A Porter is a disappointment. The film's crazy-quilt Nashville-like narrative structure and ensemble casting (Julia Roberts, Tim Robbins, Lauren Bacall, Marcello Mastroianni, Sophia Loren) are a thing to behold, but the story's many interlocking pieces lack overall depth and resonating emotion. There is a grand, satiric statement about fashion and society at the end of the film, and there are hints of an aging, nostalgic filmmaker's scepticism about our post-modern world of short-lived attachments and meanings. But watching this film is a long, long uphill climb, with a lot of thin air to endure before arriving at a destination. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

---

Customer reviews

review by: V xx x date: 2008-07-30 rating:
"Not only Rock'N'Roll but also Fashion is dead"
Highly anticipated movie was found bit disappointing by the critics and the public. The movie is very sarcastic and wonderfully explores the interim order of the fashion world. Including highly common features of this business environment: jealousy, anger, scare, superficiality, cruelty, etc

Cast - 5 star! From Sophia Loren to Julia Roberts and Kim Bessinger. Absolutely amazing is Drew Berrimore whom you can hardly recognise. The movie includes video excerpts from important fashion events and shows including a number of 90ies biggest supermodels like Claudia Schiffer, Helena Christensen (who appears on the cover of the DVD), Christy Turlington and designers like Jean Paul Gauthier, Thiery Mugler, Sonia Rykiel, etc. You can also spot than supermodel today the first lady of France Carla Bruni.

The movie is bit overwhelmed with various short episodes, which all together creates the whole story. Nevertheless, all together I find it absolutely hilarious. The main message could be phrased as follows " Not only Rock'N'Roll but also Fashion is dead".

---

review by: The Amazon Reviewer date: 2007-12-23 rating:
Satire on the Fashion Industry
This is an entertaining spoof built around a Paris fashion week, and was actually filmed during that event. It's a typical Robert Altman film, with multiple story lines, fast cutting from one setup to another, and overlapping soundtracks, which all make it hard to follow at the cinema, and very suitable for rental so it can be replayed. It would take too long even to begin to summarise the subplots and characters, but in addition to a galactically stellar cast; there's a host of guest celebrities, including lots of couturiers; and of course dozens of models on and off the catwalk, in and out of designer clothes, and in the climactic scene without clothes at all.

It is always healthy - both for laughers and laughees - to laugh at powerful people who take themselves too seriously; and by poking fun at the fashion industry and its surrounding media circus, Altman is performing a social service, as well as being a true artist. But I don't find his satire as cruelly biting as some people do. He treats some characters sympathetically or neutrally - eg the designer played by Anouk Aimée and Marcello Mastroianni's mystery figure. And even the extreme characters - eg Richard E Grant's screamingly gay designer or Kim Basinger's gushing TV reporter - are only a little more exaggerated than some real-life equivalents.

The final nude catwalk parade is not only a visually delightful and neat solution to the problem of a designer having lost her collection; but is also a postmodern take on the fairytale of the emperor's new clothes - nowadays, the crooks wouldn't have to pretend they were making clothes for the vain emperor, but would be able to sell him nudity, so long as it had a trendy designer label!

---

review by: Entertainment Bargains date: 2007-10-22 rating:
Flipper disc
Be warned, the release of this DVD on the Buena Vista label makes you think you get the whole movie on a 1 sided disc. Wrong. This release from early 2001 under the Buena Vista Home Ent label (cat no D888249) is a two sided disc, it says this on the back of the sleeve cover also). So the movie is split into 2 parts, one on side A and the other on side B. They called these flipper discs in the early days and Warner, in the UK anyway, released a whole bunch of titles like this. The public did not like their movies like this so I thought every movie had been reissued. Apparently, this one slipped the net and in the UK we still wait for the movie on one side of a disc. If you want the whole movie on a one sided disc, do not buy the UK Region 2 1999 or 2001 reissue as both are flipper discs. Its on Region 1 titled Ready To Wear and I am guessing that is not a flipper disc. I wish the studios would look at their back catalogue and get all the movies out in proper widescreen and on 1 side of a disc! Is it too much to ask?

---

review by: betterwithmetta date: 2003-10-07 rating:
The WORST film I've ever seen...
Oh dear! This is the only film that I have ever felt was so poor that I actually walked out of the cinema halfway through!

However, when it came out on DVD I thought I'd give it another try as a few years have passed since its original release and my cinematic tastes have changed. Perhaps all the fantastic 'irony' I'd heard so much about in this film was lost on me when I was younger...

...sadly, it was still a big disappointment. Humour-wise, its no more 'ironic' or intellectual than a half-hour dose of 'Are You Being Served?'. The only thing the film has going for it (hence the one-star rating) is a nearly all-star cast. Having said that, if cameo appearances from the once-famous are what you're after, you would do just as well to watch any given episode of the TV show 'This Is Your Life'.

One to miss, in my opinion (who - like a fool - has watched this shoddy offering twice!).


review by: date: 2000-09-29 rating:
Great stars in a great movie
Pret a porter, that's the every year fashion show taking place in Paris. Great director Robert Altman set up a cast that's on of a kind. You won't find more well known actors in a movie than in this one. Like in Shrot cuts, there are a lot of different sorylines all related to one topic: the fashion show, including ironic parts and a lot of fun stuff. Go get it, ...

---

Similar products

The Devil Wears Prada [2006]
The Player [1992]
Cookie's Fortune [1999]
McCabe And Mrs Miller [1971]
Gosford Park [2002]

---

Similar categories

Video . DVD & VHS . Categories . Comedy . All Comedy
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Format (binding_browse-bin) . VHS
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . BBFC Rating (intended_use_browse-bin) . 15
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Editions (feature_two_browse-bin) . Standard Edition
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Release Date (feature_three_browse-bin) . 1990 - 1999
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Language (theme_browse-bin) . English
Video . Video . Categories . Classic Films . Actresses . Loren, Sophia
Video . Video . Categories . Comedy . General
Video . Video . Refinements . Condition (condition-type)

---