Arabella Weston-Smith Core Post 3: Brown's article on Audrey Hepburn and Funny Face

I found William Brown's article "Audrey Hepburn: The Film Star as an Event" explained a lot of what we saw in "Funny Face" last week. Brown discussed how the fashion and film industries came together in the 1950s, and celebrated the "refeminization" of fashion through film (131). "Funny Face" focused a lot on celebrating the feminine, fashionable woman--centering on Hepburn's character's transformation into one.
Brown wrote about how the two industries supported each other by exploiting each other. This could not be more evident in "Funny Face." Beyond simply the story line being set around an ordinary girl flying to Paris to become the face of a designer's exclusive new season, the high fashion is supported through the modeling of every single outfit, multiple times. Fashion does not take a backseat role in the film--rather, high fashion is a lead role alongside Audrey Hepburn. The clothes and industry are just as important to the story and the character development as the main characters are.
Brown also writes about transatlantic tourism as a factor in the emergence of Audrey Hepburn as a star. As "Funny Face" is set in Paris, it could not support Brown's assertion more. "Funny Face" supports Hepburn's classification as the "continental" star (133). She is unique, fashionable, and independent--the "gamine" woman. Brown writes: "Furthermore, her independence is reinforced by the sense that none of Hepburn's characters never has to work. In a manner that ties Hepburn's screen persona to the expanding tourism industry of the 1950s...Hepburn is associated both with not working, and more positively, with holidays" (135). Ultimately, it seems that Hepburn's role in "Funny Face" perfectly captures the aspects that Brown believes contributed to Hepburn's emergence as a star. Consumerism, tourism, and the new definition of the ideal woman align perfectly in Hepburn's character in "Funny Face," Jo Stockton.