"Sex. Greed. Murder. Some things never go out of style."
— Tagline
Prêt-à-Porter, released in the United States as Ready to Wear (Prêt-à-Porter), is a satirical comedy from 1994 focusing on the fashion industry in Paris during Fashion Week, and directed, produced and co-written by Robert Altman.
This film provides examples of:
- Accent Interest: The British Vogue editor meets a Texan designer and mentions how much she loves that accent.
- The Alcoholic: Anne Eisenhower, who downs three glasses of red wine in less than two minutes.
- Ambiguously Gay: Many of the figures in the fashion industry.
- Anime Hair
- Audience Surrogate: The female New York Times reporter, as she's the most normal person amongst the cast and she asks a lot of informative questions of the designers.
- Autopsy Snack Time: A coroner has a snack while autopsying a corpse (in the presence of several police officers investigating the death, too!)
- Bad Boss: Most of the designers and publishers, to their assistants and models.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Anne and Joe argue quite a bit in between having sex.
- Benevolent Boss: In a film full of obnoxious egotistical bosses, Simone Lo is the one exception. Among other things, she's the only designer to have a kind-hearted reaction to Albertine's Surprise Pregnancy.
- But Not Too Gay: The gay couples show a lot less physical intimacy on screen than the straight couples.
- Camp Gay: Many of the male fashion designers, but especially Cort Romney (except he seems to be bi.)
- Cat Fight: Sisters Dane and Kiki end up cat-fighting just off-stage during a fashion show because they're both sleeping with Dane's husband.
- Chick Magnet: Milo the photographer, though some of his suitors only want him because he's the best photographer in the business.
- Closet Shuffle: Sissy and Sergio (total strangers to each other) end up hiding in Nina's closet together during Nina's tryst with Milo.
- Cool Shades: Milo has these, and often wears them indoors and/or for dramatic effect.
- Corpsing: In-universe example: Cort Romney's wife Violetta starts cracking up next to him during a TV interview, when he starts rhapsodizing about how his ideal female model "doesn't have to have legs, but oh, it's wonderful if she does."
- The Dandy: Many examples throughout the film.
- The Ditz: Kitty Potter, the reporter.
- Dumb Blonde: Kitty Potter, and Sissy Wanamaker's assistant
- Everybody Has Lots of Sex: Pretty much all of the characters in the fashion industry seem to get it on very regularly.
- A Family Affair: Jack is sleeping with his wife's sister.
- Fashion Show: Obviously.
- The Fashionista: Most of the film's characters qualify as this.
- Foil: The serious and competent New York Times reporter Fiona vs. the ditzy and bubbly TV reporter Kitty Potter.
- Funny Background Event: While Sissy Wanamaker is on the phone, her blonde assistant is in the background rearranging her mini-dress and mooning the audience.
- Gayngster: One fashion designer, while not explicitly a gangster, does look and dress in a very "gangsta" fashion, and is dating a man and has an affair with another man.
- Gay Paree: The film depicts Paris very much in this way.
- Gratuitous French: It is in Paris, after all.
- Honey Trap: Sissy sends her ditzy assistant to seduce Milo's assistant to steal Milo's room key.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Kitty Potter's assistant Sophie is far more knowledgeable about the fashion industry than Kitty herself.
- Ignore the Fanservice: Sissy and Nina both try to seduce Milo the photographer (both into bed and into a contract with their magazines). He's totally impervious and just takes photos of them half-dressed as blackmail material.
- Impractically Fancy Outfit: Again, when fashion shows abound, this inevitably comes up.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Anne Eisenhower.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Joe Flynn is this, to a point.
- Loophole Abuse: Basically what Simone does in the end. She's not allowed to show her fashion designs without also including those dreadful cowboy boots, so she just has all her models go onstage fully nude.
- Mister Muffykins: Isabella de la Fontaine has one of these, and even shows him in a fancy dog show.
- The Mistress: Simone is this for Olivier.
- Pimped-Out Dress: Quite a few of these show up, naturally.
- Public Exposure: The film has a whole scene filled with it, meant as a giant Take That! to the fashion industry
- Quirky Town: The film presents Paris (or, at least, the fashion industry in Paris) in this way.
- Random Events Plot: Very much so; many of the characters and scenes seem to be completely unrelated and the film seems to lack any real protagonist, antagonist, or coherent narrative.
- Running Gag: Various male characters stepping in dog turds.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The police spend the whole movie trying to find Olivier's murderer, only to finally realize that he just accidentally choked to death on his sandwich.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Many of the male characters are wearing very nice suits.
- Shopping Montage: Louise, the Major's wife, spends most of the film doing these.
- Shout-Out / Mythology Gag: To Sophia Loren's most famous scene in Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. As in that movie, she strips sensuously for her former lover (Marcello Mastroianni), but this time Mastroianni's character falls fast asleep by the time she's finished.
- Sleeping Their Way to the Top: Subverted with the female New York Times reporter:"How'd you get [Milo, the famous photographer]? Did you sleep with him?""No, I don't sleep with men."
- Straight Gay: Cy Bianco, one of the male fashion designers.
- Surprise Pregnancy: Albertine the model shows up to Paris Fashion Week very pregnant, which causes displeasure amongst the designers who'd created outfits to fit on her pre-pregnancy body.
- Suspect Is Hatless: An interesting variant, wherein a murder victim's chaffeur is asked to describe the perpetrator, only to reply that "white people all look alike" to him, and he differentiates people by the clothes they wear; so he can only describe (in great detail) what the suspect was wearing. The photographs taken by others also focus solely on the assailant's clothes as well, and therefore nobody knows what his face looks like.
- Take That!: The movie was devised as a satire of the fashion industry.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: Major Hamilton crossdresses for fun, but wants to keep it a secret, so his wife Louise goes shopping for all the clothes for him.
- Who's Your Daddy?: It's unclear who the father of Albertine's baby is.
