SCATTER MY ASHES AT BERGDORF'S

Bergdorf Goodman has been a New York institution for the past 111 years.  Stretching a whole block of Fifth Avenue between 57th & 58th Streets it is the high temple of fashion's elite that has the very best for the very well-heeled Manhattans. Right from day one the Store has only carried the cream of the crop, and along the way has been responsible for the launching of some of the industry's most successful designers. As Issac Mizrahi summed it up "if your clothes are not at that place then they have no future."  It is maybe a tad exaggerated but then again everything about this excitable fawning tribute is rather hyperbolic.

The best parts of the movie are with three of the key players in the Store today. Linda Fargo, the indefatigable and powerful Fashion Director who decides which collections are 'in' and which are 'out'; David Hoey who manages an extraordinary team who set out about doing the visionary window displays with more care and seemingly the same budget as a Broadway show, and finally the legendary Betty Halbreich the veteran personal shopper with impeccable taste, razor sharp wit, and no-nonsense approach to dealing with customers with suspect taste.  Ms Halbreich stole all her scenes and so deserves a film totally to herself.

The ancedotes about the excesses of the past make entertaining viewing i.e. when Elizabeth Taylor ordered white mink ear muffs for her entire Christmas gift list, or the Christmas Eve Yoko Ono asked that they bring some fur coats over to her apartment that night, and John Lennon snapped up 80 of them there and then.

In a 93 minute movie filmmaker Matthew Miele squeezes in some 175 interviews which tell the history of the establishment right up to the current day with designers who still have yet to be chosen and an assortment of celebrities who like having their clothes picked out for them.  With such a wealth of information the editing of the piece left a lot to be desired BUT for me the subject matter was so fascinating I eventually over-looked the fact that the movie could, and should, have been so much better.

It's a light frothy fun film and less I get carried away and insist that I too should be scattered there when I am just a pile of ashes, I quickly remind myself of the rather fabulous quote that Joan Rivers contributes to this whole homage 'people who take fashion too seriously are idiots'.  

★★★★★★