Before Edward Bernays taught people to consume things we don't need, fashion and it's ideologies of constant change and replacement already inspired artistic response. La Moda Vuole L'ala Larga (Wide Brimmed Hats are Fashionable, 1912) starring Ernesto Vaser, is an early cinematic and funny critique of consumer society with an interesting twist at the end.
In the short film we encounter Vaser taking a stroll down the street and being ridiculed by some passers, apparently because of the unfashionably small size of the brim of his hat. Vaser takes notice, visits a hat shop and buys a humongous sombrero to complete a new, fashionable look. What happens next can perhaps best be described as a surreal exploration of both the advantages and disadvantages of owning such a large hat and the unpredictable consequences of new stuff. First our protagonist, or rather his hat, destroys half the hat shop as he exits, while leaving he accidentally decapitates an innocent bystander, before usingh his oversized hat as a fan to blow away some bystanders making fun him. He, or rather his large hat, then provides two ladies with shelter against a sudden rain storm before he's blown into the air, hat and all. After some funny acrobatics he falls into a river where he catches a sombrero full of fish. Vasser then burns his hat to cook the fish, a symbolic sacrifice of fashion to return to the life of the forager.
Thx Anna Lina Litz
