Prêt-à-Porter

Prêt-à-Porter (1994) is Robert Altman's satirical ensemble comedy about Paris Fashion Week — stream it online on iFILM. A fashion house director drops dead on the opening day of the shows. Nobody stops the runway. The circus rolls on.

Altman weaves together roughly two dozen storylines using the same overlapping, eavesdropped technique he built in Nashville. Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren play long-separated lovers who end up sharing a hotel room by accident. Julia Roberts and Tim Robbins are American journalists spiralling through their own farce. Kim Basinger, Forest Whitaker, Rupert Everett and Anuk Aimée each get their own thread — and Altman keeps cutting between them with cheerful indifference to who you were following.

The film is blunt about its target: an industry that treats self-importance as a survival skill. The final runway show delivers the punchline the whole movie has been building toward. Stream Prêt-à-Porter (1994) online on iFILM.