In the Sofia Coppola celluloid universe, plot and dialogue are reined in just so, to make way for the composition of total, fully-realised visual worlds. It’s a poetic, multi-layered approach that feels more akin to painting than to conventional narrative.
Coppola creates an ambient space that’s so singular, and carefully delineated, that you never forget its effects, whether you came of age watching The Virgin Suicides on VHS, or joined the newer cult following of Gen Z-ers who adopted Coppola as the godmother of the ‘girlhood aesthetic’.
It’s a poetic, multi-layered approach that feels more akin to painting than to conventional narrative.
When we think of Sofia Coppola, we think of the glacial stillness of her shots, and the languid pace of movement through them – and then, the consequent space given to colour and mood to fully envelop and sink in to the edges of the frame. Just as with a painting, or a fastidiously designed complete interior, you are given the space to stop and take in its dimensions. Coppola’s famously soft, dreamy palettes are rarely saturated; she plays with low-contrast textures and classically feminine shades, and it’s well-documented that her favourite colour is pink.
In the context of Coppola’s world-building, pink isn’t a cliché or frivolity, or loaded with irony; instead it’s reclaimed for a kind of uncompromised, matter-of-fact visual pleasure, showing us a feminine interiority that is rose-tinted, and even nostalgic, maybe, but not romanticised, vapid or grandiose.
In an interview with Aperture, Coppola explains that colour, and the slow process of building a complete look and feel through the gathering, grouping and layering of images, is what always comes first; ‘whenever I start writing, I think about the colour palette and the way it looks… That’s what I like about filmmaking. It’s putting images together. I love making collages, so it’s an extension of that.’
Moodboards and scrapbooks – classically the linchpin of the designer’s process, whether for interiors or fashion – have become an essential component of Sofia Coppola’s creative legacy. This has been further immortalised by the publication of Sofia Coppola Archive: 1999-2023 (Mack Books), an instantly cult-status book of collated ephemera that illuminates the director’s cinematic tapestry-making.
Moodboards and scrapbooks – classically the linchpin of the designer’s process, whether for interiors or fashion – have become an essential component of Sofia Coppola’s creative legacy.
In Coppola’s art, in an echo of our own approach to decorative artistry as a form, the surface level is not a ‘superficial’ thing; it’s to be celebrated, paid attention to and experimented with. And like Coppola, we are unapologetic about our love of working with pinks and peaches (see our Dune colourway) to create an evocative, considered feast for the eyes.
