‘In Fabric’: Peter Strickland’s eccentric inadvertent ode to ‘The Red Shoes’
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1948 classic The Red Shoes is unquestionably one of the greatest British movies ever made, using Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale of the same name that was published a century previously as the jumping-off point to a timeless drama.
Moira Shearer’s ballerina finds her personal wants pitted against her professional desires, with her dance instructor urging her to cast everything that isn’t ballet to the back of her mind at the same time she begins to fall for a charming composer. A decision needs to be made, and the consequences stand a high chance of being devastating in one way or another.
A hugely inspirational and richly cherished film that boasts Martin Scorsese as one of its highest-profile admirers, there are countless features to have been influenced by The Red Shoes. An absurdist horror inspired by Italian giallo doesn’t come across as an obvious spiritual successor, but Peter Strickland’s In Fabric led many to assume Powell and Pressburger were key touchstones.
For one thing, the colour red is integral to the story, with Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s single mother, Sheila, in need of a killer new outfit as she prepares to dip her toes back into the waters of the dating pool. She finds it when she stumbles upon a striking claret number, which naturally turns out to be haunted.
It should hopefully go without saying that Powell and Pressburger didn’t concern themselves with on-screen fellatio, menstruating mannequins, masturbating pensioners, erectile dysfunction, and carbon monoxide poisoning, but such flights of preposterous fancy have become par for the course with Strickland.
After all, he’s the maverick behind psychological horror Berberian Sound Studio, erotically-charged romance The Duke of Burgundy, and the unquantifiable black comedy Flux Gourmet, so if anything, the imaginatively unhinged In Fabric being compared to The Red Shoes based on its recurring motif of how an item of clothing bearing the shade defines the journey of the central characters is so insane it makes perfect sense within the context of his filmography.
That being said, it wasn’t his intention in the slightest. In an interview with Whitlock & Pope, the filmmaker admitted he was surprised that the two would be mentioned in the same breath, although he did confirm The Red Shoes was always at the back of his mind when he was crafting Cobbler’s Lot, his contribution to anthology horror The Field Guide to Evil that sees two shoemaking brothers battling for the affections of a princess.
“Cobblers’ Lot draws from early cinema, but also Powell and Pressburger had a huge influence,” he said before denying that his storefront nightmare was equally indebted. “Bizarrely, The Red Shoes keeps coming up when people discuss In Fabric, but it wasn’t an influence on In Fabric, it was an influence on Cobblers’ Lot.”
It may not have been intentional or deliberate, but even though they occupy markedly different ends of the cinematic spectrum, it’s easy to understand why The Red Shoes would be invoked when experiencing In Fabric‘s primary-coloured chaos.
