PARIS – As the fashion world prepares for a slew of designer debuts this season, women’s voices still struggle to be heard.

Director Alice Winocour aims to redress that imbalance with her film “Couture,” due to premiere Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival. Starring Angelina Jolie and set during Paris Fashion Week, it trains the spotlight on three women working in the shadows of the fashion industry: an indie filmmaker, a model and a makeup artist.

Jolie, switching seamlessly between English and French, plays Maxine Walker, a director of low-budget horror movies who’s hired to shoot a short film for a French fashion house, but finds out during the trip that she has breast cancer. The film explores how the characters’ stories intersect as they each seek to overcome challenges.

“Telling stories from female perspectives that haven’t been shared before is something I find really important — especially now, when women’s rights seem to be slipping everywhere,” Winocour said.

She spent two years doing a deep dive into the industry, talking to everyone from beauty professionals to model bookers. “With every project, I enjoy delving into a world that’s new to me and approaching it almost like a documentary,” she said, comparing it to the time she spent with astronauts in Russia’s Star City for her film “Proxima.”

This time, the setting was a tad more glamorous: Chanel partnered with Winocour during the scriptwriting phase, providing backstage access to its shows, and allowed her to film key scenes in its haute couture salons and workshops in Paris, in addition to providing the clothes for a pivotal fashion show scene.

Chanel noted it was the first time a fiction feature film was shot in its ateliers. 

“The house of Chanel is proud to support the production of Alice Winocour’s ‘Couture,’ a film that reveals both the backstages of the fashion world and the energy of those who make it happen, and whose exploration of femininity and emancipation echoes the values of the house,” it said.

Despite the glossy subject matter, Winocour neatly sidesteps clichés, instead searching for quiet moments that give the story emotional resonance. Jolie’s performance, which chimes with her experience as a filmmaker and her personal health struggles, is particularly moving.

WWD caught up with Winocour at Chanel headquarters in mid-January as she shot a scene where Anyier Anei, who plays South Sudanese model Ada, is being fitted for her first Paris runway outing. Anei, making her big-screen debut, heads a cast of real-life models that also includes Mona Tougaard and Yuliia Ratner.

Adding an extra dose of realism to the scene, Madame Olivia, head of Chanel’s flou workshop, appears alongside French actress Garance Marillier, who stars as a young seamstress.

A Voice for the Voiceless

“The idea was to dive into a world I didn’t really know and to observe it from behind the scenes, since people usually only see it from the surface,” Winocour said during a break between takes. “I wanted to give a voice to women who have no voice, who are just bodies.”

The prep work for this self-confessed “obsessive” included spending time with model agents from Elite, as well as watching a glut of fashion-focused films and documentaries.

“I realized that a lot of the time, the focus was on the designers — who are usually men — so you ended up looking at things from the perspective of the powerful,” she said. “I like to tell stories from the perspective of the weak.”

Costume designer Pascaline Chavanne said that despite the subject matter, fashion didn’t play a huge role in her wardrobe choices. Instead, she and production designer Florian Sanson worked on visual parallels, like the red ribbons pinned to a dressmaker’s dummy that echo the lines drawn on Maxine’s body during a medical exam.

Chavanne noted that the French title of the film is “Coutures” with an “s” at the end, which literally translates as “Stitches” in English. “The word ‘stitches’ is important because there is a connection to the body, and to the thread that is woven between these three stories,” she said.

Unlike her painstakingly recreated period costumes for last year’s Hulu series “Becoming Karl Lagerfeld,” Chavanne intentionally opted for timeless looks.

“Putting fashion front and center in a film is risky, because in 10 years, the movie might look totally dated,” she explained. “At the end of the day, it’s really tricky to strike the right balance between connecting with today’s audience and making sure it doesn’t feel outdated.”

For the character of Maxine, she drew inspiration from Winocour’s style, as well as the outfits Jolie wears when directing. The resulting looks reflect the star’s penchant for monochrome, minimalist pieces, though certain items – namely a black leather coat – carry another subtext.

“It was about the idea of skin,” Chavanne said. “Every piece of clothing we picked carries meaning, but it’s also just straightforward realism, drawn from how we saw the environment.”

She avoided dressing the characters in Chanel. Crucially, the brand’s name and logo never appear onscreen – though the mirror-lined staircase of its Paris couture salon is instantly recognizable.

“We wanted the authenticity of a major couture house and didn’t want to fake it, so they agreed to let us film on their actual premises — but without using the brand name,” said Winocour. “I had a lot of creative freedom, and because we began working together early on, there was a real sense of trust between us.”

Respecting Independence

For the climactic fashion show sequence, which takes place outdoors after dark, Winocour and Chavanne selected around 10 looks from the Chanel archives. Some were faithful copies, while others were reproduced in different colors or fabrics to lend a visual unity to the scene, which is designed to mirror the eerie fairytale aesthetic of the fashion film within the film.

The dresses, in muted shades ranging from pale pink to pearl gray, cream and black, contrast layers of vaporous tulle and organza with long ruffled skirts and collared capes in satin or taffeta edged with lace. Signature Chanel accessories include gold jeweled belts, graphic hair bows and camellias. 

“They love cinema so much that they’re really tuned in to the technical side of costume design. For example, it was super important to use flowing fabrics for this scene, since it starts raining during the fashion show — the clothes get soaked, and it’s all about how they move with the wind and water,” said Chavanne.

“Our expertise is totally different from theirs, and it’s the blending of these worlds that makes it work. If it were just about product placement, it would be a one-way street, and that would be boring. What’s great about how we work with Chanel is that it’s a genuine conversation,” she added.

The brand provided all the beauty products for the shoot, and its makeup artists also appear on screen. Ella Rumpf, who plays Angèle, a makeup artist who dreams of becoming a writer, was coached by Chanel makeup artist Elsa Durrens. 

In recent years, Chanel has expanded its support for cinema, which now encompasses everything from costume design to film restoration, in addition to initiatives geared at fostering the next generation of movie directors. At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, it was involved in four projects, ranging from Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague” to an animation feature.

“Couture” is its latest collaboration with French producer Charles Gillibert, who initially contacted the house when making “Clouds of Sils Maria” in 2014, setting the stage for Chanel’s first foray into production. Since then, they have worked together on films including “Personal Shopper,” “Annette” and “Mustang.”

He relies on the house to support independent filmmakers who sometimes struggle to find financing in a landscape increasingly dominated by streaming platforms like Netflix, as attendance at movie theaters dwindles. 

“When you work with an auteur, you need a fashion house that truly respects that vision in their support for the project, and that’s not easy to come by. That’s why I have such a close relationship with Chanel: I feel they genuinely respect the artist’s work,” he said.

Winocour hopes the film will give audiences a glimpse of the shadow workers whose hard work and sacrifices power the luxury industry. “For me, it had to be something completely different from a commercial,” she said.