Rodarte designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy grew up in Aptos (Santa Cruz County), attended UC Berkeley and have often been inspired by Bay Area themes in their collections. But theirfall 2016 collectionhas an origin story that’s particularly San Franciscan— and surprisingly cinematic. That season, the sisters were inspired by North Beach landmark Caffe Trieste, where Francis Ford Coppola wrote his screenplay for “The Godfather.”
As avid cinephiles and filmmakers (they co-wrote and co-directed 2017’s“Woodshock”), the Mulleavys have a unique take on the legacy of “The Godfather” as the film approaches its 50th anniversary. The following conversation has been condensed for length and clarity.
Q: Do you remember when you first saw the film?
Kate:I can’t remember, which is a testament to a really great film. … There’s some films that you think you’ve seen your whole life. There was so much folklore about “The Godfather.” I think I was in my early teens?
Laura:我不记得没有见过。人们总是refer to it on a pedestal as an example of what great filmmaking is. All these things come together making it feel like it’s part of your zeitgeist.
Q: Tell me more about your relationship with Caffe Trieste.
Kate:It started when we were both at Berkeley. I remember going in on my own first and just being like, “Oh, I love this place that has a little jukebox that plays music I like. I can just sit in the corner with the mural and get coffee.” We started going when we needed a few hours to study or were just hanging out.
Q: When did you learn Coppola wrote “The Godfather” there?
Laura:It was something I noticed this last time we went back and took our friends. That’s when we did a collection based on this idea of San Francisco, the cafe and “The Godfather.” I even think the color palette of the prints in that collection remind me of the mural — the idea of these warm, earthy Italian kind of murals. It’s a color palette we don’t often use in prints with burgundy and more burnt orange, mossy green. And then you get elements of Art Nouveau, certain things start coming together building this world.
The idea of linking that to “The Godfather” was so interesting to us because they seem completely interconnected now, this idea of someone going to a place, maybe writing some of his work there in a location, thinking how that location infused in (the work).
Q: When I saw your fall 2016 collection debut in New York, I wrote down “cycles of life and death, weddings, births, funerals, blooming, decay, Catholicism, paganism.”
Laura:Sounds like “The Godfather” to me!
Kate:Those were all the things we were thinking about, the cycles and the tradition. It’s this idea of how we mark these these big turning points, whether a wedding or funeral, and just the tradition that I think is built in the way we understand ourselves, the bigger meanings of life. … In a way, it feels like they’re your family.
Q: Do you think the mix of light and dark colors in the collection was informed by the film’s cinematography?
Kate:I do remember thinking about certain ideas I associate with San Francisco and things like poster art, Art Nouveau, and seeing that somehow in the film and the broader color palette. I think in that (1970s) time period, a lot of the cinematography is something that we will look at now and try to understand a collection through that lens.
Laura:We’re very sensitive to how things look. Even if we don’t know what exactly we’re picking up, we definitely chose materials and colors that were completely influenced from that film. We wanted to represent what the cinematography felt like, having the black lace and the white lace and getting that perfect red wine color. I remember having a really mustard-yellow leather jacket that comes out of nowhere, and that was definitely because of the cafe.
Kate:I can’t speak for someone else in terms of what their work means to them, but what I think is interesting is to create something that can live 50 years and actually inspire people to create. We as designers took that film and found so much inspiration in the storytelling.
Laura:We later did a “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” collection, also (directed by) Coppola, and I’m laughing because the opening look of that fall 2020 collection was a dress that was very much a reference to “The Godfather,” a red-and-white polka dot pleated dress. It reminds me a lot of Diane Keaton in that movie.
Q: As filmmakers, do you feel like any of Coppola’s storytelling methods or techniques informed you?
Kate:What I find so mesmerizing about this work is the cohesiveness of it. I feel like he has a grand vision, and no stone is unturned, and everything comes into effortless storytelling. He’s an incredible world builder; I’m never taken out of it. I feel like you can spend your life learning from him as an artist.
Laura:When I look at his body of work, I really feel like I understand who he is as a director. Those layered elements take the written word off the page and suddenly make this 3-D, beautiful world that you can jump into.
“The Godfather”(R) returns to AMC theaters for a limited run starting Friday, Feb. 25.
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