When Love Sets the Fashion (1932) - Fun Weimar-era fluff

Skip this if you can't stand old, scratchy black-and-white German comedies where everyone talks at the same time. But if you like seeing vintage dresses and weirdly intense subplots about Paris fashion stock investors, When Love Sets the Fashion is actually a pretty fun time. 👗

It is definitely not a masterpiece like Unter der Laterne, but it has this chaotic, light energy that modern rom-coms totally lost.

The story is basic. A seamtress named Nelly (played by the lovely Renate Müller) somehow climbs the ladder to become a top-tier dressmaker.

Then she has to go to Paris and trick a bunch of stuffy rich guys into buying her new fashion line to save some guy's bank account. I watched this late last night and honestly, the financial logic here is hilarious.

They talk about "fashion ideas" like they are oil stocks or something. One minute she is sewing a hem, and the next she is giving a speech that sounds like a Wall Street broker on caffeine.

Hubert von Meyerinck is in this, and he is just spectacular. His face does things that shouldn't be humanly possible, especially when he gets annoyed.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of When Love Sets the Fashion (1932) through its definitive frames.

There is a scene at the Paris conference where a model walks out in this absurdly huge hat, and the camera just lingers on this one old guy in the crowd who looks deeply confused. I had to rewind that part because his face was so blankly hilarious.

It is like the extra forgot he was in a movie. It reminds me a bit of Look Your Best with its focus on appearance and making it big, but this one is much more frantic.

The audio quality on the print I found was pretty rough, though. Lots of hissing, and sometimes the music drowns out the dialogue.

Not that the dialogue is super deep anyway. "Buy my dresses or we all go bankrupt!" is basically the vibe.

Also, Otto Wallburg is here being his usual loud, sweaty self. He spends half his screen time waving his hands around like he is trying to swat a invisible fly.

Some quick things I jotted down:

• The dresses in the second half look like they were made out of highly flammable curtains.
• Renate Müller has this incredibly infectious laugh that makes you forget how silly the plot is.
• Why does everyone in 1930s movies drink so much coffee? They are constantly holding tiny cups.
• That one guy's monocle almost falls out twice. I think he was genuinely struggling to keep it in.

Is it a deep film? No, not at all.

But if you want some cozy, fast-paced escapism with some great Weimar-era style, it's worth an hour and a half of your life. Just don't expect it to make any actual sense.