The Dreamworld Aesthetic of 8½ | Little White Lies

Partnership

The Dream­world Aes­thet­ic of 8½

11 Jun 2025

Words by Christina Newland

Illustration Anna Resmini

In partnership with
White text "DISARONNO" on a black background.
Illustrated surreal scene with central figure in red suit, glasses, and hat against yellow sky with small figures in background.
Illustrated surreal scene with central figure in red suit, glasses, and hat against yellow sky with small figures in background.

Through its vision­ary cin­e­matog­ra­phy and cos­tume design, Fed­eri­co Fellini’s 1963 film mas­ter­ful­ly blurs the lines between mem­o­ry, real­i­ty and fantasy.

This fea­ture is the first in our sum­mer series, La Dolce Vita: A Cel­e­bra­tion of Ital­ian Screen Style, in part­ner­ship with Disaronno.

Asked to describe the anar­chic plot’ of what would turn out to be one of his great­est cin­e­mat­ic achieve­ments – a tow­er­ing, mad­cap, melan­choly explo­ration of artis­tic endeav­our, male ego and per­son­al fail­ing – writer/​director Fed­eri­co Felli­ni set­tled on a rather ambi­tious state­ment. He sought to depict, he said, the three dif­fer­ent planes on which our minds live: the past, the present, and the con­di­tion­al – the realm of fantasy.”

You might say that when it comes to the cos­tum­ing of these imp­ish, dream­like fig­ures, fan­ta­sy is as much a fac­tor as is any impe­tus toward real­ism. They are sym­bol­ic as much as they are cor­po­re­al, with pro­tag­o­nist Gui­do Ansel­mi (played by the dash­ing Mar­cel­lo Mas­troian­ni) an auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal stand-in for Felli­ni him­self. Piero Gher­ar­di was the man for the job: the cos­tumer and set design­er would become a sec­ond-time Acad­e­my Award win­ner for 8½ off the back of his 1960 win for La Dolce Vita. 

For the insou­ciant ele­gance of Gui­do, a trim black suit is the uni­form of choice. Gui­do dons Neapoli­tan-style tai­lor­ing in the form of this silk suit – some say it’s Brioni – along with a white cot­ton shirt, black tie and black-frame glass­es. His suit is less angu­lar and more round­ed around the shoul­ders than tra­di­tion­al 1960s tai­lor­ing – not to men­tion paired with pen­ny loafers to sug­gest a rather more bohemi­an, uncon­ven­tion­al side to his character’s sup­posed pro­fes­sion­al­ism. You can also see it in the character’s unusu­al choice of head­wear – a rather incon­gru­ous, old-fash­ioned hat – which is remarked upon by oth­er char­ac­ters in the film.

Mean­while, in con­trast to the rather tidy black-clad Mas­trioan­ni, the women of the film are pea­cocks, dressed in var­i­ous degrees of sur­re­al­ist adorn­ment. Gui­do remains both tor­ment­ed by and in thrall to the women of the film – Anouk Aimee is chic and mis­er­able as Luisa, his long-suf­fer­ing wife, dis­guis­ing her malaise behind black wrap­around sunglasses. 

Guido’s mis­tress, Car­la (San­dra Milo), wears only nég­ligée, osten­ta­tious white furs and heavy make­up – vul­gar­i­ty writ large. But Clau­dia Car­di­nale plays an actress (who shares her first name) whom Gui­do casts as his Ide­al Woman’. She’s enig­mat­ic and care­free, a beguil­ing and unknow­able fig­ure who can only exist in fan­ta­sy. You’ll be dressed in white with your hair long, just the way you wear it,” Gui­do tells her, notably men­tion­ing clothing. 

But we nev­er actu­al­ly see this vision mate­ri­alise; instead, Clau­dia is black-clad in their noc­tur­nal for­ay through Rome, far from the inno­cent pas­toral fig­ure he seems to be ide­al­is­ing her as for his screen role. Her LBD drips with match­ing black feath­ers – not the only bird-like echo in the film, and reflect­ing the more stark real­i­ty: less dove, more raven. Indeed, the hatwear worn by women through­out the film is strik­ing­ly avian – no doubt a reflec­tion of the sym­bol­ic impor­tance of fly­ing and birds to tra­di­tion­al Jun­gian dream interpretation. 

It is ulti­mate­ly Cardinale’s style which has the great­est import for 8½ because she is a fig­ure of such pro­jec­tion and fan­ta­sy, the muse to an artist des­per­ate for inspi­ra­tion and a man who is spir­i­tu­al­ly and sex­u­al­ly con­flict­ed. Fail­ing to fall into the Madon­na-mis­tress dichoto­my, the play­ful­ness of her cloth­ing seem­ing to be either entire­ly in black or white feels iron­ic. There’s no objec­tiv­i­ty in the way she is seen by Gui­do. And it’s that sub­jec­tiv­i­ty which is the guid­ing prin­ci­ple of Fellini’s world of dreams.

To find out more about Disaronno’s 500-year anniver­sary* cel­e­bra­tions, vis­it dis​aron​no​.com

*1525: The leg­end of Dis­aron­no begins.


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