Harmony Korine’s “The Beach Bum”: The Most Important Fashion Film of 2019
The trailer for Korine’s epic new Matthew McConaughey vehicle is finally here.
IT’S FINALLY FUCKING HERE AND I DO NOT MEAN 2 CHAINZ’S BIRTHDAY ALTHOUGH THAT IS VERY IMPORTANT, TOO. I mean the trailer for The Beach Bum, Harmony Korine’s new movie from VICE Studios, starring Matthew McConaughey as a pothead poet named Moondog who wears fanny packs and Hawaiian shirts while hanging out with Snoop Dogg (that’s right) and Isla Fisher (exactly) and Zac Efron (I’m not kidding) and Martin Lawrence as “a sailboat captain obsessed with dolphins,” per a very lucky person I want to be because they managed to see a screener.
The Beach Bum—which has been filming for what feels like three thousand years and for the love of God can it please come out so I can finally dress like a haunted arcade ghost at a luau while eating lobster on a hoverboard and call it “moondogging”—is maybe Korine’s coolest movie yet, and more importantly, the most important fashion film of 2019. (Although the trailer landed this weekend, the film won’t be released until March 2019, when the world might be over, so maybe we should rethink that.)
The trailer is just a peek at what’s to come: a few epic fashion looks, and McConaughey saying, “Life’s a fuckin’ rodeo. I’m gonna suck the nectar out of it and fuck it raw dog til the wheels come off.” Alright!
If you’ve been wondering why everyone from Justin Bieber to Pete Davidson to Post Malone has been dressing like a sleazy piece of pineapple gum stuck to the bottom of a Supreme x Jeff Koons skate deck, the answer is The Beach Bum, images of which have been circulating online since the true launch of this sleaze movement in late fall of last year. (Also influential: a few healthy sprinklings of the Prada Spring 2018 influence into the collective consciousness.) The woman behind the film’s already exalted style is Heidi Bivens, the longtime Korine fashion consigliere who distilled the pure magic and spaced-out energy of Korine’s brain and McConaughey’s myth into an aesthetic.
Have on set paparazzi photos ever been so legendary?
This style may exist on the relative fringes of fashion for now, but once the film hits theaters, it’s destined to be ubiquitous. If you need your Korine fix sooner than next March, the filmmaker also has a show opening tonight (Tuesday) at Gagosian in New York. And if your needs are more specifically fashion ones, Bivens also did the costumes for Jonah Hill’s upcoming film Mid 90s, which will be in theaters in October.
Editor's Note: This story has been updated to include production details.
