Film
Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco
A kaleidoscopic portrait of Antonio Lopez, the fashion illustrator who defined 1970s visual culture. Through archive footage, photographs, and interviews with those who knew him, the film captures a brilliant, chaotic world of disco, high fashion, and bohemian excess. It's intimate and gloriously un-reverent—exactly what Lopez's own art was.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you love fashion history told through the people who lived it, and you enjoy a documentary that feels like a scrapbook of 1970s glamour, nightlife and drawing pencils.
Skip it if you want a tightly plotted story or a critical study of the industry; this is an affectionate, reminiscence-driven portrait with a looser shape than many documentaries.
What it asks of you: Around ninety-five minutes of talking heads, archive stills and sketches, with an easygoing pace that rewards patience and a willingness to drift along with memories.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Halston2019
Charts another '70s fashion titan's rise through archival footage and interviews. Like Lopez, Halston was obsessed with beauty, speed, and reinvention—and the film has the same kinetic energy and insider access.
But It's a bit reverential about excess in ways that feel dated. Some viewers find the pacing repetitive and wish it went deeper into the work itself.
Valentino: The Last Emperor2008
Follows an aging master designer at a career crossroads. The access is extraordinary, the craftsmanship obsessively detailed, and there's real melancholy beneath the glamour—a different but equally compelling portrait of fashion as a life's work.
But It's slow and sometimes feels like an extended profile piece rather than a complete film. The subject can feel remote, which some find distancing.
Funny Face1957
A glorious, ridiculous musical about fashion photography in Paris. It's gorgeously shot, Audrey Hepburn is radiant, and it captures the romance and ego of the fashion world that Lopez loved and mocked.
But It's a Hollywood fantasy bearing little resemblance to reality. If you want grit over glamour, this will feel cotton-candy light.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Phantom of the Paradise1974
Both are obsessed with visual beauty as a form of transcendence and both understand that obsession is dangerous. Both celebrate artifice, performance, and transformation as survival mechanisms.
De Palma's glam rock horror-musical about a visionary artist destroyed by his own creation. It's campy, obsessive, wildly stylized, and captures '70s bohemia as something simultaneously beautiful and toxic—exactly Lopez's world.
But The tone is deliberately uneven and sometimes jarring. The rock opera conceit won't work for everyone, and it can feel dated in ways that don't quite work anymore.
More like this (4)
Girl with a Pearl Earring2003
An intimate study of how an artist (Vermeer) creates beauty from obsession and longing. It has the same reverence for illustration and the human form that drives Lopez's work.
But It's painterly and meditative, almost the opposite of disco. The pace is glacial and some find the melancholy oppressive.
The September Issue2009
A behind-the-scenes look at Vogue's most prestigious issue, with Grace Coddington (who appears in the Lopez film) orchestrating shoots. It's both a love letter to fashion and a clear-eyed look at its tyrannies.
But Anna Wintour is the subject, and she's deliberately opaque. You may end up frustrated by the lack of real vulnerability or revelation.
Midnight in Paris2011
Romanticizes the '20s and '30s as the golden age of creativity. Like the Lopez film, it's about the intoxication of a specific time and place—though this one is about nostalgia itself.
But It's sentimental and sometimes corny. Woody Allen's whimsy won't appeal to everyone, and the film never quite commits to its own cynicism.
Blow Out1981
De Palma's stylish thriller is soaked in the visual language of '70s culture—photography, beauty, paranoia. It captures the era's visual intoxication in a completely different register.
But It's a thriller first, not a documentary. Some find the melodrama excessive and the emotional payoff unconvincing.
People
Cast
- Joan Juliet BuckSelf
- Paul CaranicasSelf
Michael ChowSelf
Tina ChowSelf (archive footage)
Pat ClevelandSelf
Grace CoddingtonSelf
Bob ColacelloSelf
Bill CunninghamSelf
Jane ForthSelf
Jerry HallSelf- Charles JamesSelf (archive footage)
Directing
- James CrumpDirector