Top Hat: Delirium Art Deco

Abstract

The film Top Hat, 1935, serves as a leitmotiv for describing the complex era of Art Deco. It is a key moment in modern industrial design’s development, coinciding with the general public’s acceptance of industrialisation as part of their lives and consequently, the «democratisation» of Modernity. With industrial products entering people’s daily lives, a formal solution was required to respond to the desired «Style of the Century» that the public demanded in order to definitively differentiate its own era from preceding ones. The results, in the incipient years of consumption and design, was an eclectic style, rich and innovative and a change in attitudes in the human being towards what was modern and cosmopolitan, which the film reflects to perfection.