The 1940 animated musical classic Fantasia is getting a second life, this time with British singer/actor Harry Styles.
Fantasia is one of the odder entries in the Walt Disney Animation canon, which is saying a lot. It is often forgotten that the wildly ambitious film was only the third movie released by the company, following Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Pinocchio (1940).
Although those films are undeniable landmarks of animation and film history, they both also basically took a public-domain fairy tale, added songs and cute animal characters, and went on to critical acclaim (though Pinocchio took a while to turn a profit).
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Fantasia, on the other hand, is a whole different beast. The film is composed of eight entirely separate animated sequences set to classical music; the majority of the films do not feature popular Disney characters, the exception being Mickey Mouse in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” segment.
The movie was a huge technological advancement for the medium and a precursor to surround sound; it involved literally hundreds of detailed hand-painted animated characters; it required a multiplane camera to be constructed specifically for the production and resulted in more footage than Snow White and Pinocchio combined.
As you might expect from all this lead-up, it was a huge commercial flop at the time. It has since become a hugely significant part of Disney lore and history, but it took a long time for the company to recoup costs.
It also has never been able to launch a proper sequel that garnered the critical acclaim of the original or make a significant cultural impact, though the original is now a touchstone of theme parks and company iconography.
That iconography has now been passed to Harry Styles, former member of One Direction and star of films like Don’t Worry Darling (2022) and My Policeman (2022). More importantly, like all significant pop stars these days, he is the owner of a unisex “lifestyle brand” that produces clothing, cosmetics, and skin products: Pleasing.
According to Women’s Wear Daily, Disney and Pleasing are collaborating for a new collection of items inspired by Fantasia. For example, the Harry Styles brand will offer a black hoodie featuring Sorcerer Mickey waving his wand and a crew-neck sweater with a Hyacinth Hippo (those are the tutu ones).
Additionally, the Fantasia Pleasing collaboration will offer three nail polish sets, a new flavor of the Big Lip HA Moisture Balm and Buttercream, and over a dozen items of apparel, bags, journals, towels, and other accessories.
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Pleasing’s creative director, Harry Lambert, describes the new collection, saying, “From very early on, Fantasia was always in the front of our minds at Pleasing. The aesthetics, the mood, the bold illustrations, the colors, and, ultimately, the epic world that Disney has created were very much a world that resonated with Pleasing. Fantasia feels very similar in terms of its overall aesthetic and musical influence — it just felt right for us.”
The collab will officially be released on disneystore.com and pleasing.com on October 4. Pre-launch events will take place beginning September 28 at Disney Springs and select Disney stores and Pleasing pop-ups. As of publication time, there is no word whether Pleasing will next be working on a collaboration involving Harry Styles’ Eternals (2021) character, Prince Eros.
What do you think of this Fantasia line?