Tired of Barbiecore? Make This an ‘Eric Rohmer Summer.’

She’s rolling within the grass wearing sunflower yellow, kissing a person about whom she’s passionately ambivalent (“Boyfriends and Girlfriends,” 1987). She’s strolling by means of the countryside in a fleecy blue sweater, having no enjoyable in any respect (“The Green Ray,” 1986). She’s lounging on a seaside in a purple bikini and ivory bucket hat, about to embark on a confusingly ambiguous friendship with the shirtless Frenchman she’s observing (“A Summer’s Tale,” 1996).

This is summer time love, Eric Rohmer-style: It isn’t straightforward, however it positive is stylish.

The outfits featured within the late French filmmaker’s works have lengthy been celebrated, and proceed to construct a following, now fairly actually, on an Instagram account referred to as @Rohmerfits, which debuted in May.

Rohmer’s movies, which spanned the Sixties to 2000s, had been well-known for his or her unhurried plots: Characters bounce round France, in between the countryside, the seaside and the town; they analyze their romantic entanglements; they learn Balzac; they seduce and irritate one another — and so they do all of it whereas sporting Mediterranean-blue sweaters, high-waisted denims, billowy cotton shirts and pops of purple.

“There’s just this air about them where you want to be within them,” Alexandra Tell, the creator of @Rohmerfits, mentioned of the costumes. The characters are “often on vacation, so you want something that’s sort of breezy that you can move in,” she mentioned. “His clothes aren’t extravagant, but they’re elegant in this easy, ineffable way.”

The secret to such aesthetic ease might lie in Rohmer’s devotion to naturalism. Like his contemporaries Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, Rohmer, who died in 2010, started as a movie critic. These critics-turned-auteurs “were very much against a sense of artificiality that stemmed from the shooting in studios,” mentioned Ludovic Cortade, a movie scholar who teaches French cinema at New York University.

An extension of that naturalism, Professor Cortade mentioned, was Rohmer’s determination to not use costume designers for a lot of of his movies, and as a substitute requested actors “to come up with several costume options that would reflect their own tastes, which was a great strategy to convey a sense of authenticity.”

The aesthetic is a pointy distinction to films just like the upcoming “Barbie,” which will probably be launched this month. While “Barbie” performs with literal plastic, Rohmer did the alternative. “Maybe the ‘Barbie’ world is more reflective of our reality,” Ms. Tell mentioned, whereas Rohmer’s earthy naturalism now “feels like more of an escape.”

Though the appears had been fastidiously curated by Rohmer, they by no means felt pressured, Professor Cortade mentioned. In “Boyfriends and Girlfriends,” for instance, a marigold tank high and belt, as worn by Blanche, who’s performed by Emmanuelle Chaulet, match the colour of some orange juice in a glass cup. “You can see the wrinkles in the clothes,” mentioned Ms. Tell, a 32-year-old author and curatorial assistant who lives in Brooklyn. “It’s very tactile.”

The outfits’ simplicity permits audiences to give attention to the characters and their relationships as they grapple with complicated questions of morality and love. Though Rohmer’s tone may very well be witty and farcical, his movies astutely tackled “the challenges of personal interactions and the awkwardness behind that” — a dynamic that has solely been heightened with the arrival of digital expertise, Professor Cortade added.

In different phrases, it’s Rohmer’s mix of aspiration and realism that retains his movies — and costumes — so recent, Ms. Tell mentioned: His characters, like Margot in “A Summer’s Tale,” performed by Amanda Langlet, put on garments you’ll put on, however higher styled. They too have difficult so-called situationships, however with the good-looking Gaspard, performed by Melvil Poupaud, and amid the backdrop of a grassy path.

In one scene in “The Green Ray,” Delphine, performed by Marie Rivière, moans about happening trip along with her household after a breakup. Clad in a wonderful crimson blazer, Delphine says by means of sobs: “I need a real vacation.” A pal, performed by Rosette, convinces her to affix a visit to Cherbourg, promising her they’ll “have fun and meet people.” Instead Delphine wanders round in opposition to the muted solar, morosely, lonely and wearing all blue.