How much can you tell about a character from their clothes?
Quite a lot, it turns out.
Rebecca counts down 50 amazing costume designs…
Some films have costumes which become famous purely because theyre so beautiful.
Here are 50 films with costume design which is positively ingenious…
50.
Finally, the sinister black-suited agents were designed to remind us of sixties Kennedy Secret Service guys.
Designer Colleen Atwood admitted Its a very made-up costume a real geisha would never wear anything that flashy.
But its good fun.
And God Created Woman (1956)
Designer: Pierre Balmain
Is nudity a costume choice?
Sometimes where would Sharon Stone be without her knickerlessness inBasic Instinct?
And I know that if I met myself at a party, I would never talk to that character.
(It was also a game-changer when it came to 1960s eyeliner.)
Even his attempts to look normal in loose shirt and trousers with braces recreate an uncanny Buster Keaton impression.
Asked what held up the vampy satin dress, Hayworth quipped two things.
(Legwarmers optional.)
(The original suit recently sold for $100,590 in auction.)
As veteran director Robert Wise said, the musical has been re-invented.
Who doesnt love a film which looks like a cartoon brought to life?
(She later gets some orange rubber braces to colour co-ordinate with Bruce Willis.)
Theres even an actual space opera.
This movie loves its 1920s trends so much that we get a fashion show thrown in for good measure.
(Turns out monkey fur was just the thing to wear with your pearls.)
Davis plays Charlotte Vale, a frumpy spinster who lives under the control of her cantankerous mother.
(Not that 21st century clubbers look any less ridiculous, obviously.)
It may be horribly dated, but John Travolta is still the tight-trousered, snake-hipped king of the disco.
By the end of the movie they are both in white: blank canvases ready for a fresh start.
This one is, hence, to help with load times and stuff, weve gone over two pages.
Its not a habit, dont worry…
25.
Oh, and she always made sure the lighting was tailored to her specifications, too.
Gotta love a diva!
People in Hollywood back then called him The Slob'.
(Its pretty similar toSabrinawhere shes a nerd who ends up in Givenchy.
Oh andMy Fair Lady, where she starts out as a street urchin.)
He insisted that he needed the white to make her movements pop on screen.
Across the hierarchy, makeup is lurid and hair enormous.
Character development and style; its the same thing, really.
Mia Farrow as Rosemary is almost unbearably vulnerable; thin, fragile, childlike.
Her gamine new haircut (Vidal Sassoon!)
Who could forget those snooty shop assistants and their big mistake when appraising a lowly hooker?
During the war Scarlett is forced into plain workaday outfits (the horror!)
and has to show some backbone to make it survive.
Its a great gadget: a mask eliminates eye contact and strips the killer of any recognisable humanity.
An unknown assailant dressed like the grim reaper is a million times scarier than your run-of-the-mill stalker.
Happily, it resembled Edvard Munchs famous painting, The Scream.
(Yes, its the kind of movie that has a shoe montage.)
Breakfast At Tiffanys (1961)
Designers: Hubert de Givenchy & Edith Head
The little black dress.
So many iconic images in one film.
(Not forgetting the swinging 60s orange coat or the pink rhinestone-studded cocktail dress.)
Holly Golightly also socialises at her cocktail party in what comes off as a cream Grecian style dress.
They were feminists, after all).
The 2004 remake continued to keep the ladies demure in 1950s sundresses rather than turning them into sexbots.
(Its a screwball comedy.
Thats his story, anyway…
7.
Maybe clashing colours seem fabulous to some, but wouldnt a black backdrop have been so much cooler?
Even so, the routine is classic Marilyn, and has been endlessly imitated (usually by Madonna).
(Contrary to most sci-fi movies, were never really going to adopt a uniform, are we?)
Vertigo (1958)
Kim Novak as Madeline is the ultimate icy Hitchcock blonde, mysterious and untouchable.
Just as Ive done.
Not just the hair and the clothes!
The Gold Rush (1925)
Designer: None listed.
(But the famous boot was made by Hillabys, a liquorice factory in Yorkshire.)
(And I thought, stewed boots?
Theres something funny there.)
Of course, their new pal Marilyn Monroe is a whole different story (Look how she moves!
Its like Jell-O on springs!).
Still, nobodys complaining.
In the days before CGI, costumes had to work.
(It was dried overnight and very occasionally dry-cleaned.
