Having previously mentioned how much menswear bores me, I’ve decided to include another film about a sharply dressed psychopath on this list. As investment banker Patrick Bateman Christian Bale embodies the 1980’s aesthetic of greed, and the indulgence of all human appetites, however destructive, being good.
I’m loathe to argue that the love of fine clothing, wine, and even business cards Bateman demonstrates is in any way negative; I too have spent much of my life obsessed with them – if I could have business cards designed by anyone, they’d be by Jenna on the links list- and, obviously if you’ve got to be a serial killer and banker, you might as well be spending your ill-gotten bonuses looking this good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jVNmgHKweU
Sex and The City
Another film set in New York, and perhaps an inevitable choice on this list, styled as it was by modern fashion powerhouse Patricia Fields. Guardian Fashion Editor Jess Cartner-Morley, once wrote that the difference between Sex and The City and Friends was that the SATC girls dressed for themselves, while the Friends girls dressed for their boyfriends.
Watching the movie, which is about love and friendship and not about clothes so much as incidentally looking good, even when you’ve just been jilted, feels like a much more emotionally empowering experience that you might expect, possibly because its clear that these women dress only for themselves, however bizarre they may end up looking.
Worth seeing for the Vogue wedding dress shoot, and the part where Sarah Jessica Parker clears out her wardrobe, if nothing else.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x71HBCWXy0g
The Devil Wears Prada
Another Patricia Fields job, also set in New York City. In this film, which must be one of the least feminist produced in recent years, Andie Sachs, an uppity, ungrateful no-style, Ivy League graduate, whose friends and partner are hugely unsupportive, lands a drop at style bible Runway magazine. Sachs, feeling that she is above the ignoble pass times of looking nice, and making an effort for work, looks like absolute toss and is picked on by her fashion bitch co-worker (the fabulous and very heavily made-up Emily Blunt) until she has a Damascene revelation and she realises that dressing the part will enhance her career.
Her sophisticated wardrobe, which nods at various points to Audrey Hepburn, the ‘60’s and ‘50’s France is to die for, even if her Sachsy-ness never really gets it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zicgut4gpwU
Grease
When I was at prep school I was honestly completely obsessed with the 1950’s- the music, the clothes, the films, the lot. Even my eleventh birthday party, which rocked, was ’50’s themed; I wore a poodle skirt and had a cake designed to look like a vinyl record. For this I blame Grease.
The ‘50’s remains one of my favourite clothing decades ever, mostly ‘cos tops and dresses cut tight on the waist really suit me, as do swingy, flared skirts, particularly when worn with crinolines, which I also happened to love.
The fact is that whether you favour Rizzo, Girly Sandy, Tough Girl Make-over Sandy or even the T-Birds look of tight jeans worn with tight tees, Grease will have had some fashion effect on you. It’s inevitable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDpOM0L9eQI&feature=related
Clueless
In the UK we cannot generally wear what we want to school, and even students that can tend to stick to the same boring jeans and tee uniform that the T-birds invented in Grease. Lame.
In Clueless meanwhile, Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) and her best friend Dionne (Stacy Dash) favour brightly coloured outfits, sometimes even suits, often in a plaid, accessorised by fluffy backpacks, mary-janes and over the knee socks. They look totally cute and ridiculous all once; early fashion inspiration for Generation Y, engendered by the notion that if it’s cute, then why not wear it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFR9TNsByLk
Bonnie and Clyde
Faye Dunaway was a gorgeous young thing, it has to be said, and the pairing of her with Warren Beatty to play one of the most famously murderous couples in American history was incredibly glamorous, so glamorous that the film studio was highly criticised for casting two such stunners as the young serial killers.
Dunaway’s wardrobe is the stuff of legend; toned down for the most part into yellows, beiges and browns, she is clad in berets, tight sweaters, little neck scarves and either calf length skirts that flare or tight pencil skirts. Easily the most stylish killer to have stalked the screen. Warren Beatty looks pretty hot too.
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