Hollywood On The Catwalk – The Film As A Fashion Show

Over the years it has been as much the film narratives that have told us the great Hollywood stories as it has been the costumes – and couture.

From the first feature films of the early 1900s to the Hollywood blockbusters we see today, fashion has been used to emphasise the story on the screen, the characters and the stars. “Fashion films started out by being simple displays of gowns then progressed to a story-line built around the display” (Elizabeth Leese). Fashion in films has shifted from costumes, which were fabricated to serve the purpose of the narrative, to couture, which allows films to be structured around the staged exhibition of fashion on the catwalk.

 “One could line up all the gowns and tell the screen story”

As costume designer Adrian states, whether it be costume or couture, fashion was used in film as spectacle and was so closely linked to the story telling mechanisms of the film that it could function independently of the body.

The stories created by fashion in films created spectacle by heavily impacting on consumers and the production of clothing and material. During the 1930s and 1940s the distinction between costumes and couture fashion was minimal, leading to the emulation and mass produced imitation of screen fashion in everyday lifestyles. Film techniques, such as the creation of a specicific style through soft lighting, assisted in rendering the clothes in such a way that audiences, particularly women, that sought to dress themselves in replications of the star’s styles.

An interesting comparison of the types of fashion used in films can be seen by looking at the film Sabrina (1954), starring Audrey Hepburn. In the film, the transformation of Sabrina from the innocent daughter of a chauffeur to a sophisticated and glamorous woman can be traced through her change in fashion. Edith Head’s costume designs portray Sabrina as she is at the beginning of the film, while Givenchy’s couture reflects Sabrina’s new found elegance. It is in this film that “the demise of the costume designer and inverse rise of the couturier is contextualised within the narrative” (Stella Bruzzi, Undressing Cinema, 1997). Many films made at this time expressed a similar notion and established a hierarchy amongst film fashion designers. Costumes started notable trends pertaining to the streets while couture represented high fashion.

Above: These two images of Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina emphasise the distinction between costume (left) and couture (right). While very different visually, the impact of such style on the silver screen bore many similarities.

In terms of consumerism, costume and couture essentially had the same effect on society. In many films made in the 1950s, film fashions were created that shared some of the features of the trends of the day but were dramatised and essentially non-functional. During the 1960s, however, a more harmonious relationship between couture and street style developed. This most likely came about as a result of the ascendency of European cinema and fashion in Hollywood. The idea of shopping for couture items to clothe the stars rather than designing costumes from scratch came to the forefront of cinema styling. This trend within the film industry in turn influenced fashion and as a result the ready to wear collections appeared on the market.