Elle UK's Most Stylish Films

One of my guilty pleasures is reading foreign magazines and I am always intrigued by the trends they predict, determine and invent as well as their particular take on pop culture. Naturally the following article piqued my interest...

British Elle's 25th Anniversary issue (October 2010) asked a panel of fashion and film insiders to nominate their most stylish and influential films. While many of the usual suspects made the list such as Breakfast at Tiffany's, La Dolce Vita, Top Hat and The Graduate (Thomas Crown Affair was inexplicably left off), I thought I would cover a few of the more interesting and seldom seen choices:

Le Mepris aka Contempt (1964)

Nominated by Rachel Weisz, Actress

Jean Luc-Goddard's film was purely a  Brigitte Bardot vehicle (shown here in brunette wig and bathrobe) the focuses on the tensions between a writer and his wife as he attempts to make a Homer's The Odyssey into a commercial film. 

Bardot with actor Jack Palance

Gigi (1958)

Nominated by Leslie Sloane Zelnik, Film Publicist

20th century Paris is the setting for the directed -by- Vincent Minnelli  and songs-by-Alan Jay Lerner musical. Leslie Caron plays Gigi, a courtesan-in-training who enjoys a platonic turned romantic relationship with wealthy playboy Louis Jordan.

Caron and Jourdan in a 20th Century version of Cinderella

Leslie Caron

The Women (1939)

Nominated by Zandra Rhodes, Designer

The Women is George Cukor's classic saga of women and divorce in the thirties. The all star cast includes Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer and Rosalind Russell and was sadly remade a couple of years ago to horrible reviews. Like everything in life, stick to the original.

American Gigolo (1980)

Clothing takes front and center in this film starring Richard Gere (actually this may have been the vehicle to place him on the celestial map) as a male escort and Lauren Hutton as his suitor. Who can forget the classic scene as he sang Smokey Robinson's "More Love" and coordinated his ties and shirts? They had me at Armani.

About De Souffle aka Breathless (1960)
Nominated by Michael Winterbottom, Director


Actress Jean Seberg and her signature pixie haircut escape to Italy with petty thief Jean Paul Belmondo. One of the first films of the French New Wave genre, it was remade years later with Richard Gere and Valerie Kaprisky. Again, rent the original.

Jean Seberg

Darling (1963)
Nominated by Roland Mouret, Designer


Julie Christie took home the Oscar for Best Actress for her portrayal as a fashionably trendy Brit who seeks fame and fortune. And she has an affair with Laurence Harvey. The setting is mid-sixties Pop England and was considered quite controversial (in the states anyway) at the time.

Laurence Harvey, Julie Christie and Dirk Bogarde

Costume Sketch of Christie

Scarves as headgear were all the rage in the sixties and seventies

Quietes-Vous, Polly Magoo? (1966)
Nominated by Alexa Chung, TV Presenter

The film spoofs a supermodel on the Paris fashion runways and told in dizzying black and white, eyeliner and all. And all very sixties.

Mary Quant inspired models

Sabrina (1954)
Nominated by Cameron Crowe, Director


This film would always make my top ten. Audrey Hepburn as the chauffeur's daughter who flees to Paris to become chic and gain the attention of her father's employer's son only to fall in love with his brother...well you get the picture. Hepburn teams up with fashion designer  Givenchy and as fellow Sabrina actor Humprey Bogart would famously say in an earlier film "this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Hepburn with William Holden

Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)
Nominated by Amanda Silverman, Publicist


This film would not be on my top ten list but it certainly was an emblem of New York in the eighties with its leather, safety pins, black lace, overgrown roots and all night clubbing. Roseanna Arquette as a bored housewife meets and emulates Susan (Madonna in her heyday) in this comedy.


And the winner is....


Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)


A great novel by Truman Capote, New York in the early sixties, Tiffany's, Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Cat and the quintessential little black dress and pearls. Enough said.

Photo Credits: Paramount, MGM, Jennifer's Blogspot


You can read more of Elle UK here.

Edith Head, Fashion Icon

Long before Fashion Week, Project Runway and designers ordained as rock stars, there was Edith Head.

Head enjoyed a lustrous career  as a costume designer in Hollywood, designing wardrobes for over fifty years. She began her career as a sketch girl at Paramount in l924 (where she stayed for 44 years) and on to Universal Pictures where she remained until her death. At a time of male domination in Hollywood, she became the first design head. Nominated 35 times for the Academy Award and winning a record eight times, it's often said "Gowns by Edith Head" is one of the most noted screen credits in movie history (a record of 1100 films). She also is noted for one of my favorite Hollywood quotes, "I have yet to see one completely unspoiled star, except for Lassie."

A favorite of A list stars Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor, Head designed for films such as Sunset Boulevard, Vertigo, Marnie, All About Eve, A Place in the Sun, Roman Holiday, To Catch a Thief, Funny Face, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Sabrina...and the list goes on. A favorite of Alfred Hitchcock, the director played an integral role on costume development. Head notes, "He has a complete phobia about what he calls 'eye-catchers,' like a scene with a woman in bright purple or a man in an orange suit. Unless there is a story reason for a color, we keep the colors muted because Hitchcock believes they an detract from an important action scene."

Sketch for Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief and finished product below

Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief

Sketches  for Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina

Natalie Wood in Inside Daisy Clover

Sketch for Dorothy Lamour in Road to Bali

Her large blue lens glasses, Dutch boy haircut and tailored suits became her trademark (critics often wrote it disguised her age) and a look adapted for modern times by certain fashion editors. Head's later years found her writing books (The Dress Doctor and How to Dress for Success) and as a fashion commentator on The Art Linkletter Show. Her last film was the Steve Martin 1981 comedy Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and Bette Davis gave the eulogy at her funeral.  All very fitting.

Sketch for Bette Davis in All About Eve

For more on her extraordinary career, I recommend the following books. Also check out the website Silver Screen Modiste for more on Hollywood costume designers.

Coming soon--Edith Head: The Fifty Year Career of
Hollywood's Greatest Costume Designer by Jay Jorgensen
Available for pre-order here

Edith Head's Hollywood by Edith Head and Paddy Calisto
Available on Amazon

Photo credits: Universal Pictures, Silver Screen Modiste, Edith Head's Hollywood 2,