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A look at how fashion and Hollywood have influenced each other over the years.

Fashion in Film, a Starz Inside Documentary, shows how the fashion houses in Paris have influenced Hollywood and how Hollywood has influenced designers. We see how movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean have gone on to inspire fashion including designer Jean Paul Gaultier who did a pirate themed fashion show. We also see how several designers made names for themselves by aligning themselves with stars (Hubert Givenchy and Audrey Hepburn) and how a single movie, An American Gigolo, made Giorgio Armani a household name.

Fashion stylists, designers (Monique Lhuillier) and actors (Amanda Bynes, Jennifer Beals, etc.) share their take on fashion in film as we see the influence over decades. We see how Clark Gables not wearing an undershirt in It Happened One Night made undershirt sales go down and was later asked, by the undergarment industry to wear one in his next film. We also see how a cut up sweatshirt in Flashdance went on to create a whole new trend in the mainstream.

The DVD shows clips from The Devil Wears Prada, Sex and the City, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 27 Dresses and Clueless, among others. There is, as one would expect, a segment devoted to Audrey Hepburn and her impact on fashion with the little black dress. We also see how a green dress in Atonement created a frenzy among fashion houses and how Macy’s sold a ton of green dresses based on the impact of that dress. They also briefly compare the style of Hollywood royalty to modern day stars such as showing Grace Kelly’s ice blue Oscar dress next to Gwyneth Paltrow’s pink Ralph Lauren Oscar dress.

If you’ve watched any piece on movies and fashion, then you’ve seen most of what’s covered here. The only thing that sets this documentary apart is that it focuses on more modern films such as Atonement, The Devil Wears Prada, Pirates of the Caribbean, Clueless, and Sex and the City. The interviews with Hollywood stylists are very interesting, but the segments with actors fall flat. Some of the actors state things so obvious that the editors should have just left those parts on the cutting room floor. I rarely roll my eyes and say, “duh,” during a documentary, but here it applies to several the actors’ observations on fashion.

The documentary touches on the impact of fashion in movies, but not with any depth. We don’t find out any reasoning behind why particular clothes or a certain style was chosen for a film except in the case of Clueless. Oddly, the most in-depth Fashion in Film got was when talking about Clueless and why the teen characters were dressed in designers usually reserved for the mothers and the impact it had on middle America.

Big fashion stars such as Marlon Brando, Carole Lombard, Elizabeth Taylor, and others are barely shown. Katherine Hepburn gets a quick nod for bringing pants on women to the big screen, but very little is said about Marlene Dietrich’s impact on fashion in film.

There’s not much here that hasn’t been said before, but it is a nice walk down the path of great fashion through the history of film. 

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