Film's Influence on Fashion

There is no question that film has a big impact on fashion. Over the years, cinema has not only influenced fashion trends, it has, at times, revolutionised the way we dress. The 1934 film It Happened One Night, for example, is said to be responsible for the demise of the undershirt, following a scene in which Clark Gable rips off his shirt to reveal a bare chest.

The film, showing at a time when most men wore undershirts, led to a significant slump in sales, with some reports suggesting up to 75 per cent of American men ditched the garment. And in 1938, Katharine Hepburn boosted the popularity of women's trousers when she wore wide-legged pantsuits in Bringing Up Baby. The defiant actor reportedly walked around the studio in her underwear until film bosses, who had instructed her to wear skirts, finally allowed her to wear her trousers on set.

In recent years, there has been a spate of films in which clothes have played a leading role. Since the phenomenal success of The Devil Wears Prada in 2006, fashion films such as Valentino: The Last Emperor, Sex and the City, Coco Avant Chanel, Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, the American Vogue documentary The September Issue and Tom Ford's A Single Man have flooded the box office.