Audrey Hepburn’s timeless LBD in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Kylie Minogue’s return to music in those unforgettable gold lamé hot pants present two brilliant examples of iconic collaborations with fashion. Givenchy went on to design the majority of Hepburn’s classic pieces and – believe it or not – Kylie’s hot pants were actually placed on display at the V&A as part of an exhibition celebrating her global success. Maybe I should be disturbed or surprised that Kylie’s old hot pants were enshrined for thousands to visit and fawn over but, I have to admit, I just find it pretty awesome. Those gold hot pants are a bright, spangly testament to Kylie’s savvy use of fashion and costume to transform herself from 90s pop-princess into a cultural icon of superstardom.
Film, television and music industries invest a great deal of creative energy in visuality.
Putting together the right outfit or costume for a performer has an endless potential to inspire and excite audiences. The most successful collaborations are incredibly powerful; an iconic moment is created as the worlds of fashion, music and film collide.
Mad Men and Downton Abbey, for example, rely on their costumier’s use of both modern and vintage fashion to recreate the atmosphere of Sixties glamour or distinctive ‘upstairs’ and ‘downstairs’ styles of 1920s aristocratic households. Stylists and costume designers embrace fashion as a way to carve out and aesthetically present a character or performer’s identity. In my opinion, no other contemporary television/fashion collaboration achieves this as well as my latest addiction, Suits. The marriage of Harvey Specter (aka the dashing Gabriel Macht) to the master of exquisite tailoring and effortless glamour himself, Tom Ford, is nothing short of genius.
Jolie Andreatta, the show’s costume designer, brilliantly quipped that the suits she chooses for Harvey are “like medieval suits of armour.”
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Fashion Collaborations
By Charlotte Bender
Based in the UK
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