History of American Fashion Movies & TV

History of American Fashion Movies & TV

The Merry Widow (1952)

In this adaptation of a turn-of-the-century operetta, actress Lana Turner is a wealthy, young widow. In the film, a voluptuous Turner dons a strapless black corselette with attached garters. Her seductive attire sparked a fashion craze that held strong throughout the 1950s (and, in fact, reemerged in the 1980s with the help of a new icon of sensuality—Madonna).

Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

James Dean and Natalie Wood star in this blockbuster hit about teen angst and rebellion. Dean’s casual attire in the film—blue jeans and a cotton t-shirt—had previously been a hallmark of the uniform of the working class, but the tremendous success of the movie helped redefine this garb as sexy and entirely cool.

The Seven-Year Itch (1955)

Blonde Hollywood bombshell and fashion icon Marilyn Monroe plays a young model, both innocent and alluring, in this 1955 box-office hit about a married man with an over-active imagination. In perhaps Monroe's most memorable on-screen moment, she stands over a subway grate as a sudden burst of air blows her white dress skyward.

Some Like It Hot (1959)

After inadvertently witnessing the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre, two young men go incognito as members of a traveling, all-girl band. Dressed in drag and unable to reveal their true identities, one must mask his feelings for a lovely bandmate while the other must fend off an aggressive male suitor.

Annie Hall (1977)

When Diane Keaton donned the layered and androgynous looks of her title character in this 1977 classic film directed by Woody Allen, she sparked a new fashion trend among women who were living through the Second Wave of the Feminist Movement.