The Independent from London, Greater London, England • 166

FOREVER IN STYLE from page 29 Manhattan suit in slubbed pistachio silk, with short sleeves and a high waist dropping to mid-calf. Lift-off: the jacket makes way for a white halter-neck blouse bare arms, bare back, unbearable. And then into orbit, one of the happiest moments in movies: she unlocks her overnight bag (the size of a briefcase) and out froths, as if by magic, a gauzy fountain of She smiles and announces: "Preview of coming attractions." We never see them, of course she's the main feature, and a good thing, too: Hitchcock was lucky to be working at a time when clothes had to do all the work of nakedness as well. In Vertigo, an obsessed Stewart makes Kim Novak try on countless outfits in search of the one that will touch off his desire. As Hitch admitted: "'He seemed to be trying to undress her, instead of the other way round." Unlike faces, costumes are easily shed, sometimes fixing our take on a character only to throw it off- in the next scene; nobody who catches Melanie Griffith at the end of Something Wild long blue spotted dress and curled white hat, ripe for a summer wedding would believe that she started out in a Louise Brooks wig, black stockings and rippable T-shirt, plus a pair of handcuffs for those rainy afternoons.

For her, as for Kim Novak, a change of dress means becoming someone else; with Grace Kelly, it merely confirmed the erotic control. It also sold more clothes. Half the world wanted to look as amazing as Grace. The studios love to think of their products igniting a wildfire of copycats, and they can be right. When American women took over on the assemblylines in the Second World War, safety inspectors were worried about long hair getting caught in machinery.

Word went out to Hollywood: cut it short, or pin it up. The plan worked. More playful campaigns were less of a good bet. MGM hoped that the young women of 1958 would take one look at Gigi and spring into straw hats, gingham and those slightly kinky bootees which looked so good on Leslie Caron. Not a chance.

Out of Africa (1985) didn't do much better. Though trade was brisk in cream shirts and wide brown belts, male viewers lacked that last gasp of courage needed to stroll into the pub wearing jodhpurs. Both were period films, fertile ground for eager designers. If you want a new look, try old hat. A neat beret, for example, as worn by Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde, together with soft ribbed sweaters over nothing at all just the kit for falling in love and causing mayhem, which is why it took off in 1967.

Seven years later The Great Gatsby took the credit for relaunching a Twenties style, if credit is what you should get for marcelling men's hair. But the process was more complicated than that: someone from Paramount saw le style tennis at the Paris shows, transformed it into the Gatsby look and resold the idea to Women's Wear Daily. The film created nothing; it simply spotted a new trend, making its long traditional journey from catwalk to department store, and hitched a ride. In the end, it was hard to admire anything about the film except the period detail, and even that felt more gummed on than lived in, a Seventies sham of finesse. Nothing dates a movie so accurately as its notions of past and future.

The moon-shuttle hostesses in 2001, say, wore stretchy white trouser-suits that shouted 1968. At the other extreme comes Cleopatra. When Claudette Colbert played her, we got a Thirties minx with a rosebud mouth; when Elizabeth Taylor had a go in 1963, we got well, the lovely Liz under full Sixties sail. The hats she barged in, like refurbished thrones, bumped on the doorways. It's hard to pick a winner, but I have to go for the rubber bathing-cap she wore to kiss Richard Burton.

No publicity still can do it justice the gentle way it shook as she laughed, like a shoal of whitebait swimming round her scalp. HOPELESS or flawless, period clothes at least get noticed. This causes much pain in Hollywood, where the Oscar for Best Costume Design tends to be carried off by extravaganzas such as Tess or The Last Emperor. There is even a move to split the award in two one Oscar for old clothes, 30 THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 1992 PORE Girl in a hot spot: Carole Lombard in Twentieth Century A symphony in sable: Dietrich in The Scarlet Empress one for new. Another option is to drop your regular designers in favour of stars from the fashion industry.

Brian De Palma did this with The Untouchables, though in the event worth of Giorgio Armani had to be completely reworked, right down to the lining, which suggests it wasn't worth ordering in the first place. Wim Wenders brought in big names for Until the End of the World, but worked on a strict caste-system. The hero (William Hurt) was dressed by the costly Yohji Yamamoto. The second string was Sam Neill, who had to put up with a three-piece linen suit from Hugo Boss as available from Cecil Gee, though not always in that interesting charred-dung colour. Such product placement is quite overt Wenders even had a neon sign flashing the Boss logo over a city.

The only director to use it intelligently is Paul Schrader, who draped Richard Gere in Armani for American Gigolo (1980). It was the perfect choice for a man who saw life as a rack of brand names; he had designed himself, after all, for this chilly profession, where love could be bought and shrugged off like a suit. Robert Redford's Gatsby threw beautiful shirts American Actares Presents A Freddie Fields Production AFire by Pal Schrada lichard Gore in American Hutton Felts Produced by Jerry Bruckmimer Witten and Directed by Paul Schree A Paramount Picture Buying sex off the peg: Richard Gere (above) in Armani 3.