Unforgettable Threads
31. Gina Gershon (actress, Showgirls) "Jane Fonda's costumes in Barbarella come immediately to mind. They were innovative, sexy, hip and showed a real sense of humor."
32. Douglas Day Stewart (screenwriter, The Scarlet Letter) "I remember the first time I saw Vivien Leigh in the red velvet gown she wears in Gone With the Wind. She walks on-screen and she's so stunning in it, so memorable, no man could resist her. And, if you recall, Clark Gable can't--that's the scene where he carries her off in his arms, up the giant staircase to their bedroom."
33. Alfonso Cuaron (director, A Little Princess) "In Fellini's Amorcord that very fat woman in the tobacco shop had an amazing outfit--a sky blue angora sweater and a tan skirt. It made her kind of threatening, and yet you felt lust for her at the same time."
34. Ken Adam (production designer, The Madness of King George) "I thought Helen Mirren was exceptionally well dressed in The Madness of King George. I particularly liked the beautiful black cloak she wore when she runs after King George's carriage as he is being dragged off. Then I remember Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face, particularly the takeoff on Garbo in Anna Karenina at the train station, where Hepburn's wearing the most elegant brown outfit by Givenchy."
35. Polly Platt (producer, Broadcast News) "The next to last outfit that Judy Holliday wears in Born Yesterday is astonishing. It's sort of a harem-type outfit in three pieces. She's wearing a see-through blouse with frilly sleeves. Over that is a bodice connected to a long taffeta skirt that's open in the front, and she's wearing matching trousers. Only in Hollywood would they create such an outfit, but it's actually pertinent to the theme because it's almost the last piece of the former life--her life as a concubine--that she's discarding. The costume expresses the emancipation of this woman. Another great outfit is the frilly white, polka-dotted net dress that Katharine Hepburn wore in Bringing Up Baby. It's the middle of the day, and it's wonderfully inappropriate for baby-silting a leopard."
36. David Brown (producer, The Verdict) "I remember Rita Hayworth's dress for the 'Put the Blame on Mame' number in Gilda. It was a form fitting, black satin dress that outlined her figure most provocatively. And the other one that conies to mind is Marilyn Monroe standing over the subway grating in that white pleated summer dress in The Seven Year Itch."
37. Barry Sandier (screenwriter, Crimes of Passion) "A great costume is Elizabeth Taylor popping out of her 'Sunday chapel dress,' as Richard Burton refers to it, in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It's the costume she puts on after coming home from the party. She's bulging out of the lop, and her hips arc bursting the seams of her tight Capri pants. It's a pure character costume, and it's funny and gaudy. I think there were only three costumes in the whole movie, and yet it won the Academy Award, so that tells you something."
38. Lili Fini Zanuck (producer, Wild Bill) "Vanessa Redgrave's macramé wedding gown in Camelot was the first movie dress for the hippie movement. It had an almost organic quality."
39. Olivia d'Abo (actress, Kicking and Screaming) "I love it when, in Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews goes from wearing those very plain, very sensible outfits to that beautiful while dress with the matching hat and parasol--it's so fun when you see a character transformed by playing dress up. For that reason, I also love the costumes Audrey Hepburn wears--first as a Cockney flower girl and then later as the belle of the ball--in My Fair Lady."
40. Wes Craven (director, Vampire in Brooklyn) "Audrey Hepburn's Ascot dress in My Fair Lady was the most elegant outfit she ever wore."
41. Susan Arnold (producer, Benny and Joon) "Audrey Hepburn's black-and-white Ascot dress and hat in My Fair Lady embody such incredible elegance.'
42. Dana Delany (actress, Live Nude Girls) "Barbra Streisand always had a great sense of style. In Funny Girl I love her costume in the scene where she goes to have dinner with Omar Sharif, and he's trying to seduce her. She's wearing a lacy lavender number that I still remember. Maybe because I was 13 when I first saw it, it seemed to me like the height of taste."
43. Michael Schiffer (screenwriter, Crimson Tide) "I discard Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind as too obvious, and I come up with Lauren Bacall in one of her tailored suits from the '40s. There's a great black-and-white checked suit that she wears in The Big Sleep. That suit seemed to have a life of its own. It had attitude, it had secrets. And not since Rosey Grier have shoulder pads been so imposing,"
44. Charles Lippincott (producer, Judge Dredd) "I would have to say Ornella Muti's first costume in Flush Gordon. Despite the rest of the movie, that is one of the greatest entrances I've ever seen in a movie. It's like something out of a biblical story. She looked almost like Nazimova in silent films. She was wearing these odd-shaped gold pieces placed strategically all over her body, and the way they moved and sparkled as she walked gave her this slithery quality. It's rare to see that kind of sensuality in films."
45. Donna Roth (producer, Benny and Joon) "I love the black-and-white striped coat that Dianne Wiest wears in Bullets Over Broadway when she's sitting on the park bench with John Cusack. That coal was like a work of art."
46. Nancy Meyers (writer-producer, Father of the Bride) "Faye Dunaway's costumes in Bonnie and Clyde had great beauty and great style,"
47. The "Lady" Bunny (organizer-performer, Wigstock: The Movie) "I love the modeling scene in Blowup. There are about six women, and each creation is more imaginative than the next. They all wore big hair, heavy makeup and trippy '60s outfits, which satisfies every one of my requirements."
48. Paul Mazursky (director, Moon Over Parador) "I have to say that the most memorable costume is the black dress that I wore in Moon Over Parador. Originally I had cast Judith Malina to play Richard Dreyfuss's mother, but her agent misunderstood when she was supposed to be in Rio, and it turned out she was directing an opera in Hamburg at the same time. So we tried to get Zoe Caldwell, and she wasn't available. I was desperate, because we only had the opera house for two days, so I asked Albert Wolsky to design the dress for me. He said, 'I can make you the dress, but what about the shoes?' Luckily, we found a Brazilian shoemaker to make me the shoes. I also had a feathered hat. That outfit was a knockout."
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Stephen Farber wrote about movie critics in doubt for the October 1993 Movieline.
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