sexuality | Clothes on Film

Into the Woods opened on Broadway in 1987, with the music and lyrics written by Stephen Sondheim and the book by James Lapine. It is Sondheim’s most performed musical and one of his best known works. The story combines familiar characters from childhood fairy tales such as Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and the ubiquitous Witch, and explores their journeys to get their wish, as well as the negative consequences of the small dishonesties committed by each character to get what they want. As the witch sings, “Told a little lie/Stole a little gold/Broke a little vow/Did you?/Had to get your prince/Had to get your cow/Had to get your wish/Doesn’t…

Internal Affairs (1990) is an excellent stone cold thriller. The costumes are a subtle tease, revealing personal information that the characters never say out loud. Like many movies released in the late 1980s/1990s, Internal Affairs radiates uneasiness caused by shifting societal attitudes – anything that threatens a straight male chauvinist black-and-white world. Costume designer Rudy Dillon punches through this black-and-white world with ensembles that poke fun at the status quo and subsequently subvert them with eroticism, perhaps ironically using only a colour scheme of black and white. The straight white male chauvinist is Dennis Peck (Richard Gere), a police officer in Los Angeles who controls his colleagues by involving them…

Edith Head’s costume design for Vertigo demonstrates the power of clothes in forming identities on-screen.

Playing computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander, Noomi Rapace embodies the character in such a way that picturing anyone else in the role is nearly impossible.

Rooney Mara’s Lisbeth will be a style icon.

In Malèna, Monica Bellucci plays an impossible vision of beauty; a woman so striking she is immediately sexualised by all who lay eyes on her.

Adèle Blanc-Sec’s world is akin to a fantasy Belle Époque; 1910s attire dotted among reanimated corpses and a dinosaur.

Does Japanese period costume reflect on contemporary fashion? We appraise the hipster style of Norwegian Wood.