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  • Fashion

Hollywood and Fashion – Who’s Influencing Who?

The clothes that adorn the actors on such iconic TV shows such as And Just Like That…, Succession, Euphoria, or past hits including Sex and the City, Mad Men, Killing Eve, or Girlfriends Guide to Divorce, are as integral to the storyline as the spoken dialogue that brings everything to life.

In many cases, what the characters wear has influenced mainstream fashion, while the words they spout can stop a trend dead in its tracks. Who can forget the sage musings of Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw, when she chided her then-boyfriend, Berger, “No woman who works at W magazine would be caught dead at a hip downtown restaurant wearing a scrunchie!” It is possible that Sarah Jessica Parker’s Bradshaw was single-handedly responsible for the decline of that 80s hair accessory. Fans of the show immediately disposed of their scrunchie collection. Or, at least, relegated it to bathroom use only.

Decades before Carrie Bradshaw brought awareness of Manolo Blahnik shoes to a demographic outside of the 1-percenters who could ever afford them, Olivia Newton-John’s patent leather leggings in Grease became a fixture in every woman’s wardrobe in the 70s. Annie Halls boho look would revolutionize fashion for a generation, including Diane Keaton herself, whose personal style evidently remains inspired by her alter ego’s unique fashion fusion.

In the 80s, TV series like Dallas, or Dynasty, helped popularize shoulder pads, rendering them omnipresent during the era. In the 90s, the off-the-shoulder red gown that costume designer Marilyn Vance insisted Julia Roberts wear in Pretty Woman inspired an onslaught of knockoffs. Virtually every teenage girl would wear one to the prom.

 

More recently, Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook), on the hit series Succession, changed what women wore in the boardroom with her monochromatic suits, turtlenecks, and high-waisted trousers.

Another version of a power suit can be seen in the British series Industry, about a fictional investment bank where the women wear calf-length pencil skirts, patent-leather flats, and Windsor-knot pinstripe ties. In the bedroom, Lily Collins, on Emily in Paris, was treated to a box of black lacy lingerie by La Perla.

We would be remiss if we neglected to mention the men — notably, actor Jim Parsons, who played Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory and proudly wore his plaid pajamas by LL Bean. These iconic flannels were last seen flying off the shelves everywhere.

Stylists who collaborated on Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce often chose pieces from Gregory’s, a one-stop upscale store in Dallas that is well-regarded as the best-kept secret in the fashion industry. It specializes in high-end clothing, sunglasses, and shoe wear. The iconic establishment regularly outfits stars like Rihanna, Demi Lovato, Gigi Hadid, and Golden Globe nominee Carrie Underwood.

Freelance fashion and wardrobe stylist, Stevie G Int. — who has worked with various brands and celebs like Original Queens of Comedy Sommore, Chris Sapphire, Claudia Jordan for V’Che Label, besides top model Karolina Kurkova — often looks to the runways at Fashion Weeks for inspiration. However, he also suggests that this is not a one-way street, as evidenced by 80s-themed Stranger Things, the global TV hit from Netflix.

Stevie G remarks that Stranger Things inspired the Swedish clothing brand H & M to release a Stranger Things line. Nike, the sports apparel empire, put out a Hawkins High School line of retro sneakers. “High-fashion couture brand Louis Vuitton included a Stranger Things t-shirt on the Paris runway during Fashion Week,” he adds.

 

 

The relationship between fashion and Hollywood has intensified in the last few years. The notion that fashion is exclusively inspired by magazines or the runway is no longer true. Many of us listened to the fashion-forward advice from Carrie Bradshaw in the early 2000s but, twenty years on, the likes of Britney Spears, Bella and Gigi Hadid, Selena Gomez and Jason Momoa are more than proud to break out that scrunchie again.