Fashion notes: Take clothing cues from leading ladies

The love affair between film and fashion has been long documented. But what is it that makes a fashionable lead transcend the fundamental issues of time and taste? Firstly, she needs to offer a healthy amount of escapism. There will be something about her that makes us sit up straighter – something that makes us wonder why we’re skirting around the periphery of mediocrity when we could potentially look as magnificent as she does. Secondly, we have to like or admire something about her. She has (seemingly effortlessly) acquired the perfect mix of style and character; women want to be her and men want to be liked by her.

Let's start with the blunderingly obvious route – Marilyn Monroe. Despite the obvious feminist protestations, few could resist the pillowy curves and ever-parted lips. The liquid, sensual fabrics, dangerously low cleavage, mammoth furs and smattering of jewellery – there's nothing more brazen. Perhaps it was that very honesty that made her so enticing. In terms of style, we're trained to think of Monroe's billowing, pleated white dress in The Seven Year Itch. But it was the way in which she wore it that really captivated – the perfectly orchestrated contradiction between heightened sexuality and naivety.

Nobody understood the merits of clever movie costuming as well as Hitchcock. His carefully selected costumes often underpinned the inwardly helter-skelter character. Whether it was the heart-stoppingly beautiful Grace Kelly in Rear Window in her silk circle skirt or Tippi Hedren as the scheming socialite Melanie, in her iconic eau de nil suit, in The Birds – Hitchcock's female leads were often as mesmerising as they were unhinged.

What makes things really interesting is when perfectionism and refinement are cast aside. Take Diane Keaton's loveable, if not neurotic, Annie in Annie Hall, who made us yearn for cool, offbeat insouciance as much as we did for the floppy hat and wide-legged trousers. Saying we like Olivia Newton-John is like not having an opinion – committing a crime against taste. But who could omit the girl whose air-punching transformation from "good Sandy" to "bad Sandy" gave hope to every cookie-cutting pre-teen across America?

More recently, in the adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement, we saw the young Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley) preparing for a party – somehow avoiding the usual clichés: she attempts to look "as though she had not given the matter a moment's thought". Her sense of dress was not her creation and nor did it create her.

Although different in its execution, Amy Adams' character, Sydney Prosser, the alluring fraudster in American Hustle, is also worth a mention. We watched with appreciation as she poured herself into vintage Diane von Furstenberg and Christian Dior with all the trimmings, in want of a better existence.

It’s not always as straightforward as the theatrics, however. When it comes to style, the aforementioned never set out to make trends – it’s clear that something as banal as fashion would have been a bore for her. What all of these women have is character – and oodles of it. Sketched from afar, the most successful leading ladies have projected poised self-possession and intrigue. Comfortable with interpretation, fluid in their ability to enter discussion, exciting, inflexible and enduring – women who wore fantastic hats, when they were in style, and furs, even when they were not. All references that we turn to again and again. Why? Because who wouldn’t like to be a bit more like that – a woman never aims for the middlebrow.

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