The top 13 films that shaped my style

Whether I knew it at the time or not.

Reflection is good. It’s the time when you can pick apart things, put them back together, and see what new picture they form.

I talk so much here about personal style - connecting your visuals with who you are on the inside. When the connection isn’t there, you can feel unstable - that’s my experience, anyways. But the process of unpacking it all, deducing who you are and how that materializes visually, is exactly that, a process. I find sometimes going back through the movies that hit me, over time, with an impulse to run out of the theatre and try something new to be part of this process. You can start to see a real thru-line when laid out - a connecting of the dots of sorts.

So here are mine, in case you are interested. But I give them to you here so that you can think about yours. Ok?

#13- James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause- I’m frequently drawn to the men in some of the older movies. The clothing really spoke to their character, not just their place/time and demographic.

#12 Charlie’s Angels - three distinct characters - and when we reenacted scenes from the show I was not allowed to stay up late enough to watch, I frustrated the friends in the neighborhood because I could never settle on one character: Jill, Kelly or Sabrina. Now I know why, I was a combination of all three.

#11 St. Elmos Fire - I suppose it was the idea here that all the tropes of the decade where encapsulated here in one group of friends. Watch it - it’s amazing - tight friends WHO DON’T ALL DRESS ALIKE. Wow. Individuals who have differences but intersect on many levels. Novel.

#10 Breakfast At Tiffanys - the white tuxedo. Evening but with ease.

#9 Pulp Fiction - Uma Thurman - classic but fully modern, conservative if you explain the fit, but hardly so on this character. The individual makes the clothes - in absence of Uma this could be a complete suburban mom fit - not that there’s anything wrong with that - but you see, it’s not just the clothes it’s attitude and the IRONY.

#8 Scarface - Michelle Pfeiffer. The ultra simplistic but modern sexiness of the skimpy dress. I’m drawn to this everytime. Hence my love of bareness that still has a bit of class/formality/simplicity.

#7: From the Terrace - Paul Newman - his style - if I were a guy, this is me. But I’m not, and it’s still me.

#6: Top Gun, Kelly McGillis. The brown leather aviator jacket. The year of this movie my dad splurged big, when to Atlanta to Banana Republic and bought my sister and I each this jacket. So chill, so cool…..my everything.

#5: My Man Godfrey. Reminded me how much I just love fashion, and beauty. And well told stories. And how movies speak to what’s happening in the world, at subversive levels - not so obvious. I wish movies weren’t so fucking obvious today.

#4: Baby Boom - Diane Keaton, you were my hero in this movie. The story line, the clothes, the everything. R.I.P

#3 La Piscine- as much as for Jane Birkin as Alain Delon. The visual speaks for itself - but the idea of whole scenes being connected, from the shapes to the colors to the textures - this hits home.

#2 Something About Mary - this came out the year after I started Tibi - the style just nailed the clean minimal vibe I was going for - and I straight up copied the haircut.

#1: 9 1/2 weeks. A BUFFET of amazing style - Kim Basinger, my everything.