Have you ever wondered how it is that movies can have such a big effect on out fashion tastes? Or perhaps you have never thought about the connection between these two things before. Here are a few movies which started fashion trends you might have forgotten about.

Flashdance

What a feeling, indeed. What a fashion statement too. If you were old enough to be influenced by films in the early to mid 1980s then there is a fair chance that a ripped t-shirt made its way into your wardrobe at some point. Don’t worry though, as you were far from the only one to go for the Flashdance look after this movie was released in 1983. You didn’t go the whole way and buy some leotards though, did you?

Desperately Seeking Susan

Around about the same time as the Flashdance craze Madonna came out with a style which has proved to be a little more enduring than the ripped t-shirts. Her leggings, baggy tops and jackets still look pretty good today. To be fair, the style Madonna shows in the 1985 film isn’t a million miles away from the fashion she had been using before that anyway, but it was Desperately Seeking Susan which brought it to a bigger audience.

Annie Hall

We need to go back to the 1970s to see how this Woody Allen film got a lot of women to dress in a more masculine manner. A shirt and a tie for a lady might not seem all that unusual now but at the time the style caused a big fuss.

Saturday Night Fever

Who can forget John Travolta and his discos outfits? This movie inspired million of people to try a few funky dance steps but it also made an impression our fashion ideas. A white suit and an open black shirt would probably never have been as popular if it hadn’t been for this dancing film.

Sex and the City

The TV series and the film are definitely responsible for getting items such as Manolo Blahnik shoes out into the mainstream. As far as recent examples of fashion in films go this movie is hard to beat.

Avatar

This might seem a bit of a strange one to include, as you probably haven’t seen many people wandering around wearing giant blue costumes. However, it is worth mentioning to show the difference between how fashion in the movies used to affect the world and how it does now. We have seen with some of the other examples that in previous times the impact was directly on the audience. That is to say that a viewer liked John Travolta’s white suit or the t-shirts in Flashdance and went out to look for them. With Avatar the effect has been more indirect. Instead of influencing consumers it seems to have had more of an impact on the fashion industry. Several designers have stated that the colours and textures used in the movie are going to be used in their latest clothes collections.