With Mr Baz Luhrmann’s hotly anticipated Elvis on the horizon, we have yet another opportunity to appreciate the director’s ongoing costume affair with Ms Miuccia Prada. The Italian designer is responsible for outfitting a number of the director’s storied filmography and now the King of Rock and Roll’s wardrobe is in Prada’s deft hands. We couldn’t help but wonder: is this the pinnacle of the designer/film collaboration?

Films often serve as direct inspiration in fashion, with designers creating odes to their favourite films on the runway. In some of the most iconic collections, models wore easter eggs for those in the know. NUMBER (N)INE designer and film buff Mr Takahiro Miyashita titled his AW08 collection “My Own Private Portland” after Mr Gus Van Sant’s 1991 film of a similar name. Mr Raf Simons’ work is often frequented by Lynchian references – his AW16 varsity sweaters were inspired by Twin Peaks’ sullen teenagers, while AW19 saw stills of a young Ms Laura Dern in Blue Velvet patched onto jackets like posters tacked on a cinephile’s wall. Then there’s the sci-fi classic Gattaca, responsible for both Dior Homme’s AW13 by Mr Kris Van Assche and Salvatore Ferragamo AW21, respectively.

When fashion designers are tapped to contribute to the world-building of cinema, the results are just as strong. The most obvious example of a fashion/film mashup is Mr Tom Ford’s A Single Man, a quiet film on stoicism and suiting. Mr Giorgio Armani has a reputation of bolstering his CV as costume designer to many films, and most notably redefined American sportswear in 1980’s American Gigolo. It’s rumoured that Mr Jonathan Anderson will dress director Mr Luca Guadagnino’s cast in the upcoming Challengers, too.

Ahead of Luhrmann’s take on the titular musician, we navigate through six films that redefined costume design, courtesy of fashion’s leading visionaries. Read on for our deeper cuts ahead.

As a self-proclaimed horror aficionado with a penchant for utilitarian silhouettes, Mr Craig Green was a natural choice to outfit Sir Ridley Scott’s crew in Alien: Covenant. The film’s costume designer Ms Janty Yates stumbled across Green’s AW15 collection in Selfridges, which was ripe with storm green parkas and parachute bondage pants. It was exactly what Yates and Sir Ridley envisioned for the expedition team aboard the colonisation ship en route to planet Origae-6, so they contacted Green to develop looks for the sixth instalment of the Alien franchise. The end result seamlessly transitioned his military aesthetic to the silver screen, creating more than 160 full outfits for the film, including vests, jackets and bodysuits. To note, the very same collection that caught Yates’ eye in the London department store included several sweaters with a gaping cutout at the sternum. A chestburster, you might say.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That’s Baz Luhrmann’s approach to wardrobe, and he has once again tapped friend and collaborator Ms Miuccia Prada to create custom costumes for his upcoming film Elvis (alongside Oscar-winning costume designer Ms Catherine Martin). Prada’s relationship with Luhrmann spans three decades. She created looks for Romeo + Juliet, The Great Gatsby and even designed the luggage seen in Australia. When dressing Elvis or Ms Priscilla Presley, Prada didn’t simply recreate historically accurate imitations, but reimagined the King’s personal style through a lens of the designer’s personal archives. In that respect, we see nods to Presley’s signature tailoring, cut in jewel-toned suiting and rich coordinating knitwear.

A futuristic crime film set in a dystopian metropolis requires serious costumes to match. In Judge Dredd, a corps of “Judges” act as hybrid police and executioners, with Mr Sylvester Stallone as its leading star. Based on the British comic-book series, Dredd’s outfit is a futuristic cop uniform, complete with a Spartanesque helmet and gold armoured shoulder pads. With camp as its sartorial touchstone, Stallone personally selected Mr Gianni Versace to create his costume, who didn’t stray far from the comic’s original drawings. The choice was doubly obvious, given the actor’s working relationship with the Italian designer (Stallone famously fronted the brand’s 1995 campaign in his birthday suit). And while Versace nailed the gaudy costume, the film was considered a critical flop, and often named one of Stallone’s worst films.

Few fashion designers have infiltrated the pop culture zeitgeist quite like Mr Jean Paul Gaultier. This is in large part due to his work for Mr Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element, which remains one of the most memorable wardrobes in cinematic history. Gaultier’s theatricality is typically reserved for Paris Fashion Week, but it easily transfers onto the intergalactic scene. The costumes are so integral to the visual storytelling of the movie that it is arguably what defined it as a cult classic (plot be damned). From Mr Bruce Willis’ tangerine tank top to Mr Chris Tucker’s flamboyant leopard spacesuit and Ms Milla Jovovich’s iconic white bandage dress, Gaultier’s costumes continue to haunt Halloweens and comic cons to this day.

While Fear of God did not have a heavy hand in creating the wardrobe for 2018’s Superfly by Director X, Mr Jerry Lorenzo aided costume designer Ms Antoinette Messam in creating the main character’s trademark look. The brand supplied five custom outerwear options to Messam, with a short-sleeved leather coat making the final cut in the opening scene and promotional photos. It represents the collaborative effort designers can have with costume designers, who are often left out of headlines when fashion designers step into production.

According to Mr Yohji Yamamoto’s 2010 memoir My Dear Bomb, he was a self-proclaimed fan of Mr Takeshi “Beat” Kitano long before he joined the director as a costume designer. Their relationship birthed several collaborations, including Yamamoto creating the wardrobe for Takeshis’, Zatōichi and the film considered to be the auteur’s most visually stunning work, Dolls. The non-narrative art film was heavily influenced by traditional Japanese puppet theatre bunraku, playing out a series of multi-plot vignettes loosely exploring lost love. Yamamoto flexed his skills, creating both casual wear and traditional garb alike. One character’s knit blazer is another’s kimono, tied together in washes of grey, navy and a symbolic accent of fiery red.

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