Funny Face (1957)

Robert Flemyng plays fashion designer Paul Duval



























Funny Face on IMDB

Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson) is a fashion magazine publisher and editor, for Quality magazine, who is looking for the next big fashion trend. She wants a new look for the magazine. Maggie wants the look to be both "beautiful" and "intellectual". She and famous fashion photographer Dick Avery (Fred Astaire) want models who can "think as well as they look." The two brainstorm and come up with the idea to find a "sinister" looking book store in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan. They subsequently locate a bookstore named "Embryo Concepts".
Maggie and Dick take over Embryo Concepts, which is being run by the shy bookshop clerk and amateur philosopher, Jo Stockton (Audrey Hepburn). Jo thinks the fashion and modeling industry is nonsense, saying: "it is chichi, and an unrealistic approach to self-impressions as well as economics". Maggie decides to use Jo in the first fashion shot, to give it a more intellectual look. After the first shot Maggie locks Jo out of the shop to shut her up.
Jo wants more than anything else in the world to go to Paris and attend the famous philosopher and professor Emile Flostre's (Michel Auclair) lectures about empathicalism. When Dick gets back to the dark room, he sees something in Jo's face which is "new" and "fresh", and which would be perfect for the campaign, giving it "character", "spirit", and "intelligence".
They send for Jo, pretending they want to order some books from her shop. Once she arrives, they start treating her like a doll, trying to make her over, pulling at her clothes and attempting to cut her hair. She is outraged and runs away, only to hide in the darkroom where Dick is working. When Dick mentions Paris, Jo becomes very interested in that she would get a chance to see Professor Flostre, and is finally convinced to model.
Soon Maggie, Dick, and Jo are off to Paris to prepare for a major fashion event, shooting photos at famous landmarks from the area. During the various photo shoots Jo and Dick develop feelings for each other, and they fall in love.
One night when Jo is getting ready for a gala, she learns that Professor Flostre is giving a lecture at a cafe nearby. She attends, forgetting the gala. Eventually Dick finds her and they get into an argument at the gala's opening, which results in Jo being publicly embarrassed and Maggie outraged.
Jo goes to talk to Professor Flostre at his home. Through some scheming, Maggie and Dick make it into Flostre's home. After performing an impromptu song and dance for Flostre's disciples, they confront Jo and Flostre. This eventually leads to Dick causing Flostre to fall and knock himself out. Jo urges them to leave. When Flostre wakes up, he tries to make a pass at Jo. Shocked at the behavior of her "idol", she smashes a vase over his head and runs out.
Before the group leaves for home, there is a final fashion show. Jo and Maggie try to get in touch with Dick, who has made plans to leave Paris. Jo does the runway show and before her wedding gown finale, she looks out the window and sees the plane Dick was supposed to be on, take off. Heartbroken, she runs off the runway in tears at the conclusion of the show.
Meanwhile, Dick is at the airport. He runs into Flostre and learns that Jo bashed him on the head with a vase. Dick, realizing how much he cares, goes back to find Jo. He goes back to the runway show, only to find that Jo is nowhere to be found. Finally, after a long search, Dick finds Jo (in the wedding gown) by a little church where they shared a romantic moment during the photo shoot. They embrace and kiss.
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Liquid Sky (1982)

Nina V. Kerova plays the designer





Liquid Sky on IMDB

A New Wave fashion show is to be held in a crowded Manhattan nightclub. Among the models are bisexual, cocaine-addicted Margaret (Anne Carlisle) and Jimmy (also played by Carlisle). Jimmy is Margaret's rival and nemesis and also loves cocaine, constantly hassling Margaret's drug-dealer girlfriend Adrian (Paula E. Sheppard) for drugs despite not having any money to pay for them.
A UFO about the size of a dinner plate lands on the rooftop of the penthouse apartment occupied by Margaret and Adrian. Jimmy accompanies Margaret home before the show, but he's actually trying to find Adrian's drugs. Margaret meanwhile is being watched by a tiny, shapeless alien from inside the UFO. Margaret and Jimmy return to the club to participate in the show. During preparations both agree to a photographic shoot the following night on Margaret's rooftop. They are assured that there will be plenty of cocaine available at the shoot.
Jimmy's upper-class, highly libidinous mother, Sylvia (Susan Doukas), a television producer, lives in the building across from Margaret's penthouse. German scientist Johann Hoffman (Otto Von Wernherr) has been secretly observing the aliens from the Empire State Building. Johann needs somewhere to continue his surveillance when the observation deck closes. He seeks help in this from the only person he knows in America, college drama teacher Owen (Bob Brady). Owen fobs Johann off as he plans to go meet a former student, who turns out to be Margaret.
Seeking a vantage point on his own, Johann stumbles into Sylvia's building. Lascivious Sylvia, who happens to have a free evening, eagerly invites him to her apartment for dinner. Across town middle class Katherine (Elaine C. Grove) revoices her objection to the heroin use of her boyfriend, failed writer and heroin addict Paul (Stanley Knap).
Margaret meets various people in the club and in her apartment. She is raped or seduced by several of the visitors. She is seduced by her former acting professor Owen, a representative of the erstwhile hippie generation. Then she is coerced into sex by Adrian's client Paul. Paul had returned to seduce Margaret after walking out on a party held by Katherine when she insisted he pull himself together and help greet her business clients. The people who have sexual relations and reach orgasm with Margaret promptly die, with a crystal protruding from their head. Margaret realizes she can kill people by having sex with them.
From Sylvia's apartment, Johann intermittently continues his observation between dinner and dodging Sylvia's various attempts to seduce him. Adrian arrives home and helps Margaret hide Owen's body. Later the crew arrives at the apartment for the fashion shoot. During the shoot Margaret is taunted by Jimmy, so agrees to have sex with him knowing it will kill him. Later a vengeful Margaret reconnects with Californian upper-class socialite and soap opera actor (Jack Adalist) who had raped her the night of the nightclub fashion show.
Johann reveals that the alien is extracting the endorphins produced by the brain when an orgasm occurs—apparently a fatal operation. Margaret survives because she never experiences an orgasm. Margaret finally learns of the aliens from Johann. Seeing the alien craft leaving, Margaret injects herself with heroin to induce a wild autoerotic orgasm to ensure the aliens take her with them.
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Die Büchse der Pandora aka Pandora's Box (1929)

Pandora's Box on IMDB

Back Street (1961)

Susan Hayward plays fashion designer Rae Smith








Back Street on IMDB

Designing Woman (1957)

Lauren Bacall plays fashion designer Marilla Brown Hagen


Designing Woman on IMDB

'While on vacation, sports reporter Mike Hagen (Peck) meets fashion designer Marilla Brown (Bacall). The two instantly bond and quickly get married, only to realize they have little in common.

Mike is a sports fan and poker enthusiast with working-class friends. Marilla designs clothes for a wide array of artistic personalities. Their friends clash memorably one Wednesday night when his Poker Club and her Drama Society both convene at Marilla's apartment.

Marilla becomes suspicious of Mike after she finds a photograph of Lori Shannon (Dolores Gray), Mike's girlfriend. Mike tries to hide his former relationship, but fails miserably. Complicating matters even further is Mike's continuing series of exposés of the activities of crooked boxing promoter Martin Daylor (Edward Platt). Mike's life is in danger, but he hides that from his wife too. What results is a series of misunderstandings and mishaps.'
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Cat People (1942)

Simone Simon plays fashion artist Irena Dubrovna Reed



Cat People on IMDB

'At a city zoo, Serbian-born fashion designer Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon) makes sketches of a black panther. She catches the attention of American naval construction designer Oliver Reed (Kent Smith). Irena eventually invites him to her apartment for tea. As they walk away, one of Irena's discarded drafts is revealed as a panther impaled by a sword.

At her apartment, Oliver admires a statue, a crowned medieval figure on horseback impaling a cat with his sword. Irena informs Oliver that the figure is the (fictional) King John of Serbia and tells him a story. According to legend, a Satanic tribe invaded her childhood village during his reign and converted the residents into devil worshippers. When King John drove the evil tribe out and saw what the villagers had become, he ordered them all killed. However, "the wisest and the most wicked" of them escaped. It gradually becomes clear that Irena believes herself to be descended from the evil tribe, and that she fears that she will be transformed into a panther if aroused to passion, anger, or jealousy.

Despite her odd belief, Oliver marries her. However, dreading what could happen, she avoids sleeping with her husband. He persuades her to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway), who tries to convince her that her fears are of a more mundane nature. When she discovers that Oliver has confided their marital problems to an attractive co-worker, Alice Moore (Jane Randolph), she feels betrayed.

Later, while Alice is swimming alone in a pool, she is stalked by a large animal, shown only by its shadow. Fortunately, the water keeps the creature at bay. When it leaves, Alice emerges, wondering if she had imagined the whole thing...until she finds her robe torn to shreds.

Irena finally decides to consummate her marriage, but by then, it is too late; Oliver tells her he is getting a divorce. Later, at work, he and Alice are cornered by a ferocious animal. Thinking quickly, he grabs his T-square (which is in the shape of a cross) and tells Irena to go away. After it leaves, they call Dr. Judd to warn him to stay away from Irena, but he hangs up on them when the woman shows up. Attracted to her, he makes the fatal mistake of kissing her. She transforms into a panther and kills him, though he manages to wound her. When Oliver and Alice arrive a few minutes too late, she slips away, back in her human shape, and goes to the zoo. There, she opens the panther's cage and allows herself to be killed.'
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Zoolander (2001)

Will Ferrell plays fashion designer Mugatu

Mugatos range Derelicte is described as:
"a fashion, a way of life inspired by the very homeless, the vagrants, the crack whores that make this wonderful city so unique."

Zoolander on IMDB



'Fashion mogul Jacobim Mugatu (Will Ferrell) is charged by the fashion industry to find a male fashion model who can be brainwashed in order to assassinate the Prime Minister of Malaysia at an upcoming fashion show in order to retain cheap child labor in that country. Mugatu, with help from model agent Maury Ballstein (Jerry Stiller), selects for the task the dimwitted Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller), formerly the top male fashion model in the world but displaced by the up-and-coming Hansel (Owen Wilson) at the latest VH1 Fashion Awards. After losing his fellow male model colleagues in a "freak gasoline-fight accident," Derek announces his plan to retire from modelling and returns home to his father Spencer (Jon Voight) and brothers and tries to work alongside them in the coal mines, but is rejected by his family and returns to New York City.

Mugatu offers Derek a role in the upcoming "Derelicte" fashion show—a show inspired by the homeless vagrants of New York—and brings him to a day spa to help him prepare for the show. Journalist Matilda Jeffries (Christine Taylor), who wrote a derogatory article in Time on Derek after his loss to Hansel, becomes concerned for Derek due to the impact of the article, and starts following him. She also becomes suspicious of Mugatu suddenly taking an interest in Derek after refusing to even let him model for him in the past, her suspicions seeming to be confirmed when she fails to find any information regarding Mugatu's past and she receives anonymous calls from a man who tips her off about Mugatu's "spa". Matilda follows the tip and sees Derek go into the supposed day spa, but before she can investigate, she is thrown out by Mugatu's tough female assistant, Katinka Ingabogovinanana (Milla Jovovich). In reality, the "spa" that Derek has been taken to is in fact a brainwashing facility, where he is programmed to attack and kill the Prime Minister when Frankie Goes To Hollywood's song "Relax" is played at the Derelicte show.'
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