Are we fed up of tailored 60s dresses and Mad Men styling yet? If not, then Hitchcock Style, by Jean-Pierre Dufreigne is a gem of a book for inspiring ways to wear a fitted pencil skirt, tailored two piece suit or drape a scarf.
Hitchcock films are astonishingly stylish, as the still photos here from sets on many of his films show, he micro-managed every aspect of what you saw. Just think of the clothes and furniture in Rear Window, Marnie and the smart bachelor pad in Rope. He had Edith Head do many of the clothes and she was a demon with a slim blonde and a severe fitting suit. The menswear here is wonderful too, with Cary Grant, Gregory Peck and Sean Connery looking daper while Anthony Perkins in Psycho looks devilishly handsome.
There were some perverse styling details used on the leading ladies, such as Janet Leigh’s lingerie going from white at the beginning of Psycho to black at the end, nuns in heels in The Lady Vanishes and poor Tippi Hedren’s constant costume changes in The Birds due to the live birds pecking her dresses to shreds.
I’ve only just found this book, although it was published in 2004 and it’s filled in lots of lovely off-screen details about the clothes and set interiors from the films. if you are a Hitch fan, it’s wonderful.
