devodotcom: THE LOOK WONDERFUL 1963

Saint Laurent's Black Leather Helmet

Saint Laurent's Thigh-high Crocodile Boot

The year
1963 hinted at major changes to come for fashion in the sixties. Courreges,
known for his ultra-modern designs, introduced the mini skirt on the Paris
runways. In America the bikini became a swimwear standard, and Jackie Kennedy’s
Pill Box hat, designed by Oleg Cassini, was forever embedded in fashion history
with the image of her Cassini designed pink ensemble worn on the day of President Kennedy’s
assassination.

This is
the year of Cleopatra, the most
expensive film ever made. Taylor and Burton’s “Le Scandale” dominated
international headlines.

As the
world followed them, Burton and Taylor followed Cleopatra the same year with
the V.I.P.’s – a film that takes place within Heathrow Airport with a host of
characters stranded during a heavy fog. The film was based on the true story of
Vivien Leigh’s attempt to leave husband Laurence Olivier and fly off with actor
Peter Finch – only to be delayed by fog.

Elizabeth
Taylor’s costumes for the V.I.P.’s were the designs of Pierre Cardin, little
known in America at the time but soon to become a leading fashion influence of
the sixties.

While sixties
makeup was inspired by the beauty of Taylor as Cleopatra, and Taylor was noted as elegantly ensembled in The
V.I.P.’s, it was the December release of Charade
starring Audrey Hepburn, dressed by Givenchy, alongside co-star – the eternally
debonair Cary Grant, that best depicted the fashion scene and the way women of
means wanted to look at the time. Still do.