Movies have always been setters and disseminators of fashion trends, stocking our collective unconscious with avatars of beauty, glamour, and style. Movies also form a visual record of how people and places looked at various points in history, a fact that often facilitates the seemingly endless resurrection and reinvention of styles from the past.

So, as part of SEE’s Summer Fashion Spectacular, here’s a quick and dirty survey of notable movies that have furnished a snapshot of fashion as it was, what it meant, and what it might yet mean to the retro-styles of tomorrow.

Supervixens (1975)

Russ Meyer was always an ardent admirer/exploiter of the sort of full-figured women who don’t get much screentime in mainstream movies these days, except as found-object visual gags. While his entire filmography celebrates naturally buxom beauty—a shape that has inarguably been supplanted by a more sculpted/surgically enhanced esthetic—Supervixens imparts to its voluptuous heroine (Shari Eubank) a spiritual quality that could only find its proper vessel in such fleshy abundance.

Don’t Look Back (1967)/No Direction Home (2005)

Much has been written lately about I’m Not There, Todd Haynes’ multifarious meditation on Bob Dylan(s), but these documentaries by D.A. Pennebaker and Martin Scorsese capture Dylan’s transformation from folkie darling to rock iconoclast—and the resulting blowback is a startling testament to the revolutionary power of style, as well as Dylan’s unique genius for self-invention both as performer and fashion plate.

Nashville (1975)

Robert Altman made a full-frontal assault on the world of high fashion in 1994’s alleged comedy Ready to Wear, but it was the panorama of sartorial styles in his sprawling masterwork Nashville that contains the more ludicrous outfits, worn by a cross-section of country superstars and various hangers-on.

The piled-up hair and quasi-wedding gown attire of Ronee Blakely, Karen Black’s eye-scalding red crinoline frock and the lacquer-stiff cowboy duds on Henry Gibson and Timothy Brown (as a token black country singer) supply a commentary in themselves on the artificial down-home humility and tacky crepe-paper patriotism plastered over America’s profound social upheaval on the eve of its 200th birthday, and at the end of the Vietnam war.

Grey Gardens (1975)

A quarter-century after Gloria Swanson made going mad in a decrepit old mansion look somewhat glamourous in Sunset Boulevard, Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter Little Edie showed what it really looks like when America’s aristocracy goes batty in this legendary documentary by the Maysles brothers. Little Edie’s proclivity for headscarves, skin-tight body stockings, and ravaged furs creates an aura of classy dementia that most low-born shut-ins couldn’t dream of attaining.

First Blood (1982)

Think about it: before John Rambo (Sly Stallone) tied on his trademark bandana and reduced the town of Hope, B.C. to cinders, the headband had been wholly appropriated by the likes of Olivia Newton-John, Sheena Easton, and Loverboy’s Mike Reno. Sly made it safe again for manly men to keep the sweat out of their eyes, even when sporting a poofy feathered haircut. Chuck Norris subsequently based his career on this look (see: Lone Wolf McQuade, Delta Force, Missing in Action 1-3, Invasion U.S.A.) and currently relies on it to keep his rug in place on windy days.

The Road Warrior (1981)/Escape from New York (1981)

How interesting that filmmakers working on opposite sides of the world would simultaneously hit upon the idea that future dystopias will be ruled by savage punk rockers in bondage-gear body armour. While both George Miller and John Carpenter would go on to personally dilute the impact of this vision with vastly inferior sequels, it didn’t dissuade other hacks from picturing a frightening tomorrow tricked out in denim vests, leather pants, and Mohawks.

Safe (1995)

Todd Haynes’ chilly psychodrama about a California housewife (Julianne Moore) who succumbs to environmental sickness—or is it an allergic reaction to her vapid, overprivileged life?—charts an interesting fashion course as Moore’s character devolves from highly manicured, designer-clad trophy spouse to featureless, mousy quasi-victim ensconced in a hermetic New Age cocoon, a sort of reverse-Cinderella effect that treats the trappings of beauty as a dread disease.

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

It’s hard to say if Jared Hess’ depiction of life among the loser stratum of an Idaho high school held up a mirror to a generation of young people in secondhand-store T-shirts, high-fastening corduroys, and un-self-conscious haircuts or encouraged them to proudly pedal their coaster bikes out of the fashion closet. Whatever the case, Napoleon (Jon Heder) and his nerdy associates certainly crystallize what Vice has termed the “Timmy” look—purchased right off the rack in the boys’ section of your mom’s favourite department store.

Idiocracy (2005)

I just wanted to point out that the morons inhabiting Mike Judge’s yahootopia all wear Crocs, the most aesthetically appalling development in shoes since the Spanish boot.

Zodiac (2007)

There’s an interesting fashion compare-and-contrast in David Fincher’s brutal true-crime epic. On the one hand there’s Mark Ruffalo, whose cynical detective eventually grows out of his immense, side-parted locks, mutton chops, and brown velour bowtie; and on the other, we’ve got Jake Gyllenhaal’s resolute amateur investigator Robert Graysmith, who wears the same plaid shirt and quilted fall jacket and, indeed, doesn’t seem to age a minute over the two decades the film spans. Those who have seen the director’s cut know this is Fincher’s way of subtly signaling that Graysmith is actually a ghost.

The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

The characters in Wes Anderson’s highly stylized quirkfests always look like they’re wearing uniforms rather than outfits (though in The Life Aquatic, they really are uniforms). In The Darjeeling Limited, the affectations sported by the three brothers (played by Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson)—lank hair and aviator shades, louche mustache, dirty bandages, and suit jackets all around—say more about the characters than they ever say about themselves.

Beowulf (2007)

This CGI version of the Old English epic represents the cutting edge of Hollywood fashion—dressing actors in glossy coats of pixels with finely shaded abs, über-tumescent boobs, and strangely inexpressive facial expressions that approximate an overdose of Botox. As digital renderings increasingly replace real flesh and blood, such spandex-skinned simulacra could well become the new standard of cosmetic beauty.