From the ballet performances like 17th century catwalk shows to Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw in a tutu, two exhibitions explore a stylish symbiotic relationship
The shy bookseller played by Audrey Hepburn in 1957’s Funny Face wears couture versions of ballet pumps. The actor had been a dancer, and the movie’s couture costumes, designed by Hubert de Givenchy, climax in a wedding dress (for Hepburn’s marriage to a
fashion photographer played by an elderly Fred Astaire) with a full ballerina skirt. So beautiful were the designs that they sprang out of the film and inspired style on the street. Everybody could afford a pair of pumps, even if they didn’t look like Hepburn while wearing them.