Dressed to Kill Bill

It’s a strange experience, to stand before the checked pinafore dress that Judy Garland wore in The Wizard of Oz. It is very plain, and its technicoloured blue has faded into a pallid grey. Yet it is instantly arresting, instantly fantastic. The word ‘iconic’ is as well-worn as an old jumper, but it’s an apt description of that simple dress and its place in Hollywood lore.

The Victoria and Albert Museum’s major autumn exhibition this year is to be Hollywood Costume. You might sigh in anguish that the V&A has devoted yet another show to clothes and cinema — this will be its fourth in the last couple of years after Grace Kelly: Image of a Movie Star, Fashion Fantasies and the Concise Dictionary of Dress. Guest curator Sir Christopher Frayling, cognisant of overkill, emphasises that Hollywood Costume is ‘not about red carpet glamour’; rather, it will demonstrate how costume design is an art, essential to the formation of a character on screen.