This began as an elaborate round-up, maybe even a full-blown homage, to those films that have captivated me from a sartorial standpoint. There are many. And they are varied. And often the films themselves are forgettable, or even bad (notable exception: Splendor in the Grass; blog post on that gem to come).

So I thought I’d start small.

I recently caught up with Two for the Road, a 1960s romantic comedy of sorts that follows one couple (Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney) through its ups and downs against the backdrop of France’s countryside.

Snore….

That’s not to say it didn’t have its moments of adorably pithy dialogue and humor. But by and large, what I remember were the clothes.

I might be one of few women, it seems, to not go gaga for Audrey Hepburn. Of course, she is charming in Roman Holiday, and I love, love, love her earplugs in Breakfast with Tiffany’s. (Holly Golightly, irritating at best, is another story.) But she is unarguably lovely in those films and this one, too. And damn, I really want those earplugs.

So it’s without an Audrey bias that I say that her sleek, mod get-ups in TFTR are above and beyond. The silver paillettes covering the barely-there Paco Rabanne dress above manage to not be ridiculous. (If only I could pull off the ensemble.) The shiny discs are suspended, hanging magically by….well, I’m not sure. That’s what makes it magic. And the matching earrings, which could be overkill, just work beautifully.

It’s worth noting that Rabanne also did a dress for Barbarella, which makes him even that much cooler in my book, as Fonda in that film is my unlikely style icon. But this cocktail frock is just the beginning. While researching the film post-viewing, I came upon this very in-depth look at all the glorious outfits, including the space-age suit that even now seems ahead of its time.

But this movie is about a marriage. That I just celebrated my three-year wedding anniversary makes me think about the outfits that defined the key moments of our life together. Side note: I just managed to squeeze myself into my wedding dress, purely for fun, while drinking red wine with my girlfriends.

There were dresses worn to college formals and the black lace shirt that I wore to Small’s in NY (a very momentous night in our relationship history)–not to mention dozens of other outfits connected to a sense of time and place. But this I know for sure: none were as jaw-droppingly awesome as this silver sequined dress.