Sabrina

The ultimate Cinderella film with a funny American twist-the prince (Humphrey Bogart) isn't very charming-Sabrina began Audrey Hepburn's lifelong collaboration with the designer Hubert de Givenchy. Sabrina is the Long Island chauffeur's daughter who goes to Paris to learn to cook à la mode française and comes back French dressing. The ball gown "with yards of skirt and way off the shoulders" (a nod to postwar prosperity) is a stunner, but that kind of thing is only good until midnight. Sabrina's still a gamine at heart, and Givenchy designed to that part of her personality: flat shoes and toreador trousers, hats (it's a film obsessed, as Givenchy was, with hats), and of course, The Dress that created the rage for the bateau neckline and the little black dress. Edith Head, who won the Oscar, was stuck designing everyone else's clothes, and like a sport made a roomful of gowns seem ho-hum next to Cinderella in Givenchy. (JB)

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