Aside from being the perfect vehicle for Barbra Streisand’s vocal chops and impeccable comic timing, Funny Girl is a visual delight. Streisand, who had already starred in the stage version on Broadway and in the West End, plays the plucky Fanny Brice, a performer working her way from vaudeville to Broadway. And, of course, such a journey requires a dramatic array of costumes. To that end, costume designer Irene Sharaff went heavy on the beading, rhinestones, and fur.

If you’re still puzzled by the meaning of camp, a screening of What A Way To Go will shed some light on it. As a widow whose four husbands – Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Gene Kelly and Dick Van Dyke – have all met slapstick ends, Shirley MacLaine wears a series of Edith Head-designed costumes that, to quote The Hollywood Reporter’s original review, “tread that delicate line between burlesque and reality”. Prepare for orange feathers, pink fur and diamanté body-con, among other outrageous looks.

A love story between a Manhattan department store clerk and a soon-to-be-divorced socialite in the early 1950s was bound to be a stylish affair, but the costumes by three-time Oscar-winner Sandy Powell brought this film to another level. Powell dressed the titular Carol (Cate Blanchett) in looks that reflected the upper-class trends of the time, drawing inspiration from the work of street photographers like Ruth Orkin, Vivian Maier and Saul Leiter.

In this Hitchcock thriller, the eternally dapper Cary Grant stars as Roger Thornhill, an ad man forced to go on the run when foreign spies mistake him for a government agent. As Eve Kendall, the mysterious woman with whom he gets involved, Eva Marie Saint wears a series of elegant looks – all bought directly off the rack at Bergdorf Goodman.

Long before she was being arrested while standing up for her beliefs, Jane Fonda starred as Barbarella, a government agent who travels from planet to planet in go-go boots and metallic bodysuits inspired by the designs of Paco Rabanne. While not entirely practical, the costumes in this sci-fi cult classic hold up as perennial fancy dress outfit inspiration.

Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up is required viewing for anyone obsessed with Swinging London. The film centres around an in-demand fashion photographer whose life changes when he unknowingly photographs a murder (or does he?) in the park. With numerous photo shoots and party scenes, as well as appearances from Jane Birkin and Veruschka, the Palme D’Or winner captures the combination of seediness and glamour the decade is remembered for.

Last Year In Marienbad is today regarded as a master work of French New Wave cinema. A non-linear plot follows a man and a woman who may or may not have met the year before. Director Alain Resnais enlisted Coco Chanel to design the costumes for the female lead, and requested one special dress that would recall the film stars of the 1920s – without looking dated. Chanel obliged, and the little black mousseline dress she designed was so popular that it became known as the “la robe à la Marienbad” (the Marienbad dress).

Mahogany is a rags-to-riches story for the ages. Produced by Motown Records, it stars Diana Ross (fresh off the back of her turn in the Oscar-nominated Lady Sings the Blues) as Tracy Chambers, a struggling design student who becomes a renowned fashion designer. Reflecting the decade’s excess and her real-world superstardom, Ross is a picture of extremes: voluminous hair and mile-long lashes; big feathers and bigger furs.

The 1920s live in the public imagination as a time of unchecked decadence, so Baz Luhrmann was the perfect director to bring The Great Gatsby, one of the decade’s defining novels, to the big screen. To bring his sumptuous vision to life, Luhrmann enlisted Miuccia Prada to collaborate with costume designer Catherine Martin on a whopping 40 costumes. While Prada insisted “it was not about glamour for me”, her designs epitomise opulence.

In 1995, the grunge movement was in full swing, with baggy flannel shirts and baggier jeans dominating the streets. But would the designer label-loving girls in Amy Heckerling’s Clueless wear them? As if! The cast’s elevated school girl look (plaid skirt sets, over-the-knee socks and Mary Janes) went on to become a classic.

Tom Ford’s directorial debut proved that his aesthetic sixth sense applies far beyond the runway. Adapted from the 1964 Christopher Isherwood novel of the same name, A Single Man follows a day in the life of George Falconer, a depressed, gay professor living in Southern California in the 1960s. Everything from Falconer’s perfectly tailored suits to co-star Julianne Moore’s incredible hair and makeup are pitch-perfect for the period.

Before venturing to northern Italy for Call Me By Your Name in 2017, Luca Guadagnino travelled to the Italian island of Pantelleria for 2015’s A Bigger Splash. Tilda Swinton, who stars alongside Ralph Fiennes and Dakota Johnson in the film, wears a number of breezy Dior outfits designed by Raf Simons. But don’t expect anything too deliberate: “In the beginning, we had a colour palette and beautifully controlled costumes, but we decided to throw all of that away and have the pieces look like something thrown into a suitcase,” costume designer Giulia Piersanti told Vogue in 2016.

What the costumes in Larry Clark’s bleak Kids – which tackled serious issues like sex and substance abuse among teenagers – lacked in theatrical flair, they made up for in realism, reflecting what kids were actually wearing during the decade. Many of the looks on screen, from hair barrettes to skatewear to logo tees, have made their way back into wardrobes amid the revival of all things ’90s.

What does the richest woman in the world wear while on the hunt for love? French couture, of course. Or at least that’s the impression given by The Millionairess, in which Sophia Loren wore a wardrobe designed by Pierre Balmain, heavy on figure-enhancing gowns and fantastical hats.