When was the last time you were on your feet for five hours, in heels, and didn't notice your toes go numb? That was me, when I went to the press preview of Hollywood Costume at the V&A. For once the word "awesome" is fully justified – more than 130 instantly recognisable costumes from over a century of cinema and so cleverly put together that by the time you emerge you feel as though you've just staggered out of the biggest and best Oscars party ever.
I was chuffed to little mint balls to be within stroking distance of Scarlett O'Hara's green velvet gown, Holly Golightly's little black Givenchy number and Marlene Dietrich's foxy top-hat-and-tails combo. The exhibition is packed with iconic pieces of cinematic history, such as Marilyn Monroe's white chiffon dress from The Seven Year Itch, and Chaplin's Little Tramp outfit. It's not just screen stars of yesterday; modern pieces synonymous with the character they were designed for are everywhere, including Daniel Craig's Brioni-tailored dinner-jacket from Casino Royale, Will Smith's flight suit from Independence Day and Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones kit. It's a show-stopper of an exhibition and it gets even better as you walk through it.
The flat screens in the second of the three exhibition rooms involve you in the nuts and bolts of the design process. You can stand face to face with Meryl Streep or De Niro while they explain the crucial part that costume plays in helping them to piece together the complexities of Karen Blixen or Rupert Pupkin. The screens are arranged in the centre of the room so you can eavesdrop on Martin Scorsese discussing Bill "The Butcher" Cutting (Gangs of New York) with designer Sandy Powell. Or Tim Burton explaining his ideas for Sweeney Todd, over a table piled high with digital sketches and wriggling cockroaches. It is, all of it, complete absorbing.
One thing I kept hearing is that costume design is different to fashion. Everyone involved in the five-year process of putting together the exhibition was at great pains to make sure we understood that. In the book that accompanies the exhibition, the difference is better explained by referring to the former as a creative art and the latter as a creative industry. That's quite a slim distinction, but I do see what they mean.
On the other hand it seems to me that costume design has everything to do with personal style. The way in which we, as consumers of both kinds of creativity, interpret what makes its way off the catwalks and into the shops is very often influenced by what we're currently enjoying on the big screen. Personal style says a great deal about the person inside the clothes in the same way any costume designer worth their salt gets under the skin and inside the head of the character they are working on.
Taking this a step further, I realise that when I was younger I dressed according to whatever character I had in my head at the time – there was an Annie Hall phase, the Grease episode, a few months where I was unaccountably not starring in Flashdance and more than a hint of (a diminutive) Morticia Addams here and there throughout the early 90s. I love cinema and the films I love have clearly influenced my sense of personal style far more than I realised. I think it's a shame that the sense of fun and fantasy I used to associate with fashion seems to seep slowly away with each passing birthday. It's partly the fault of the industry and the media for turning the whole business into a projection of the cult of youth – but it's also down to us to show that we can still rock it up if we feel like it. I may not ever want to dress like Iris Apfel but no one can say she doesn't have a strong sense of personal style, or that she doesn't have fun with it.
I'd quite like my personal style to include the Harry Winston necklace worn by Kate Hudson in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days but, honestly, where's a girl to wear a yellow sapphire the size of a hen's egg? And by the way, wasn't Bette Davis tiny?
• The Hollywood Costume exhibition is at the V&A until 27 January 2013
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