[Image taken from Pembrokeshire Virtual Museum website].1. Charlie Chaplin films - if you want to talk about cultivating a look, then this is the man to start with. Chaplin's 'Tramp' figure evokes the style of the time whilst also exaggerating it, and later created accidental parallels when his short, sharp moustache look was sadly stolen by Hitler (though this led to Chaplin's hilarious anti-Nazi film, The Great Dictator). Also, Charlie Chaplin is the reason I own a bowler hat, although mine is blue rather than black.
2. Atonement - that green dress. Keira Knightley gets to snog James McAvoy whilst wearing a gorgeous backless dress which can only be described as the colour of freshly cut grass, as tame as that sounds. There are, of course, other people wearing clothes in this film, but you won't really notice them.
3. Vintage Photographs - I tend to pick these up in Brighton, and there's nothing like looking at the past to see how it's done (as my previous two visual references state). Soft lighting or harsh contrast, contours and shapes, blurs and patterns; they can all be found within photographs, whether in colour or monochrome. The design of someone's wallpaper can give you an idea for a motif, or the cut of someone's fancy dress costume can make you think differently about how to wear an item. Besides this, they look amazing in mood boards!
