Chanel and Gossip Girl, Gucci and Lady Gaga: the relationship between fashion and television

Nothing But Thirty and Hermès; Sex and the City and Fendi; Emily in Paris and Marc Jacobs; Gossip Girl and Chanel.

It’s hardly a stretch to say there is somewhat of an incestuous relationship between fashion and television – but which serves which and are they in it solely for the purposes of advertising?

Market research shows, for instance, that the daring balconette necklines seen on the women in Netflix’s period drama Bridgerton pumped up sales figures for brands with such a design.

The black and white, check-pattered Nikki coat by fashion label Stand Studio became a hot item last year thanks to the popularity of Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit. On the big screen, the upcoming film House of Gucci starring Lady Gaga may well inflate prices of the luxury brand’s leather goods – and the knock-on effect is certain to benefit those making knock-offs, too.

Having a celebrity as a brand ambassador – look at Gossip Girl’s Blake Lively for Karl Lagerfeld and the 2021 revival’s Whitney Peak for Chanel – doesn’t really damage a house’s profile, but if fashion on television is represented by little more than overpriced clothes and bags, then it can occupy only a narrow world. Does it lend itself to anything else?

Yes – fashion and true crime meet in Netflix series The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, which stars Édgar Ramirez. The sumptuous and the seedy prove inseparable from Versace’s originality in design and empire building – right up to the point where his murderer strikes.

Seemingly on a quest to eclipse even Versace’s palette are Bob the Drag Queen, Eureka O’Hara and Shangela Laquifa Wadley, stars of US streaming service HBO Go’s We’re Here.

The three ex-RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants travel across small-town America preaching a gospel of tolerance, LGBT empowerment and outrageous fashion – even in the country’s conservative Bible Belt region. Each visit culminates in an extravagant drag show featuring the ostracised, who – for once – are cheered, not jeered.

Fashion serves a different purpose in Styling Hollywood, a Netflix reality show – with suspiciously well-positioned “spontaneous” bust-ups – examining the high-pressure business of dressing celebrities for the Oscars, Emmys and more (as well as giving their houses makeovers).

JSN Studio in Los Angeles is the centre of the action; Serena Williams, Ava DuVernay and Yara Shahidi are among the famous faces; brand after brand supply the expensive threads.

Cooking aside, nothing lends itself to competition-reality television quite like fashion, like in season two of Making the Cut (Amazon Prime), where having model and presenter Heidi Klum highlight your talents gives you automatic kudos even before you’ve stitched a seam.

At least, that must be the hope of the international cast of designers appearing in the show, where even those kicked out of the competition early can enjoy the delights of Los Angeles’s Malibu, where the show is set, for a while.

But never mind the business side of things – fashion is also inextricably linked to sentimentality, highlighted by Netflix documentary series Worn Stories. Uniforms, leggings, hoodies, footwear: all feature in the contributor accounts of significant clothing items.

The most powerful revelation? That nothing beats a codpiece given to you by none other than … Tina Turner.