Give in to gorgeous green this St. Patrick’s Day

From Atonement to Twilight, the best green film fashions.

Green doesn’t often get much of a look-in when it comes to big screen fashions. Black is boss, the LBD the signature style of many celebrated fashionistas (perhaps most famously Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s), while passionate scarlet, dazzling metallics and moody blues have also proved popular. But green? Not so much.

Admittedly, it can be a tricky colour to work into your wardrobe, clashing as it does with some other shades and presenting possible colour combination problems (red + green = Christmas, brown + green = tree). Play it too khaki and you look like an Army reject, too dark and it’s overtly masculine and too bright and you’re a lime on legs. Certainly, it’s not without its concerns, but give it room to bloom, select the right shade for your hair and skin tone (it works fantastically with fair-skinned redheads) and green is a stunning shade that is sure to sizzle.

And while it’s stood in the style shadows, playing second fiddle to its colourful cousins, there have been some truly memorable green items over the years. Period dramas have been long-time fans of the shade, possibly because it lends itself so well to the rich and luxurious fabrics of yesteryear and maybe because it looks so effortlessly regal and grand. Its royal elegance was showcased by Emily Blunt in The Young Victoria, Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn in The Other Boleyn Girl and Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, while Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara wore a number of memorable green outfits in Gone With the Wind (the white and green barbecue dress, the Jacquard dinner dress and the one fashioned from drapes).

Arguably the most famous of these gorgeous green period gowns is the one worn by Keira Knightley as the aristocratic Cecilia in Atonement. In the 2007 drama, Keira is gifted a wardrobe of sophisticated 1930s era clothes to swan about in wistfully, but it’s the floor-length, emerald green gown that had everyone talking on the film’s release. They saw it, loved it and had to have it. It prompted the swift manufacture of countless replicas (of which we’ve found one, see right), was crowned the best film costume ever in a survey by Sky Movies and InStyle magazine and sold for thousands at auction.

Of course, you could argue that any frock’s going to look pretty chic on the ever-elegant Keira and you’d have a point. Yet this one was special. It was green, a very deliberate move by the movie’s Brit director, Joe Wright as its BAFTA-winning costume designer, Jacqueline Durran remembers. “Joe said he wanted a green dress,” she recalls. “Green is a very symbolic colour, but I never wanted to pin down exactly what green meant to him. It’s an open-ended symbol that means many things to many people. I think of green as temptation but that’s just me.”

And the dress certainly is that. But green isn’t just for historic flashbacks, it’s popped up in the future thanks to space sex kitten, Barbarella (Jane Fonda) who rocked a green mini-dress and matching boots in the 40th Century saga and has been earning a more modern following thanks to Twilight heroine, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart). Reflecting her very natural, girl-next-door small-town charm, Bella has often worn green in the Stephenie Meyer adaptations (we particularly love her Splendid thermal hoodie), her bloodsucking nemesis, Victoria (Rachelle LeFevre) also getting in on the green with the ‘Kiss Me I’m Irish’ T-shirt she steals from one of her unlucky victims in the first instalment.

Further proving the possibilities of the colour, more sophisticated city style mavens have also gone green in recent years. It was dominant in the onscreen wardrobe of Anne Hathaway in rom-com Bride Wars, her emerald trench from Vera Wang’s Lavender Label a real stand-out and it even earned a name check in Confessions of a Shopaholic when Becky Bloomwood (Isla Fisher) assumes the literary pen name, ‘The Girl in the Green Scarf’.

With so many gorgeous examples of how to wear the look, it’s a shame that it’s not more popular and prominent yet there’s one day of the year when it climbs to the top of the fashion pile – St Patrick’s Day. Yes, this 24-hour period honours the famous Saint known for his missionary work in Ireland and has, by extension, become a celebration of all things Irish and green in colour. So dump the LBD, ditch the denim and banish the black as today is your excuse to go green and we’ve got just the cinematic stunners to achieve the look.