When you think of famed costume designers for film you perhaps think of Golden Age elegance of Adrian Adolph Greenberg, the gowns of Edith Head, and the punky silhouettes of Sandy Powell. None of the films on this list had the honour of having any of these people associated with them, but maybe that’s a good thing.

Horror and B-movies often get a bad rap for being cheaply made, badly acted, and just a bit odd, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t often have iconic fashion moments. In fact, for some of these films, the wardrobe is truly the only redeeming feature. So let’s look at some films through a new lens, through the beady eye of fashion forwardness.

If it were possible to designate one film as the Citizen Kane of exploitation films, Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! would probably take the title. The story of three go-go dancers who go on a murderous rampage through the Californian desert, the budget was so non-existent that Meyer couldn’t even afford to film it in colour. That being said, its shoddiness became the reason for its enduring legacy. And, well, the outfits definitely helped too.

Throughout the film, the three go-go dancers — Billie, Rosie and Varla — played by Lori Williams, Haji, and Tura Satana respectively, wear über-60s looks that are all thigh-high boots and plunging necklines. In particular, Tura Satana’s whole look with her jet-black hair, overdrawn eyebrows and skin-tight wardrobe that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination is a standout fashion moment in 60s cinema.

Whilst Pink Flamingos arguably has more of Divine’s iconic and influential outfits (the red fishtail dress, for example), Female Trouble has a greater variety of looks throughout.

The costumes in Female Trouble tell a story. Think of when we first meet Divine’s Dawn Davenport and she’s just another young delinquent in her schoolgirl garb and beehive hair-do. As Dawn falls further off the rails, her outfits become more scandalous, such as with the sheer orange dress that she pairs with some truly insane Sharpie eyebrows. It all climaxes when, after getting acid thrown in her face, Dawn wears an iconic asymmetrical blue-and-silver leopard print dress. Never have facial disfigurements looked chicer!

But Dawn has tough competition in the outfit department with Edith Massey’s Aunt Ida. Her outfit, a skin-tight body suit with corset-like lacing, stretches and bulges in all the right places. Matched with her overly-rouged cheeks and a shock of peroxide hair, Aunt Ida isn’t only the film’s comic heart, but its sartorial one too.

A “terrifying tale of sluts and bolts” from Frank Henenlotter, the auteur behind the 80s horror classics Basket Case and Brain Damage, Frankenhooker is genuinely one of the better adaptations of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel. Who knew that transporting the book’s 18th century setting to 1980s New Jersey, getting Penthouse superstar Patty Mullen to play the monster, and including a scene where people literally blow up because they smoke explosive super crack could work so well?

Mullen gives a masterclass in B-movie acting as Frankenhooker herself, mincing about in her purple wig and matching purple bra and skirt. We’ve always enjoyed the fact that she carries around a little purse, too. What does she carry in it? Super crack, more than likely.

The Town That Dreaded Sundown has always been a strange one. Filmed in a documentary style, complete with voiceover, it documents the real-life murders of the Phantom Killer, a masked murderer who haunted the town of Texarkana, Texas in the 1940s. Its tone is often off, with several comic scenes being included for some reason, as well as a now-infamous scene where the Phantom Killer murders someone with a knife taped onto the end of a trombone (We wish we were making this up).

And whilst it may not be your first choice for an iconic fashion film, just look at the Phantom Killer himself. Several decades before Martin Margiela sent his models down the runway with their heads wrapped in cloth, the Phantom Killer was doing it in rural Texas. Talk about fashion forward!

Even the most dedicated horror aficionados may scratch their head at this title, but will likely know John Llewellyn Moxey’s name from his far more famous features The City of the Dead (1960) and The Night Stalker (1972). The House That Would Not Die was a TV movie that premiered on ABC’s Movie of the Week in 1970 and starred the one-and-only Barbara Stanwyck.

Stanwyck’s credit is genuinely the only reason why anybody should watch The House That Would Not Die. It is not a good film. But for reasons that can only be put down to “because she’s Barbara Stanwyck”, Stanwyck’s wardrobe throughout is absolutely insane. Oftentimes she’ll enter a scene wearing an outfit that looks like it cost more than the entire production. Pearls, brooches, silk pyjamas, Chanel bags. For this TV movie, the outfits were undoubtedly model’s own.

Come on, of course Suspiria was going to make an appearance on this list. Dario Argento’s most famous film has been the inspiration for countless collections, most notably Louis Vuitton womenswear SS15 and Thomas Tait FW15 (we’re not sure what exactly was in the air in 2015).

The outfits themselves in Suspiria have rarely been the inspiration, the film actually has a pretty standard wardrobe of ballet slips and very 70s silhouettes, but it’s in the film’s colour palette that many have found inspiration. The shocking blood reds, the neon blues and greens, the garish pinks and purples. The whole thing is so visually arresting that it’s hard to watch it and not be inspired to go wild.

A true oddity of a film. Faye Dunaway plays a fashion photographer who begins suddenly having visions from the perspective of a murderer stalking New York. The script, however, is by John Carpenter and some have called it his attempt at making a giallo-like film for a mass, American audience. It sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, but that isn’t the reason why Eyes of Laura Mars is on this list.

To give veracity to Faye Dunaway’s role as a fashion photographer, the producer Jon Peters asked none other than Helmut Newton to provide the images that stand in for Dunaway’s works in the film. There are also numerous fashion shoot scenes that are all the brainchild of Newton and are so unmistakably done in his style. On top of this, the real-life 70s supermodels Lisa Taylor and Darlanne Fluegel appear in supporting roles.

It would be simply impossible to make a list like this without including the fashion icon to end all fashion icons — Freddy Krueger. One of the few men who can genuinely make a fedora work, Freddy’s outfit is perhaps the most famous of all the horror franchise villains. With its rips and frayed edges, his trademark green-and-red striped jumper is undeniably Galliano, whilst his heavy work boots give a utilitarian feel to the ensemble. In his simple preference for a jumper, plain trousers, boots and light accessorising (the bladed glove is so Roseberry’s Schiaparelli), Freddy really is the epitome of quiet luxury.