Sangfroid in Style

“She was worth a stare. She was trouble,” muses Humphrey Bogart’s Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep, capturing perfectly the irresistible allure of the film noir siren—that strong, imperturbable, devastatingly attractive woman whose acerbic tongue is matched by the boldness of her wardrobe and the daring of her nefarious schemes. Today, Hollywood appears tragically bereft of noir classics such as Suspicion and Notorious, but the femme fatale continues to haunt our collective consciousness, her sartorial trademarks repeatedly inspiring fashion designers (witness John Galliano’s noir-themed spring 2010 collection for Dior). Cameron Silver, owner of legendary Los Angeles antique couture boutique Decades, and the man almost solely responsible for making haute vintage ubiquitous on the red carpet, here lays out the wardrobe essentials for a modern-day seductress, rendered in watercolor by New York-based fashion illustrator Blue Logan.