The truth shall set you free

NO ONE HAD BETTER courtroom style than Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss. A couple of months after her splashy arrest, she showed up at her first preliminary hearing in a Norma Kamali dress, and pleaded not guilty to five counts of pandering and one count of cocaine possession. Allegedly borrowed from a pal of Heidi’s named L’Hua Reid, the fit perfectly straddled tailored decorum and slinky provocation. Its taupe suiting weave, lapel collar, and padded shoulders lent more structure than your typical wrap dress. If you caught a glimpse of Fleiss in profile standing at the defense table, you could mistake the frock for matching separates—a smart little blazer and skirt. In the courtroom shots, she’s cut off mid-thigh, so there’s no telling just how short it really is.

The tabloid shots are another story. In the photos snapped as the 5'4" waif ducks reporters as she leaves the courthouse, her attorney Anthony Brooklier could be mistaken for her bodyguard. They both wear heavy sunglasses. Here, Heidi's deep V neckline and abbreviated hem are in full view. You can see in this moment, as she shields herself from the cameras and offgasses an undeniable, raw magnetism, in the wake of being exposed as a power broker, she’s improvising a new kind of celebrity.

Heidi was arrested in June 1993, just thirteen months after the cops that brutally attacked Rodney King were acquitted. “Heidi immediately becomes an LA folk hero,” podcaster Molly Lambert explains in her dedicated series Heidi World, “somebody who serves as a walking middle finger to all the injustices and hypocrisies and abuses of the LAPD.” Heidi’s case appealed to the tabloids, of course, because sex sells, but also because of her Hollywood connections. Heidi hung around entertainment industry types, and the clients who ordered her girls were rumored to be producers, directors, and other power players. None of these men were ever brought to trial, which made the state’s whole tough-on-prostitution stance feel like a farce. Even though she wasn’t previously a public figure, Heidi’s early hearings drew massive media attention. Public opinion was sympathetic to her, for the most part. The case was seen as a distraction, a waste of taxpayer dollars, a media circus spun from a victimless crime.

Court TV had only launched a couple of years before, and suddenly trials were no longer mundane legal proceedings—they were serialized public dramas. The 24/7 news cycle had just taken hold as Heidi’s case unfolded, and her case was one of the infamous legal dramas that defined a new era of round-the-clock media saturation. Between her arrest and first court appearance, the Menendez brothers' trial began. A year later, Nicole Brown Simpson was murdered, and jury selection for the O.J. Simpson trial coincided with the opening day of Fleiss’s in 1995. In this climate, courtroom image took on more strategic importance as legal dramas became a new kind of content. The Menendez brothers wearing glasses in court became one of the most discussed examples of intentional courtroom styling designed to sway public perception. Their defense team allegedly also advised them to wear sweater vests and ill-fitting suits to make them appear meek, remorseful, and non-threatening. By the time Martha Stewart stood trial in 2004 often in pearls and toting her Birkin—or Gwyneth Paltrow testified in that civil suit about a ski accident in 2023 sporting head-to-toe Row—the idea that clothing would be used to influence opinion was no longer subtext, it was presumed. People now tune in to see the looks. The courtroom is not just a stage, but a runway.

Heidi didn’t borrow clothes from her pal L’Hua again. The two women had a falling out when Heidi suspected that her friend had taken a dayplanner from her house and sold it to the tabloids. The gutter press back then was desperate to uncover who was in Heidi’s so-called little black book (which was actually a red Gucci dayplanner). Without L’Hua’s closet to shop from, Heidi borrowed clothes from Dolce & Gabbana for her later court appearances—mostly black and navy two-piece ensembles, at least one with gold buttons. While conventional wisdom would suggest a luxury label avoid associating with someone criminally accused, Heidi was establishing a new kind of cultural cachet, and glamorous provocation is on brand for D&G, after all. Even with the Italian fashion house’s efforts to capitalize on her omnipresent image, my favorite look is the taupe minidress from the first hearing by Norma Kamali.

I’m obsessed with synchronous cinema from the mid-80s to mid-90s where we see the development of these semiotic codes for the courtroom. The creative brief: sexy sophistication, mostly in tan, taupe, and gray. This aesthetic both influenced Heidi and was influenced by her. Images dissolve into the ether that way. The earliest film of my study is Jagged Edge (1985), a neo-noir legal thriller in which Glenn Close plays an attorney who is seduced (and, spoiler alert, eventually double crossed) by her client on trial for murder, a young Jeff Bridges in the role. This film features longer hemlines than what was seen the next decade—but all of the skirt suits read as professional yet snatched, with tailored waists accentuated by '80s power shoulders. Several of Close’s jackets are collarless; all of them are boxy. Still, they aren’t frumpy; rather they walk the line between authority and allure. Her best outfit is a pebbly wool crepe suit in a cognac shade, one of two looks from the film that made it into Art of the Character, an exhibition of Close’s best costumes through the years, organized by a college design school a few years ago.

Heidi didn’t borrow clothes from her pal L’Hua again. The two women had a falling out when Heidi suspected that her friend had taken a dayplanner from her house and sold it to the tabloids. The gutter press back then was desperate to uncover who was in Heidi’s so-called little black book (which was actually a red Gucci dayplanner). Without L’Hua’s closet to shop from, Heidi borrowed clothes from Dolce & Gabbana for her later court appearances—mostly black and navy two-piece ensembles, at least one with gold buttons. While conventional wisdom would suggest a luxury label avoid associating with someone criminally accused, Heidi was establishing a new kind of cultural cachet, and glamorous provocation is on brand for D&G, after all. Even with the Italian fashion house’s efforts to capitalize on her omnipresent image, my favorite look is the taupe minidress from the first hearing by Norma Kamali.

I’m obsessed with synchronous cinema from the mid-80s to mid-90s where we see the development of these semiotic codes for the courtroom. The creative brief: sexy sophistication, mostly in tan, taupe, and gray. This aesthetic both influenced Heidi and was influenced by her. Images dissolve into the ether that way. The earliest film of my study is Jagged Edge (1985), a neo-noir legal thriller in which Glenn Close plays an attorney who is seduced (and, spoiler alert, eventually double crossed) by her client on trial for murder, a young Jeff Bridges in the role. This film features longer hemlines than what was seen the next decade—but all of the skirt suits read as professional yet snatched, with tailored waists accentuated by '80s power shoulders. Several of Close’s jackets are collarless; all of them are boxy. Still, they aren’t frumpy; rather they walk the line between authority and allure. Her best outfit is a pebbly wool crepe suit in a cognac shade, one of two looks from the film that made it into Art of the Character, an exhibition of Close’s best costumes through the years, organized by a college design school a few years ago.

Talking with Variety about the exhibition, Close praised costume designer Ann Roth for making fantastic suits that were “crisp and stylish but not self-conscious.” Roth who’s ninety-three and might still be working (her latest IMDB credit is Barbie) comes from an era where making custom looks was common. The suits Roth made for Close developed a confident and principled defense attorney whose empathy and personal investment are vulnerabilities. She’s capable of calculation it turns out, but the power dressing here mostly emphasizes the strength of her resolve and integrity.

Working chronologically, the next film on my watchlist-turned-moodboard is Final Analysis (1992), sometimes dismissed as a Vertigo dupe, owing to its echoes of dream logic and psychological entrapment. Richard Gere plays a psychiatrist who’s also a courtroom regular, acting in trials as an expert witness. Kim Basinger plays the sister of one of his patients who’s put on trial for her husband’s murder, but not before she starts a passionate affair with Gere’s handsome doctor. Ultimately, he’s a pawn in her classic ruse: kill husband, establish alibi, get rich. And while she’s a trophy wife rather than a career professional, the femme fatale wears tailored businesswear even before she lands accused and in the courtroom. This polished modesty is perhaps a subtle hint that she’s working the doctor in setting up her scheme.

One of her strongest looks in the film, and the one most like Heidi’s, is a light grey skirt suit for the wife’s trial. The way it’s softly structured, padded shoulders adding just enough definition to an almost languid fit, it’s likely it could be Giorgio Armani. Gere sports Armani suits throughout the film. Famously the label dressed him years before for the moody male-escort thriller American Gigolo (1980), and he later wore Armani suits again in the courtroom for the legal drama Primal Fear (1996). Nowhere can I confirm that Armani also dressed his Final Analysis co-star, though Basinger did tell Interview that the house flew her to Milan for their fashion show that same year. There’s also a grey trench coat her character wears that feels like it could be Armani, but her wardrobe shows range. At one point she wears this sculpted black waistcoat and white blouse combo with a very theatrical sleeve that’s particularly reminiscent of an outfit Kris Jenner wore to the OJ Simpson trial a couple years later. Kris Jenner’s courtroom looks from that time tend to favor vintage Alaïa, Chanel, and Versace.

A year later, the erotic thriller Body of Evidence (1993) was highly anticipated as Madonna’s first starring role. In the film, Madonna’s character takes the stand to defend her predilection for kink, while the prosecution accuses her of weaponizing thrill-seeking sex against her older husband. Released the same year as Heidi’s hearing, the film mirrored the taboo-breaking tone of the real-life case, where private bedroom matters suddenly became public record. Strangely, there’s an off-screen connection as well: Heidi’s father was one of the doctors who treated Madonna when she gave birth to her daughter Lourdes a few years later. For Body of Evidence, Madonna’s suits were made by Agnes B and Richard Tyler. Paired with her pencil-thin eyebrows and at times a beret, the look was 1930s-inspired. Madonna took a lot of heat for her acting in the film, but to me, she effectively complicates the femme fatale trope, embodying a bold, assertive woman who challenges societal norms.

The muted, tailored suit of the early to mid '90s reappears in The Client (1994), this time on Susan Sarandon as a morally-driven lawyer. Determined to protect a hard-luck kid who happened to witness a murder, she wears soft ivories, tans, and beiges that work to convey her role as the boy’s protector. At the same time, the understated sexiness of her wardrobe emphasizes that she’s deeply human. Her sensuality and subtle defiance of conservative dress codes suggest a woman bold enough to take emotional and professional risks to stand up for what she believes in. Her wardrobe echoes the sleek tailored suiting of the neo-noir femme fatale, but rather than serving as visual shorthand for a character who wields her sex appeal as a weapon, here style suggests vulnerability paired with resolve, signaling that strength comes not just from authority, but from genuine empathy and courage.

Heidi spent years in court. A second trial— this time for federal tax evasion—didn’t conclude until three years after her initial hearing. This second trial came the same year as Female Perversions (1996), in which Tilda Swinton plays Eve Stephens, a high-strung bisexual lawyer favoring short, nipped-in skirt suits in shades like tan and powder blue. Illustrative of the suit’s evolution through the '90s, these ensembles feature higher lapels and three-button jackets that foreshadow the flimsier minimalism of Miranda Hobbes and Ally McBeal. This styling captures a delightful limbo between the heavy opulence of ‘80s power-dressing and Y2K’s glossy sheen. Tilda looks perfect, especially set against the courtroom’s polished mahogany. This ideal image, however, is fraught.

Wardrobe plays a crucial role in developing Eve as a complex, introspective woman grappling with societal expectations around identity. The film carries the psychosexual in- tensity of a noir thriller but lacks a traditional conspiracy plot. Instead the central drama of Female Perversions revolves around the relationship between Eve and her sister. They are polar opposites. Eve is a hotshot lawyer fixated on control, and full of anxious sexual bravado. Her sister, played by Amy Madigan, lives a freer, more bohemian life, doing a PhD and living in the desert with roommates. She lands in trouble for shoplifting, however, and needs her sister’s legal help. When we get a glimpse of how the sisters’ cold withholding father fucked them both up, Eve’s shopping habit and impeccable style are revealed as more dysfunctional than we first imagined. She’s obsessed with next season’s lipstick as a way to prove her worth, which is fragile. Uniquely, the film is not adapted from a novel but from a theoretical study, Female Perversions: The Temptations of Emma Bovary (1991) by psycho-analyst and feminist scholar Louise J. Kaplan. Its styling reflects that intellectual lineage. This is a postmodern film that doesn’t just deploy the femme fatale archetype—it interrogates it, showing noir style as a complicated means of seizing power in a world that hates women.

Image is volatile. The attention it attracts can spiral out of control. The lesson of Marilyn Monroe and Britney Spears is that we build stars up to tear them down, we want an image as a sacrifice. The courtroom is a modern coli- seum where self-fashioning can become spectacle, which is its own punishment. In the end Heidi’s pandering conviction was overturned and then the feds nailed her for tax evasion. She was sentenced to seven years but only served 20 months. I’ve never been able to find her Norma Kamali dress anywhere, on anyone else—not in archival marketing and definitely not for sale on the secondary market. If I could, I wonder if I would be able to afford it. ♥

Model ABBY CHAMPION at FORD MODELS
Extras JOSEPH BIRD, PHILIPPE CALVAYRACH, LUKE BESSETTE, CHRISTOPHE GALLO, DIMITRI LANCTUIT, ALEJANDRO at WAW, MELISSA BALTHARD, LILITH PRINS, RAMATA FALL, and FIONA at WAW
Hair LAURENT PHILIPPON at BRYANT ARTISTS
Makeup ADRIEN PINAULT at MA+GROUP
Set Design AFRA ZAMARA at SECOND NAME
Movement Direction MALIK LENOST at THEM PRESENTS
Assistant Direction JOSEPHINE TAPIRO and THIBAULT SERVIERE
Light Technician BARNEY COUCH
Photography Assistants ROMAIN JOUVIE and CAMILLE CHAUDON
Fashion Assistants SHAOUL AVITAL, MARIE SOARES, and CARLOTA VIVES GINÉS
Hair Assistants VINCENT ZIMBERLIN, YURI KATO, and MAYNA SISSOKO
Makeup Assistants FAY BIO-TOURA, ANTHONY MORINEAU, and ZOË DERKS
Set Design Assistants LAURA AZZARELLO and ALICE JADERSTEN
Casting for Extras GOOD CATCH
Production ICONOCLAST IMAGE
Post-production VINCENT LE CHAPELAIN