Shooting and shopping: Suiting Grant and dressing Saint

By investigating the fashion aspects of Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959), this article argues for a heightened level of analytical attention to the many meanings of costume choices in the overall design of films. The text focuses on Cary Grant’s elegant, but famously manhandled suit as the film progresses, and how to understand its function and provenance in the grander scheme of ‘things’ in the film. In addition, Helen Rose’s discarded costume suggestions for Eva Marie Saint’s character are discussed – and how Hitchcock personally took on the role as personal shopper for Eve Kendall, Saint’s role. Further, the article highlights the collaborative nature of the film’s production and its pivotal ideas rather than argue for auteurist absolutism and a Hitchcock-alone approach to the film’s meaning. Ernest Lehman famously described his work on North by Northwest as an attempt to script ‘the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures’.