1981: Kim Basinger and Jan-Michael Vincent
The red hat is not the only headgear Kim Basinger has worn on film. Here, she has thoughtfully coordinated her Stetson to Jan-Michael's outfit.
Kim Basinger
I don't have a date on this photo, so I'm just tossing it in here randomly. It was a real surprise to me -- in the sense that, stick with me here, she's KIND OF working an Camilla Parker-Bowles aethetic? More come hither than she was, perhaps, but... it's in the hair, and the scarf. It IS. IT IS.
Never Say Never Again - 1983
I forgot she was in a Bond movie, and that she had to wear terrible sleeves in it.
Never Say Never Again - 1983
Apparently this phone psychically predicted the shape of iPhones, if not precisely the size.
Never Say Never Again - 1983
I MUST have seen this one, but I have no memory of it at all. I hope she emerged from the water in this outfit, bone-dry.
The Natural, 1984
She is also making a perfunctory head scarf look fetching.
My Stepmother Is An Alien - 1988
Iconic. Sincerely. She had to act through this hat.
My Stepmother Is An Alien - 1988
Yes, friends, that IS Alyson Hannigan grimacing up at her father Dan Aykroyd. She is correct to be scowling at him and not at Kim's outfit, because Kim at least went to the effort of acquiring gloves and a belt that were photonegatives of each other.
1989
Kim here is with her father, and I assume he's thinking the same thing I am, which is: "WHAT HAPPENED TO CLOTHES? I don't understand kids today. Can someone loan her a sportcoat?"
1009
Kim brought her brother to the Oscars, where she was a presenter (and smacked down the Academy while doing it for not nominating Do The Right Thing) in THIS dress that has apparently slid right out of the hourglass of my memory. The glove says LOVE, and the sleeve says something else entirely -- it looked like either pi, or a musical note, and then some numbers? She evidently designed it herself AND was dating Prince at the time, the latter detail perhaps making sense of... well, all of this, honestly. Otherwise, I can't figure out why she wanted to look like Bride of Drum Major.
Just in case you doubted the messaging.
1990
This is surprisingly avant garde for 1990.
1990
The VMAs are not the Sandy From Grease Awards, Kim.
1991
She looks like Vanna White here. Honestly, I might have GUESSED it was Vanna White, and wondered to myself when exactly Vanna let Alec Baldwin buy a vowel.
1992
Here, she's at a rally for Jerry Brown's 1992 presidential campaign, and it appears she was... singing? Or yelling into a microphone. Both are plausible. Her suit seems to be made of Beanie Babies.
1993
Is this... First Lady cosplay?
1993
And is THIS her version of Diane Keaton?
1994
I had no idea these two were so into matching suits.
The Getaway - 1994
It's a real trick to have a collar without a proper shirt.
1996
Okay and I'd have sworn THAT was Annette Bening. Kim Basinger truly was an accidental chameleon.
1997
I mean, did we know she ALSO once looked like Michelle Williams?!?
L.A. Confidential - 1997
Now THIS is iconic. She looks divine in that.
1998
Rare is a cardigan at an awards show.
1998
I forgot she and Gloria Stuart tied, so thank goodness for this giant piece of paper that says TIE. (No disrespect to Gloria Stuart, but it's insane to me that she got nominated, much less won something, for that part in Titanic. I have an absurd amount of affection for that movie but her parts are not good.)
1998
This is reaching for a Classic Hollywood look, which is apt for winning the Oscar for LA Confidential, but that mint color is a tough sell on almost anyone.
1999
This top needed a total different execution.
1999
THIS didn't fit either. Kim's tailor must have been on a very long cruise.
2002
... WAIT, suddenly I'm getting Avril Lavigne vibes. That is not a sentence I expected to type.
2004
Good lord, her face. She's exquisite.
2006
I quite like this, actually, but I think one half of it needed color. There needed to be a splash of SOMETHING, and for all the echoes of Sharon Stone it would have brought up, I'd have done it with the skirt.
2013 in Ralph Lauren
She stepped pretty far out of the limelight for a number of years, but this was one HELL of a re-entry. This is SO slick and cool.
2016
I figured this was a nice note on which to end. Kim! Come on out again and slip into some suits! There are SO MANY more now than there were even in 2016. Put 'em on your birthday list.