When it comes to the fashion industry, it seems the strongest trend for spring/summer 09 is to star in your very own film. Fashion fans are clamouring to get their tickets to the new releases that shed light on, expose and ridicule the fashion world.

French actress Audrey Tautou stars as Coco Chanel in Coco Avant Chanel, a film depicting the legendary designer’s journey from her poverty-stricken childhood to head of one of the biggest fashion empires in the world. Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, the second Chanel biopic to be released at the end of this month focuses on the love affair between (you’ve guessed it) composer Stravinsky and Chanel. Both films are sure to provide fashion lovers with a copious amount of black, white, pearls and lashings of red lipstick.

The summer will also see the release of two, much hyped, feature-length documentaries. Fearsome American Vogue editor Anna Wintour, said to be the inspiration for Meryl Streeps’s character in The Devil Wears Prada, gave director R J Cutler unprecedented access to her life for the filming of The September Issue. The film chronicles Wintour’s preparations for the 2007 autumn issue of the magazine, which weighed 5lbs and was the largest issue of Vogue ever published.

Picture Me is a less glamorous presentation of the fashion world and in particular the modelling industry. In their documentary, ex-model Sara Ziff and co-director ex-boyfriend Ole Schell expose stories of sexual assault and 14-year-old models pressured to lose weight. Then, for a more light-hearted critique of the fashion industry, Bruno!, Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest film, follows a flamboyant Austrian designer on his adventures around America. The film is bound to provoke debate and could be just as controversial as Borat.

While the trend for films about the fashion industry is relatively new, that doesn't mean that designers and fashionistas have been starved of cinematic inspiration. Countless designers, photographers and people on the street have used film characters as a reference when creating looks. Below are the top 10 taste-making films - note the absence of Bruno.

1. Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Blake Edward’s, 1961.

That black dress, those long black gloves, that cigarette holder and that up-do. Very few images in film history have been so influential. It cemented the little black dress (or LBD) as a fashion classic, never to die.

2. Rebel Without a Cause, Nicholas Ray, 1955.

This was the film where James Dean established the ultimate image of 50s cool and even if the slicked back hair has gone, that walk is still sported by the young, and tough, of today.

3. The Devil Wears Prada, David Frankel, 2006.

The best film for fashion inspiration, it leaves you feeling like you’ve just flicked through a very long edition of Vogue, with Anne Hathaway’s endless sequence of beautiful outfits.

4. A Bout De Souffle (Breathless), Jean-Luc Godard, 1960.

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