Penny Lane Costumes In Almost Famous Are Still Iconic

The fabric also inspired the ‘60s shift dress that Penny Lane wears in New York, a look that Heimann designed after seeing a picture of Pattie Boyd. “I just wanted Russell to be able to see her in a crowd,” she says. “It was made from vintage embroidered China silk that I found in my travels… It was just a little bit of what was left of a vintage kimono, and I just took it into my head cutter, Leslie [Miller], and I said, ‘I really want this dress.’ And, again, I think that dress was really short [laughs] because we didn’t have enough fabric.” But, in this case, that worked in Heimann’s favour since it meant Penny’s custom embroidered boots were shown off to great advantage. “I knew from the script that she was going to fall back on the sofa and her legs would be all you could see as they came up. So I said, ‘Alright, then it’s going to be something about the boots,’” she says. “The dress was short, so it was crying for some high boots.”