During the twentieth century, the white shirt moved increasingly freely between masculine and feminine codes.

Katharine Hepburn was among the women who challenged the conventions of dress by adopting shirts, trousers and tailoring from the male wardrobe. What had belonged to an established masculine code became part of a new image of women.

Audrey Hepburn shifted the object again. In Roman Holiday (1953), a simple shirt with rolled sleeves became part of an informal, modern silhouette. Off screen, oversized men's shirts were also part of her wardrobe. The form was familiar, but the way it was worn had changed.

Cinema made these shifts visible to millions of people. In Annie Hall (1977), Diane Keaton combined the white button-down with waistcoats, ties and loose trousers. Much of the character's wardrobe grew from Keaton's own way of dressing, turning elements of menswear into a highly individual visual identity.

The white shirt continued to acquire new meanings on screen. In Pretty Woman (1990), an oversized men's shirt changed through scale, intimacy and context. In Pulp Fiction (1994), costume designer Betsy Heimann altered the proportions of Mia Wallace's white shirt — enlarging the collar and cuffs and adapting its fit to Uma Thurman. A familiar garment became inseparable from a new character and image.

The object remained immediately recognisable. What changed was the body, the proportion, the way it was worn and the context around it.

This is what makes the white shirt interesting to me. It already carries meanings accumulated over centuries, yet none of them is permanent. Change the body, the proportion, the detail or the context, and we begin to read the same familiar object differently.