Is the Film Unfaithful the Key to Sensual Dressing?

How simple wardrobe pieces can become the most erotic of them all.

Unfaithful (2002) is in my top 13 favorite movies. It brilliantly shows the fantasy playground of an early millennium New York City and the clothes that were made to live in it. Unfaithful falls into what I like to term “Everyday Aspirational” dressing. Here, I explore how the simple clothes of Connie Sumner transform into an erotic wardrobe. I also spoke a bit with the film’s costume designer Ellen Mirojnick who blew my mind.

I have been on a relentless mission to find a specific shirt from the film Unfaithful (2002). It’s a black long sleeve top with a wide scoop neck, which is relatively basic in its silhouette and shape. Yet, there is something alluring about how the classic piece louchely sits on Connie Sumner (Diane Lane) as she cheats on her nice Westchester husband Ed (Richard Gere) with gorgeous Frenchman Paul Martel (Olivier Martinez) in a SoHo café. We see a culmination of emotions erupt through Connie’s shirt as her paramour slips his hand into the back of her jeans. The shirt doesn’t reveal anything overtly sexual but its modest neckline seems to dip with each of Connie’s both bashful and insatiable squirms. There’s a bit more shoulder than we should see and a flicker of a bra strap. The shirt seems to move not on her, but with her. This is perhaps the most seductive look from a film that is known for being packed with sex scenes and crumpled panties. And yet, the shirt is so ordinary; boring, if you will. So, how is that so much sensuality is packed into a cotton long sleeve presumably plucked from a department store discount rack? 

For background, Unfaithful zeroes in on Connie, a mother of one who is happily married to Ed. One afternoon when Connie is running errands in New York City, she is suddenly blinded by a windstorm on a SoHo street. In her teetering black pumps, she tumbles into French antique book dealer Paul. Of course, she conveniently falls on top of him, and that is that. Things get hairy; people cheat; someone gets murdered. It’s a steamy, tantalizing sex-fantasy thriller by director Adrian Lyne, who was responsible for an array of tense erotic films, including 9 ½ Weeks (1986) and Fatal Attraction (1987). 

The costume designer of Unfaithful is Ellen Mirojnick. She’s also worked on Lyne’s Fatal Attraction, the Instagram-beloved A Perfect Murder (1999) with Gwyneth Paltrow, and most recently Oppenheimer (2023). Mirojnick’s costuming style hinges on eagle-eye subtleties that reflect lifestyle and unearth emotion. The looks themselves are never fashion but