In the 1950's, Orry-Kelly was something of a media darling, a Richard Wilkins type who was famed not so much for what he did, but who he'd met.

Possibly the most famous Australian you've never heard of, it was only last year that his fame was trumped when Catherine Martin won her fourth Academy Award for The Great Gatsby. Until then, Kelly stood as the Australian who'd won more Oscars than anyone else. When he returned to the 'old country' to visit his Mum, everyone wanted a piece of Kelly, and a taste of the tinsel dust that came with him.

A camp kid from Kiama, he sought a future in New York before moving to Hollywood with his close friend Archie Leach (the aspiring actor who subsequently changed his name to Cary Grant). Good at his job, he soon became a fixture at Warner Bros. Studios and their designer of choice. He was costumer, colleague and confident to hundreds of stars; Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Rosalind Russell, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe among many. His work became the stuff of legend with The Academy bestowing three wins from four nominations. Women He's Undressed is the fascinating story of Orry-Kelly.

Gillian Armstrong (My Brilliant Career, Little Women) regrouped the team who created the equally engaging Unfolding Florence: The Many Lives Of Florence Broadhurst to create this finely-crafted documentary that seeks to bring Kelly back into the light. Amassing a significant number of captivating interviewees, Jane Fonda, Angela Lansbury and über-critic Leonard Maltin among them, she builds a dynamic account that charts the rise and fall and rise of this visionary designer.

No fan of conventional re-enactment, Anderson has Kerry (played by Darren Gilshenan) narrate his own memoir from inside a stage-bound dinghy, while his mother presents letters from Hollywood in front of a washing line in Kiama. They're both cut between talking heads and film clips to create a pastiche that's part doco, part scrap-book. It's an interesting approach but one entirely dependent on your taste for a technique heavy on style, heavy on motif. It either hooks you in, or leaves you stranded on shore.

Accordingly, there's something quite challenging about Women He's Undressed that speaks to the man himself. Here was a man who did things his way, in a time and a place that didn't much care for his sort (unless they made their masters a motza). Orry-Kelly did, and was allowed to flourish. Generations of women owe their wardrobes to his keen styling, mimicked by department stores the world over.

Treat yourself, and discover the most famous Australian you've never heard of.

// COLIN FRASER

Previewed at Event Cinemas, George St, Sydney, on 11 June 2015