Alain Delon, Godfather of the Belted Trench

Alain Delon, the French film star who died on Sunday at 88, was not big on smiling.

He smiles little in “Le Cercle Rouge,” the 1970 caper in which he plays the mastermind of a jewel heist.

He smiles little in “La Piscine,” the sexy 1969 thriller in which he plays the boyfriend of a woman whose friendship with an older man drives him to madness.

And he smiles little in “Le Samouraï,” the luscious 1967 noir that cemented his status as a titan of French cinema and arguably does as much to glorify fashion as it does a life of crime.

That one opens with a shot of Mr. Delon, as a hit man named Jef Costello, lying fully dressed on his bed, staring at the ceiling as he smokes a cigarette.

The room is dim and bare. The suit he wears is a beautiful cadet gray. The double-breasted trench coat he puts on before exiting onto the street — well, that quickly becomes its own character.

We see Jef step into a car, which is not his car. We know this in part because he carries a bracelet of keys with which to boost it. The shot of him reaching for the correct one serves as an opportunity to show off the thin leather strap of his Baume & Mercier watch.

It quickly emerges that he has been hired to whack a nightclub owner. Jef does not know why, does not even know who has hired him for the job, but he does not care. He is being paid $2 million francs, and that’s what matters.

In the club, Jef passes a beautiful female piano player, who is played by the model and actress Cathy Rosier. After he completes his task, the police are looking for a man in a tan belted trench. From a bridge Jef tosses his pistol into the Seine — but does not get rid of the coat.

Remember how in “Thelma & Louise,” the fate of the protagonists might have been different had they only ditched Louise’s blue Ford Thunderbird and gone with a car whose license plate number is unknown to the police?

It’s a little like that.

Also, “Le Samouraï” was made in a nation where fashion is the national pastime.

There’s an expression the French use when the heels are too high or the couture gowns too constricting: “Il faut souffrir pour être belle.”

One must suffer to be beautiful.

And so must Jef, for keeping the coat.

The police find it — and him — at an illegal card game. Eventually, he must face the music.

But not yet.

Not as Jef stands in the police station along with a slew of other potential suspects, all of whom are far less pretty than he, and all of whom wear trench coats that do not look nearly so good as the one he has on.

Jean-Pierre Melville, the new wave auteur who directed “Le Samouraï,” has turned a police lineup into a fashion show. The witnesses, seated front row, serve as a kind of board of judges.

The piano player is among them. She is dressed to impress in a trench coat of her own. It’s leopard print. She plainly knows the killer is Jef but cannot bring herself to turn him in.

To do so would be a crime against fashion.