With their glittering gowns, Vidal Sassoon wigs, and platform heels, the titular characters in “Dreamgirls” appear to have shimmied straight out of a dressing room marked “The Supremes.” When the film opens in New York on Friday, viewers will see dozens of elaborate, colorful gowns: The film owes a debt not only in plot, but in style, to the iconic American girl group of the 1960s.

The film’s costume designer, Sharen Davis, did not simply raid archives and rummage through vintage footlockers. Instead, she created a wardrobe of original clothing that imitated 1960s Detroit style — without the polyester. (Ms. Davis’s work on the 2004 biopic “Ray” earned her an Academy Award nomination.)

“Dreamgirls” is adapted from a musical that was performed on Broadway between 1981 and 1985. The plot charts the rise of a trio of black female singers from a Chicago ghetto to mainstream pop stardom. The spoils of fame and fortune cause trouble, as they often do. Michael Bennett’s libretto was loosely inspired by the story of Diana Ross and the Supremes.

Ms. Davis created about 300 costumes for the film. That included more than three dozen looks for the film’s female leads, played by Beyoncé Knowles, former “American Idol” contestant Jennifer Hudson, and stage actress Anika Noni Rose (“Caroline, or Change”). The concert gowns grow increasingly extravagant as the Dreams graduate from backup singers to marquee performers.

The Indian-born designer Naeem Khan was commissioned by Ms. Davis to create several dresses for the film. Mr. Khan had moved to New York in the 1970s, just in time for the disco era. He recalls spotting the stylish, doe-eyed Ms. Ross on the party scene at the time, and said he drew on those late nights in preparing looks for “Dreamgirls.” He described Ms. Davis as “a visionary.”

“Sharen had seen pieces from a trunk show I presented at Nordstrom in Beverly Hills,” Mr. Khan said recently. Ms. Davis arrived at his New York office bearing several storyboards, from which he selected just two scenes. He designed an eye-catching red velvet dress worn by Ms. Knowles in a holiday scene. To dress the band for its final performance together, he made a striped pewter-and-gold chevron halter gown. That gown — constructed in part from titanium — is the showstopper in a film brimming with extravagant design.

Those are just a few of the film’s elaborate gowns. In one scene, the band wears matching citrus-colored confections with roses at the waist. The dresses recall the floor-length red gowns with floral embellishments the Supremes wore during a September 1964 performance of “Baby Love” on “The Steve Allan Show.” In another scene, a set of biascut metallic blue gowns with chiffon at the bust is reminiscent of the beaded, icy blue high-neck halter dresses worn by the Supremes on “The Andy Williams Show” in January 1967. The Supremes eventually began naming their gowns: The blue halters were called “Turquoise Freeze.

As the Dreams’s story passes into the 1970s, the women abandon their bouffant hairdos in favor of elaborately braided styles, cropped afros, and long, loose waves. The new hairstyles complement the high 1970s glamour of one-shoulder tunics, breaded macramé belts, and multicolored gowns designed with latticework about the bodice. And the beadwork of Bob Mackie, who often designed for the Supremes, has been imitated and updated onscreen: A fringed red dress sits at a youthful length, just above the knee.

The Supremes had experienced their own stylistic evolution: In 1961, Berry Gordy Jr. signed the 18- and 19-year-old friends, raised in and around Detroit’s Brewster housing project, to his prestigious label, Motown Records. The record mogul wanted his musical charges to carry themselves with the air of black Southern debutantes. He maintained that wardrobe was as essential as performance, and he edited their costume choices accordingly. Mr. Gordy’s reverence for fashion is celebrated in a film that reveres style almost as much as it does story.