OSCAR GOWNS SHOULD WIN AWARDS

Like The Young Victoria that won for Best Costume Design, the 2010 Academy Awards seemed to show the best of both tradition and youth in the gowns worn for the evening. Gone was most of the excess and instead, we saw many beautiful gowns on many gorgeous stars including the standouts for my Most Glamorous award for Sandra Bullock and runner-up Rachel McAdams. Some of the biggest names in the world of fashion design had their gowns worn for the occasion. This symbiosis has been very competitive of course, but the results that are the most successful always involve a combination of human elements that remain within the realm of art. The relationship between the star and their stylist has replaced the relationship that existed in the old studio system, where the costume designer and the star often had a close working relationship that resulted in the classic iconic looks. The desired look over the past few years at the Academy Awards has definitely been of the classic, glamorous movie star. Many fashion designers have also been designing gowns in that style that work beautifully at Award functions. Some of the gowns that seemed to work less well at the Oscars were those taken right off the runways. They seemed to have just that one-degree of separation that made several of them seem awkward. The favored styles leaned toward metallic finishes, dusty-rose colors, and asymmetrical designs. Over-all, this was one of the best-dressed Academy Awards in memory.

While The Young Victoria, with its beautiful costumes designed by Sandy Powell was very deserving of its Best Costume Design award, it would be refreshing to see a contemporary, not a historically costumed film, receive an Oscar. It is understandable that the historical and fantasy films make the big splash in costuming, but designing a modern wardrobe has the same function of delineating character and furthering the plot, while placing the audience within the story. One would have to go back to 1979 and All That Jazz to get close to a contemporary setting (for that time) for an Oscar costume win.

Sandra Bullock in a Marchesa gold beaded gown wins my Most Glamorous award for the Oscars evening. This was her big night and well deserved.

Of course the Fashion Police also selected Sandra Bullock as the Best Dressed, so just to show the contrariness of the Silver Screen Modiste, my runner-up for  Most Glamorous  is the beautiful Rachel McAdams in this wonderful Elie Saab gown from his spring 2010 collection. The Fashion Police thought it inappropriate for the occasion, which I disagree.The gown is reminiscent of Adrian's 1950 big swirling pastel patterned organza gowns. The Elie Saab on Ms. McAdams is a winning combination. 

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WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE?

Seeing a beautiful floral print dress fluttering in the breeze is enough to cheer one's day, but there just isn't enough of them around anymore. Over the years the beautiful printed silk fabrics these were once made from have drifted into the cheaper price points in both fabric and manufacture. It got so that a floral print dress was almost sure to be disappointing thing to see - no better than the calicos of our pioneer forebears, and guaranteed not to last as long. And forget the notion that floral patterns in this day can ever match up at a seam in any semblance of reality. Note above how wonderfully the flowers seam at the bodice, and the leaves decorate perfectly the slight decollete, even appearing to point toward the face of the model. A remarkable Irene Lentz Gibbons-designed gown. It is no doubt made of printed silk from the French house of Bianchini-Ferier in Lyon. Designed by Irene, circa 1950.

Floral prints are not just suitable for day-time wear. Irene also designed the gown Vivien Leigh wore at the Academy Awards when she won her Oscar for Gone With the Wind. Vivien Leigh selected the floral print dress at Irene's fashion show at Bullock's Wilshire. After all of the strain of making GWTW and the stress of her nomination, she wanted to feel relaxed wearing the flowers she loved so much. I searched in vain for a photo that did the dress justice.  A return to glamour at the awards ceremonies is always welcome, only sometimes the designers try to hard.

Gilbert Adrian was not only a master costume and fashion designer but also a great wit. After he started his own line in 1942 he would give a name to each of his designs and often include whimsy in his creations.  Adrian loved florals, but also printed fabrics of all sorts including fabric designs he painted himself. He enjoyed the leaves so much on this dress that he added one peeking out through the sleeve. This dress designed by Adrian, 1946.

Here is another design by Irene using a beautiful floral print on a white ground. Irene favored the slim silhouette, perfectly accentuated by the tied-back stole of the same material. Irene, circa 1958.

 Rosalind Russell graces this beautiful floral house-dress in the mid 1940s. These bold prints were likely made by the screen printing process. Floral designs as well as other types of decoration could be made on silk in a variety of ways. China, Japan, and India as well as much of Asia and the Middle-East had developed a variety of ways to die and decorate silks and other fabrics. Wood-block printing was an old method as was hand-painting. Stencilling and its variant of screening, including using a newer photographic process, led to the wide-spread availibilibility of beautiful floral fabrics beginning in the 1930s. Before that, French couturier Paul Poiret even used artist Raoul Dufy to hand-paint his gown silks. In the 1950s and especially the 1960s, an explosion of interest in possessing beautifully printed silk scarves by Hermes and Pucci - to be worn around the head, wrapped around a belt, or tied onto purse straps, expanded floral brightness everywhere.

In recent times, designer Christian Lacroix has consistently used floral designs in his couture and fashion creations. He is a native of Provence in France, where flowers are not only abundant in the landscape but are used as regular motifs in folk costume and house-hold textiles.

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These floral dresses are from Christian Lacroix's spring - summer 2006 Haute Couture collection. They are just three of several in his collection that year. There were many others in his previous collections as well. Alas, Mr. Lacroix's fashion house went bankrupt last year. This spring we see signs that floral patterns are trying to make a come-back. Let us hope that like real flowers, they will spring back to life. Could they please be bigger and prettier. And yes, mostly match at the seams?

HATS ON TO HATS

Some looks are just too perfect in their ensemble, such as this one worn by Hedy Lamarr. But the hat pulls it all together in a look of total beauty and fascination, made perfect by the choker, the long lace gloves, the pearl earrings, and the deco bracelet. It is such a pity that the days of the hat are gone. One would rarely if ever see anyone wear such a striking and beautiful hat as this, save on opening day at the races, and then it's a free for all. I say hats on to hats.

      

           

             Greta Garbo's pure beauty was best served by simple hats, even better by skullcaps such as this one. Adrian, her designer throughout most of her career, launched the mode of wearing hats at a slant when Garbo wore the one Adrian designed for her to wear in Romance, in 1930. That hat was called the Eugenie after Empress Eugenie of France. It not only started the fashion of wearing hats slanted  but revived the entire millinery business. Adrian grew up around hats since his parents were milliners. In both his costume and fashion designs, he often designed hats to be all-of-a-piece with his gowns and outfits. This photo of Garbo was taken in 1930 by Clarence Bull.

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Here is Greta Garbo in a simple beret from the film As You Desire Me, 1932. The fashion influence of the Hollywood films of the 1930s can not be exagerated. The French couture was certainly copied for American consumers. But by then even French designers were being influenced by what stars like Garbo, Crawford, Dietrich, Lombard, Harlow, Colbert, and others were wearing, designed for them by the Hollywood costume designers. And most young American women were getting their fashion cues from the movies, not from the expensive fashion glossies. This costume Garbo wears  was another design by Adrian. Although Adrian often designed his own hats, he also used the services of Mr. John of John-Fredericks, both at MGM and at Adrian Ltd. John P. John was a most colorful character, a natural fit in Hollywood.

                          A beret is timeless, and one of those hats that inexplicably looks as good on a special warfare combatant, a runway model, or a bohemienne.

There's nothing like a hat to give mood and meaning to an occasion. Whether you have a closet-full (who does anymore) or only two, you can give yourself and air of mystery, or at a minimum, protect yourself from the elements. A nice karakul wool coat like the one Joan Fontaine is wearing helps too, but the mystery comes from the hat alone.

This lovely lady is the late costume designer Renie Conley, who began as a sketch artist at MGM in the late 20s and whose last credit was for the costumes for Body Heat in 1981. Her career, though not as well known, lasted about as long as Edith Head's. Renie (pronounced Renee), was a big fan of Mexican and South American folk costume. Her hat shows such influence and seems to fit perfectly with her chalk-striped suit.

This striking oufit of black silk crepe was designed by Irene, circa 1958. The streamers at the front of the gown bring attention to the bustline, but the hat is the icing on this beautiful cake.

Hats on or off?

DESIGNED BY EDITH HEAD

It's ironic that the costume designer whose name virtually everyone would recognize lacked a fashion style with any signiture. And few would be able to identify her costumes save for a few movie costume aficionados, researchers, and the fashion savy with long memories. Regardless, Edith Head was the ultimate costume designer. She could be a strong-willed promoter of herself, but never so at the expense of the costume she designed nor of the star she was to dress. Her costume designing was fully engaged in furthering the role of the actor and the needs of the scene. Her dresses and gowns needed to catch attention certainly, but Miss Head was not intent on creating a fashion statement. Look carefully at the stars wearing her designs. They look all-of-a-piece. No garment jars unless it is meant to. None is flashy unless the role is. When the role dazzles so do the gowns. She often bent to the desires of the stars, just as she did to  that of the directors. After looking at scores of her costume sketches, I can attest that many of the actual costumes were changed by the time the actors wore them on screen. She did not hold a rigid idea of what the design should look like. Yet many of her costume designs have become as memorable as the roles portrayed and the stars that wore them. As examples, look back at Liz Taylor wearing the white gown with a big tulle skirt and white violets covering her bodice in A Place in the Sun; Kim Novak in the blue-gray suit in Vertigo; Bette Davis in the brown satin coctail gown with off-the shoulder, fur-trimmed sleeves in All About Eve; Gloria Swanson in the black dress with white fur muff and white fur-rimmed hat and white plume in Sunset Boulevard: Barbara Stanwyck in the white belted dress and house pumps with pom-poms in Double Indemnity; and any of the costumes Grace Kelly wears in To Catch a Thief or Rear Window. These are a few of the thousands of costumes she designed in a career that spanned nearly fifty years.

Edith Head is pictured above wearing her favorite necklace made of antique French theater tickets carved in ivory. She willed the necklace to her friend Liz Taylor at her death.

Susan Claassen as Edith Head

We no longer have Edith Head. We are very fortunate however, to have Susan Claassen, who has brought Miss Head back to life in her one-woman show, A Conversation with Edith Head. Susan Claassen is the Managing Artistic Director of the Invisible Theatre in Tucson, Arizona.  Paddy Calistro, author of Edith Head's Hollywood, and Susan Claassen co-wrote the play that A Conversation is based on. The play begins late in Miss Head's career, as she reflects on the accomplishments and defeats of her life, and her eight Oscars. Miss Claasen http://edithhead.biz/  brings it all back to life. You share Miss Head's life-story monologues like a guest in her own studio. You laugh and cry with her. Should Susan Claassen and A Conversation with Edith Head  come to your town, don't miss it. If it comes to the region, make the trip. It will be worth it.

Edith Head had a very long career as a Hollywood costume designer. She became the head designer at Paramount in 1938. She had been hired there as a sketch artist by Howard Greer in 1923 and later mentored by Travis Banton. She was still designing costumes at the Universal Studios when she died in 1981. The sheer range of fashion styles makes her work extensive. Besides her lack of a signiture style, her costume sketches were mostly rendered by different sketch artists, and Miss Head went through many in her long career. Thus, the look of the sketches themselves vary greatly over the years and decades.


This sketch was done for Ann Margret for The Swinger, 1966. With Ann Margret as lead, and the fast times of the 60s, a more exuberant and "swinging" style was needed than what Miss Head had been used to. But she knew how to be flexible.

This princess gown was designed for Natalie Wood for Inside Daisy Clover, 1965.

This costume sketch was designed for Eleanor Parker in Detective Story, 1951. It was made almost exactly as rendered in the sketch, a rarity. It was designed for a hard-boiled police drama with Kirk Douglas in the lead. The trimmed bolero jacket softens the look of the costume and is appropriate for the character Eleanor Parker plays as the wife of Kirk Douglas.

This costume sketch is from an unknown Paramount film that Edith Head designed, circa 1942. She designed costumes for some 12 movies that year, and for some 16 movies in 1941. 

The age of the the costume designers like Adrian, Irene, Travis Banton, Orry-Kelly, Howard Greer, Helen Rose, Jean-Louis, and Travilla is gone. Movies are not expected to create fashion the way they were in the 1930s through the 1950s. These costume designers switched easily into starting their own lines because of their fashion talents and also because of their name recognition. Edith Head has nonetheless become the most famous of them all. And her style sublimation has become the norm in modern film costume design. Many great costume designers are at work today in the film and television industry. To pick out only one as an example, Ann Roth's work stretches from Midnight Cowboy  to Julie & Julia.

Edith Head's fame has sometimes been clouded by her willingness to claim credit for the work of other designers that worked with her. In this regard Miss Head was part of the process of awarding film credits based on a contractual basis typical of the old studio system. Her  insecurities made for the rest. Regardless of what could have been done differently, her own work stands for itself.

PLUMAGE IN COSTUME

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Plumage in female fashion  and costume has the advantage of serving the androgynous needs of the lavish display of color or silhouette, the inviting softness of duvet, and the strutting virility of the coq.

Through the millenia the display of feathers was reserved for male warriors, chieftains, kings, and emperors. This connection based on the male bird being endowed with colored plumage, and the need to put on displays and dances to impress the female of the species. Then in the mid-18th century,  feathered hats for women became the rage, with varying styles popular through 1920s. But the feathered garment bears no resemblance to a feathered hat, lest they are designed as a pair. Certainly a fur  shares a certain "wildness" with the plumage of a garment. And maybe the feathers are as soft. But all the mean looks on all the models wearing furs that I have ever seen have never been as  intimidating - yet as seductive - as the look on Marlene Dietrich wearing coq feathers in the picture above from Shanghai Express. Those feathers help create that look.

The tremendous textural variety of feathers and their light reflectivity has been a great resource for costume design. Their heyday was during the days of black and white cinematography - great for the use of nearly-black coq feathers or white ostrich and marabou feathers - not so great for capturing the iridescent qualities of colored feathers. Nonetheless, can three more wonderful and glamorous images of the use of feathers in costume be found than the three in black and white here? Even with the hundreds of peacock feathers on Theda Bara in Cleopatra and the hundreds on Hedy Lamarr in Samson and Delilah, these costumes seemed to serve for purposes of astonishment. But then of course the record in the latter category must go to Adrian. His 500 white ostrich plumes worn by Virginia Bruce in The Great Ziegfeld of1936, forming a train that culminated in seven Ziegfeld Girls, just had to be seen in the movie.

Travis Banton designed the costume for Marlene Dietrich to wear in Shanghai Express in 1932. Marlene's handbag and gloves are Hermes.

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The Lady Gaga always entertains and is ceaselessly creative in her costumes. Here she attends in the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards at the Radio City Music Hall. Her costume designer is unkown to me, but the feathers perfectly frame her face - which is further adorned with the gold mask and the hat. Bravo Lady Gaga.

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The beautiful Louise Brooks, "Lulu" as she was known, was photographed here for The Canary Murder Case in 1929. Lulu did several silent films for Paramount, and then left the States to work in Germany for awhile. Her black, short-banged bob was copied (and is still copied) by everyone, and her beauty was intoxicating. The feathers covering her breasts are particularly delicate. Here in feathers she seems to be Venus rising from an eagle's nest. This lovely costume was designed by Travis Banton. Lulu was too original to fit in Hollywood. Later in life she wrote a wonderful book, Lulu in Hollywood.

The contrast provided by the ostrich plumes on Jean Harlow's sleeves - with the silver bugle beads that forms this nightgown provide an intoxicating blend of textures. And of course Jean Harlow's beautiful figure provides the perfect mannequin. Adrian designed the outfit for Dinner at Eight, 1933. These contrasts work on several levels: feather warmth vs glass-bead coolness; volume vs sleekness; and sheen vs opacity. Not related to feathers per se, but the use of bugle beads and their weight made the garment cling to the body, especially in a long-trained example such as this one, especially provacative as she moves. As dramatic costume only, this piece could not have been comfortable to wear. But this image is as striking now as it was when created 77 years ago.

Pity that feathers aren't used as much in costume today, or as masterfully I should say. But then again each one  has to be hand knotted into a garment. Thanks to our film heritage and the costume designers past and present, we can relish these pieces as works of art.

Glamour Gowns of Black and White

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Here is the beautiful Liz Taylor in the famous "Cat" dress designed by Helen Rose for Taylor's role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). The dress was made of white silk chiffon and showed off Liz's beautiful shoulders. It was a relatively short cocktail dress and the Grecian style draping at the  decolletage  was expertly fitted. It was made in the MGM Wardrobe department by Inez Schroedt, who had been working there since Adrian's time. Helen Rose had so much demand to recreate the dress that she began her own line based on this dress. Needless to say, it was knocked off at cheaper price points. Both Helen Rose and Edith Head designed many of Liz Taylor's gowns for both movie roles and special occasions. They usually capitalized on Liz Taylor's generous cleavage, especially as the censors loosened up a bit (but not completely) in the late 50s and early 60s movies.

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This lovely photo of Grace Kelly is from Rear Window (1954). It's a beautiful gown with a black bodice and a very full  white chiffon skirt with beads designed by Edith Head. Grace wears several stunning gowns, dresses, and even a negligee that would wake the dead, but somehow go unnoticed by Jimmy Stewart. But they're wonderful to look at again and again in the movie.  Miss Head won eight Oscars for costume design, but ironically, none for To Catch a Thief, her most deserving costume ensemble in my opinion. The costumes are not only wonderful designs in themselves, but perfect for the plot and perfect for Grace.

Here is a lovely all-black chiffon evening gown costume sketch designed for Polly Bergin by Edith Head for the movie That's My Boy (1951). This was a Dean Martin Jerry Lewis movie, but even for a comedy, ladies like Polly Bergin were dressed to  be glamorous. And so were the sketches.

All three of the dresses and gowns shown are timelessly in fashion. They all used a silhouette that accented the female body while providing additional visual stimulation from a beautifully worked fabric. What's more, for the movies they helped create character.

WHERE GLAMOUR BEGAN II

The modern meaning of the word glamour began in early 1930s Hollywood, where not only the word but the modern look of sex appeal was created. The ancient Scottish word of bewitchment had been transformed into sexual allure, and the Hollywood costume designers - Adrian, Travis Banton, Irene, and others - had created the look. Fashion had always been beautiful - but sex sold. The designers created styles to emphasize the natural and beautiful figures of the Hollywood star, while designing timeless gowns and glamorous looks that influenced fashions around the world.

In this photo Adrian created the perfect gown for Jean Harlow in 1935, the original "blond bombshell." Not much skin is exposed, but there is no mistaking that  the look of the new sex goddess was born - a look still used today.

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Irene Lentz Gibbons was another great Los Angeles designer. Between her custom label at Bullock's Wilshire, her free-lance film costume designs, and her later job as head designer at MGM, she designed for virtually every major star in Hollywood. Here is one of her gowns for Marlene Dietrich, a regular customer.

Marlene was very particular about her gowns. They needed to make a statement. She relied on either Travis Banton or Irene for such gowns, and later, Jean-Louis.

Here is Marlene Dietrich in a Travis Banton costume designed for the movie Angel in 1937. 

In addition to being meticulous about her gowns, Marlene was fanatic about the proper lighting for her portrait gallery and wardrobe photos.

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This smashing gown was designed by Adrian for Loretta Young in 1933 for the movie Midnight Mary.  It was one of those Adrian gowns that looked very different in front from at the back. The back was in fact backless to just above the waist, with long rows  of fringe that hung from the capelet to her heels.  This is the front of the gown that shows on the cover of my book, Adrian: Silver Screen to Custom Label.  Loretta Young was extremelely photogenic and a much photgraphed clotheshorse. She worked with many of the great designers of Hollywood, including Orry-Kelly, Adrian, Irene, and Travis Banton. When she paired with Tyrone Power in several movies, they looked like the Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt of their day, or George Clooney and Julia Roberts if you prefer.

The eye-popping quality of Hollywood glamour was developed for the needs of the movie business of the day. The look was made timeless so that the styles wouldn't be dated by the time the movies came out. But in so doing the desgners came up with a classic look that is still appealing today. Even more, these became not just bewitching glamour but classic fashion.