The Studio Wardrobe Departments of Golden Age Hollywood

As the Hollywood movie studios expanded their film-making capacity in the 1920s, movie costumes became an integral part of the movie-making process. Getting away from renting costumes, or having actors provide their own wardobes, the studio heads developed their own costume production facility. This system not only became more efficient as individual studios began producing 40 or more movies a year, but the fashion publicity that resulted from star wardrobes became a big part of promoting the movies themselves. To capitalize on star fashion publicity, every studio hired their own newsworthy costume designers and set up complete wardrobe departments capable of making virtually every costume required. The wardrobe departments had their own skilled garment makers such as cutter-fitters, tailors, embroiderers, beaders, dyers, and seamstresses. When big costume productions were in process, the ranks of the wardrobe department could swell to several hundred people making thousands of costumes. And of course all manner of fine fabrics were in stock, or could be ordered from the reps of the best manufacturers.

In this photo RKO's Head Cutter-Fitter Marie Ree fits an embroidered sequined leaf on the bodice of a costume for an actress, circa 1936.

Each major female star would have a dress form made to their measurements. These measurements were usually pencilled on the dress form, though they were rarely ever disclosed. Amazingly, all those costumes in the black & white movies were made of the most colorful fabrics. Costumes helped the actors transform themselves into their roles, and the appropriate colors were very important in the total costume design. While excellent costume designing is still done today, the studio wardrobe workrooms are a thing of the past.

The photo above shows a cutter-fitter at work at the MGM studio in the 1930s. The photo below shows MGM's huge Wardrobe Department warehouse in the 1950s. It was all auctioned off in 1970.