IN THE SWIM

From the mid 1940s through the 1950s no one did more to promote bathing suits than Esther Williams. In her films for MGM starting with Bathing Beauty in 1944, Williams represented the technicolor lifestyle to a world coming out of the grays of World War II. Esther Williams was the perfect embodiment of better times - tall, athletic, cheerful, beautiful - and a champion swimmer. On her strong shoulders MGM developed a new genre of movie - the swimming spectacle, complete with choreographed scenes by Busby Berkeley and mixed with music and romance. The public's taste for viewing sun-drenched "exotic" locales, from Florida, Cuba, Mexico, and California to Hawaii was fed by the Williams movies. Demand for the new bathing suits grew exponentially. The California bathing suit makers led the market through the Jantzen, Cole of California, and Catalina companies.

Esther Williams not only starred in bathing suits, but promoted bathing suit labels and still has her own company. Not that she wasn't a great clothes model as well. With gown and suit designs by Irene and Helen Rose for her movies, she never failed to capture everyone's eye.

In the photo above Esther wears a gold lame bathing suit designed by Irene for the movie,

On an Island with You, 1948.

At the first TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, Esther Williams appeared with her co-star Betty Garrett for a pool-side screening of Neptune's Daughter on April 22nd. They were interviewed by Ben Mankiewicz for a charmed audience.

MGM never had anyone else like Esther Williams, but among their developing stars were other beauties who could add radiance to a beach. A young Ava Gardner was photographed above in a two-piece bathing suit in 1943, not long after she was signed on by MGM, and before any of her starring roles. Although two-piece bathing suits had already become common by the late 1930s, their design was still intended to cover up larger parts of the torso than their modern versions.

Model and starlet Jinx Falkenburg poses in this one-piece circa 1944. Jinx was born in Barcelona and raised in Chile. She starred in several movies for Warner Brothers, Paramount, and Columbia and had a long career in modelling and television.

Esther Williams' first movie was Bathing Beauty in 1944. Costume designer Irene Gibbons wanted Esther's bathing suit to sparkle just like the water. The bathing suit above is made of satin lastex in blush-pink on which is sewn a lozenge design composed of baguette rhinestones.

Cole of California made this bathing suit worn by Esther Williams in Skirts Ahoy! in 1952. It was made of needlepoint lastex. Typical of the Cole swimming suits of the period is the backless suit with a crossed shoulder-strap attachment to the sides.

Both single and two-piece bathing suits are shown in this photo in 1947. Georgia Lange of the Goldwyn Follies is on the left. The sheen of the black satin lastex fabric here mimics the sheen of lingerie.

Ava Gardner continued to be a photogenic model for bathing suits, this time in a polka-dotted two-piece photographed in 1944. Hollywood movies and movie stars were the leading promoters of the sunny life-style represented by wearing beautiful bathing suits and shot on the beaches of Southern California. Because of movie censors, however, the navel was not allowed to be seen on film. It would be in Europe that a more liberal climate led to turning the two-piece into the bikini, where it was seen both on the beach and on the screen. 

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Brigitte Bardot wears a bikini on the beach at Cannes, France in 1953 during the Film Festival. Bardot had made a sensation in her first film the year before, Marina, la Fille Sans Voile, where she appeared in a bikini. The bikini itself had been designed in 1946 by French fashion designer Jacques Heim. He called his bikini the Atome, for its smallness. French engineer and lingerie shop owner Louis Reard "split the atom" by calling his even smaller bathing suit design the Bikini, in honor of the atoll where atom bombs were being tested. It was many more years before bikinis were seen in the U.S. They were slow to catch on in France too until Brigitte Bardot made them popular on the Riviera.

Although the movie studios tried to catch the waves with a variety of beach and surf movies in the 1960's, for the most part these films just demonstrated how out of touch they had become with the youth movement. It was with the Esther Williams movies, regardless of how fantastical they were, that showed Hollywood's true art.

MODE MILITAIRE: THE UNIFORM OF PANACHE

Officer of the Hussars 1814

                                              
Military uniforms have long been an influence on women's fashion, notably the v-line silhouette, the use of braiding and frogging, and the tailored details to pockets and lapels. More recently, khaki and camouflage colors, military fashioned jackets, and fatigue styled outfits are back.
In the early nineteenth century, military uniforms of the Napoleonic era reached the zenith of fashionable panache. As seen in this painting by Theodore Gericault of an officer of the French Hussars, the uniforms made a striking image.

Hussar uniforms in particular were resplendent with their rows of brass buttons, gold cording, and barrel-sashes on the dolman and fur-lined or gold-embroidered pelisse jackets. The pelisse jackets were usually worn with extra dash strapped over one shoulder. Caps and hats were meant to make the men look more impressive, with tall shakos or bear-skin (fur) hats. Close-fitting breeches and riding boots with piping and tassles added to the ensemble (the hussar above is wearing over-alls over his pants). Hussars even had their own hair styles - with pig-tails and the hair on the side of their head braided into long queues - the latter as added protection aginst saber-cuts to the cheeks. Hussar uniforms originated in Hungary but became popular throughout Europe. The uniform above depicts a uniform of a French regiment of Hussars circa 1810. An excellent movie and one that shows great uniforms of the period is Ridley Scott's The Duellists, starring Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel from 1977.

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The hussar's pelisse jacket was worn by Jimi Hendrix for some of his concerts in England when he lived there in the mid-1960s. The panache of the jacket fit perfectly with the persona of Jimi Hendrix. His hair even seemed to replace the bear-skin cap, his guitar or "ax" the weapon of choice.

By the final years of the 19th century, military uniforms were already becoming simplified. This costume sketch for Edward, Prince of Wales (for an unknown film), shows a more simple uniform for the 10th Hussars. The v-line takes on added importance, accented by the tailored waist, graduated braiding and frogging, and the epaulettes. While all of these devices served functions besides decoration, their origin was to emphasize the power of the male chest.

The costume sketch above was done by Gile Steele for Franchot Tone in Quality Street, 1937, co-starring Katharine Hepburn. The uniform has only one epaulette, which at the time denoted the rank of lieutenant.

This costume sketch was designed by Eduardo Lerchundi for Fernando Lamas in The Avengers (La Vengadora) in 1949. This is the classic costume of the swash-buckling film. The term panache derives from a French word that meant the feather in a hat, worn with panache by musketeers and 17th century gentlemen.

A colorful costume sketch for a colorful film, the classic The Adventures of Robin Hood, 1938, starring Errol Flynn. The knight's costume above was designed by Lon Anthony for Austin Fairman playing Sir Nigel. Color and art combined into heraldic symbols that identified titles, families, and fighting units in the Middle Ages. Military unforms have a long history that can provide continuing fashion inspiration in our time. The functional aspects of the military uniform of today speaks for itself. But oh, how I loved the panache.

HOLLYWOOD AND HISTORY

Mary Wills design

Hollywood and History was the title of a wonderful exhibition curated by Edward Maeder at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art back in 1986-87, for which my dear friend Satch La Valley was a big inspiration. I borrowed the title for this new post of the Silver Screen Modiste, which is but a hint at Hollywood's contribution to the popular perception of history. Costume design has played a significant role in bringing historical dramas to life. While the costumes have not always been historically acurate, in the better productions they have been true to the spirit of the times they portray. And more significantly, they provide the actors, and the audiences, with the sense that they are part of those long-ago times. In the golden age of the Hollywood studio sytem, the major studios had the costume designers as well as the skilled talent to hand fabricate all the individual garments. Any period costume needed could be made by expert pattern-makers, beaders, embroiderers, seamstresses, milliners, leather-workers, cobblers, and others, with all the rich textiles the studios could buy. The costume design sketch shown above was done by the very talented and Oscar-winning Mary Wills for Bette Davis in The Virgin Queen, 1955.

A young Joan Collins played Beth Throgmorton, Lady in Waiting to Bette Davis's Queen Elizabeth in The Virgin Queen. Her costume was also designed by Mary Wills, as were the others. One of these costume sketches is shown above. Ms. Wills had a wonderful sense of style in designing costumes for dance, folk characters, and historical periods. This in no way lessened her abilities with designing contemporary fashion, for which she was equally adept. She was nominated for a costume Oscar for Virgin Queen, but didn't win. She received six nominations during her career and won her Oscar for The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm. The above is just a hint at her amazing talent, which we plan to show more of here.

Costume designer Rene Hubert was also a great designer of historical films. This costume sketch is for Jean Simmons for her role as Desiree in the film by the same title, where she co-starred with Marlon Brando in 1954. Among Hubert's many costume design credits were Forever Amber (1947), Centennial Summer (1946), Jane Eyre (1944), That Hamilton Woman (1941), The Flame of New Orleans (1941), and Quality Street with Marion Davies in 1927. Rene Hubert did his own costume sketches and had a very distinctive style of illustration. Gloria Swanson is said to have brought him over from Paris to design for her, where he had previously designed for Jean Patou.

The costumes of the Biblical movies merit their own book, and stretch back to the earliest days of epic-making production in Hollywood. Usually because of the sheer number of costumes involved, numerous costume designers were involved in a production. English costume designer Elizabeth Haffenden chiefly designed the classic 1959 version of Ben Hur. The costume design above was done by Haffenden for Haya Harareet in her role as Esther. Haffenden won a costume design Oscar for Ben Hur. Costume sketches are especially interesting when they show fabric swatches as well as the designer's notes.

This photo shows actress Rosamond Pinchot costumed as Queen Anne for the RKO version of The Three Musketeers from 1935. Pinchot rests on a "leaning board" as a wardrobe mistress attends to her costume. The Three Musketeers was designed by Walter Plunkett, with the costume fabrication supervised by Marie Ree Danjou.

Here Inez Schroedt at MGM works on the hem of one of the gowns from Marie Antoinette (1938). Some 2500 costume were made for the film. 

Here is another gown designed by Adrian for the film Marie Antoinette. The photo shows Anita Louise playing the role of the Princess de Lamballe. Prior to designing for the movie, Adrian travelled to Europe to bring back antique laces, embroidery, brocade, buttons, and gold brocade. MGM already had a warehouse full of antique furniture for the sets.

One of the loveliest photos from a Hollywood set is this one of Greer Garson in Pride and Prejudice from 1940. This historical gown was also designed by Adrian, although he changed the time period of the novel's costumes from the Empire style to that of the 1830s. Artistic license, but who can argue with this picture?

Historical films are still popular today, and by-and-large win most of the Best Costume Oscar Awards. The costumes are no longer fabricated at the studios where the films are made, however, and the skilled trades-people that made the costumes no longer work there.

But we can still rejoice in the quality of the designs, the fabrication of costumes , and the roles of the actors that are still being created today - all in the very spirit of creating historical drama.