Watchingwell 

                                 Curated classic films

The Art of Costume Design 

        They sometimes have auctions of movie memorabilia – props, costumes, scripts, etc.  Once I saw that a dress Rita Hayworth wore in Gilda was being offered for sale.  It made me think that the only thing I would like to own is the evening gown that Ginger Rogers wore in Swing Time (RKO, 1936). 

   

        The dress was an integral part of the magic of that last dance number to Never Gonna Dance/The Way You Look Tonight, in, what many consider, the best of the Rogers/Astaire films. It was designed by Bernard Newman (1903-1966) who, while working at RKO from 1933 -1936, designed the gowns for other Ginger Rogers films, like Top Hat, Follow the Fleet, Roberta, Star of Midnight, as well as designs that Jean Arthur wore in The Ex-Mrs. Bradford,

You Can’t Take it With You, and History is Made at Night.

       In one of my former careers I was peripherally involved in the fashion biz, so maybe this is why I have always had a particular interest in the clothes in classic films.  Film is such a collaborative art form that it seems rather unfair that the director gets all the attention.  There are cinematographers, editors, composers, and production designers that are equally responsible for the way we receive the finished film product. In this post I would like to highlight a few, rather prodigious and prolific costume designers.

      Many people of a certain age who are interested in film might be able to identify Edith Head (1897-1981).  Her trademark dark bangs and tinted glasses were often seen at Academy Award ceremonies (she won 8 Oscars).  She had a lengthy career, and did particularly memorable work on Hitchcock films.

     I love the clothes she designed for Grace Kelly in Rear Window (Paramount, 1954).  Kelly played a fashion model so her clothes were especially smart, but Kelly was an actress that looked good in good clothes. 

      Some actresses wore clothes well and designers had an easy time designing for them.  Audrey Hepburn wearing Givenchy comes to mind.  Speaking of which, what a wonderful entrance she makes to the garden party in Sabrina, also from Paramount in 1954, in that gown by Givenchy, after a sketched idea by Head, who was the costume designer of record for the picture.

        Back to Grace Kelly, Edith Head also did the wardrobe for To Catch a Thief (Paramount, 1955) which includes the memorable strapless, icy, white gown with the icy, diamond necklace that we watch through Cary Grant’s eyes, against the backdrop of fireworks.

           Before we leave Hitchcock films, I could be persuaded to bid on one other dress that I thought was really stunning – the red and black flowered number that Eva Marie Saint wore in North by Northwest (MGM, 1959). In this film, however, many of the clothes were bought off the retail floor.  This dress is credited to Bergdorf Goodman.

       Some costume designers from Hollywood’s ‘Golden Age’ could easily match Head’s career in output.  Adrian (Gilbert Adrian, 1903-1960) was MGM’s chief designer until 1942. In one year, 1941, Adrian was listed as the costume designer on 12 films. While at MGM, he was the designer on several Greta Garbo films. Her wardrobe in Ninotchka (MGM, 1939) was significant in illustrating the humorless comrade transformed by the enchantment of Paris and romance.

     Adrian’s most memorable designs for Garbo were for Mata Hari (MGM, 1931). The exotic look he created became a part of Garbo’s iconic image.

                 

       Besides Garbo, Adrian designed gowns for all the great stars at MGM – Joan Crawford, Katherine Hepburn, Greer Garson, Rosalind Russell, among others. I thought the costumes he did for Jean Harlow in China Seas (MGM, 1935) were outstanding.

     

         One of the longest careers in costume design belonged to Walter Plunkett (1902-1982) who, in 1926, became the head of costumes for the studio that became RKO, where he stayed until 1939.  He also worked for other studios from time to time and was at MGM from 1947 to 1966, when he retired. Plunkett was best-known for the set of costumes that he designed while working for Selznick in 1939 for Gone With the Wind.  Who can forget the many looks of Vivien Leigh?

          He designed costumes for many of the best-known actresses in his long career. Ginger Rogers in Flying Down to Rio (RKO, 1933) and The Gay Divorcee (RKO, 1934), Katherine Hepburn in Sylvia Scarlett (RKO, 1935) and Adam’s Rib (MGM, 1949), Greer Garson in That Forsyte Woman (MGM, 1949), Elizabeth Taylor in Raintree County (MGM, 1957), were among them.

         I began this survey by mentioning the auction of a
dress Rita Hayworth wore in Gilda. (Columbia, 1946). The costume designer for Gilda was Jean Louis (1907-1997) who had a thirty-year career, in which he worked with many of the greats. He dressed Judy Holliday in Pfft (Columbia, 1954), and The Solid Gold Cadillac (Columbia,1956) , for which he win an Oscar®, Judy Garland in A Star is Born (Warner Bros,1954) and Doris Day in The Thrill of it All (Universal, 1963) for a few examples.

But the costumes he did for Rita Hayworth in Gilda, especially the “Put the Blame on Mame“ dress really shows the way costumes can define the character. 

 














       
     Jean Louis dressed Hayworth in several other Columbia films, -- Tonight and Every Night (1945), Affair in Trinidad (1952), and Miss Sadie Thompson (1953). He dressed Rita again in Pal Joey (1957).  The other female star (Frank Sinatra was the male star) was Kim Novak, who seems to have inspired some elegant designs.  

     While at Columbia, he did the costumes on several Novak films, including Picnic (1956), Jeanne Eagels(1957), The Eddy Duchin Story (1956), for which the following were designed,

and Bell Book and Candle (1958).  Which reminds me that wine-colored, velvet dress is another one I’d like to own.