During the 1930s, Hollywood films were a major influence on fashion. Movie screens were "huge, luminous shop windows," offering viewers an opportunity to browse the latest creations from talented costume designers.1 Despite the Depression, films were an affordable form of entertainment; during the 1930s, many movie theatres showed a double-feature, cartoon and newsreel for only 10 cents.2 Recognizing that the public wanted to escape their problems, movie studios usually sidestepped the economic and social troubles of the decade, instead producing comedies, westerns and grandiose musicals. Designed by the likes of Adrian, Howard Greer and Edith Head, onscreen fashions inspired the fashion choices of both sophisticated urban women and midwestern farm girls. Believing that women filled the majority of theatre seats, Hollywood studios seized on fashion tie-ins as a means to promote their films.
Hat
Movie Modes
1935-1941
Museum Purchase
2009.5.48AB