FIDM Museum Blog

Tailored suit

In the 20th century, the tailored suit became a standard uniform for professional working women. Consisting of a jacket and skirt in matched or closely coordinated fabric, it developed in the late 19th century as an evolution of specialized garments worn for outdoor activities such as horseback riding, croquet and bicycling. Like its sporting predecessors, the tailored suit had a function: it served as a professional uniform for the newly emerging class of women who worked outside the home as educators, social workers and clerical employees. Tailored suits were also worn for leisure activities like travel or an afternoon promenade. With styling borrowed from menswear, most tailored suits featured solid colors and a minimum of decorative trim.

Two-piece suit
1913-1914
Gift of the Manlove Family
2006.870.33AB

Presentations abroad!

As mentioned in this post, FIDM Museum staff are constantly engaged in collection oriented research. Currently, Christina Johnson (Collections Manager) and Kevin Jones (Curator) are at the Fashion & Materiality symposium hosted by the Centre for Fashion Studies at Stockholm University in Stockholm, Sweden. Click on the link above for more information on the conference and the other presenters. Today's post consists of their respective presentation abstracts and images. Enjoy!

“In my case the face was created.”¹ Fashion and Identity in the Life of Marlene Dietrich

by Christina Johnson

Marlene Dietrich was married to the same man for over fifty years. She did not gain notoriety in Hollywood until age thirty. She was a mother and grandmother. She was self-conscious to the point of obsession regarding her perceived bodily imperfections. She was a recluse for the last ten years of her life. She longed to be accepted, admired, and loved. These personal facts are in direct opposition to Dietrich’s public identity. She was a bisexual siren with multiple lovers. She was a self-assured woman who took pride in showcasing a “perfect” body, eternally youthful and beautiful. She basked in the admiration and awe bestowed upon her from legions of fans and friends. A glamorous public identity was materialized by Marlene Dietrich through her appearance.

This paper will study fashion and identity in the life of Marlene Dietrich focusing on a rare group of her garments and accessories from the FIDM Museum in Los Angeles. This significant collection is comprised of over fifty personal wardrobe and movie costume ensembles in addition to twenty pairs of custom shoes donated by Dietrich to a now-defunct museum from 1964 to 1966 before arriving at the FIDM Museum in 1990. These pieces date from her early career in Berlin, her Hollywood years, USO tours, and stage performances.

Snapshot of Marlene Dietrich during her USO tour
1944-45
Museum Purchase

Marlene Dietrich purchased this paisley gown in Los Angeles in the early 1940s and wore it frequently, as evidenced by the many extant photographs. During her 1944-45 USO tour, she was photographed wearing the gown onstage, as seen in the snapshot above. Dietrich also wore the gown in the 1948 film, A Foreign Affair. The image below shows how this illustrious gown is stored at the FIDM Museum.

Gown worn by Marlene Dietrich
Irene
c. 1941
Department of Recreation and Parks, City of Los Angeles, FIDM Museum
INV. 3633

This embellished jacket was part of Dietrich's personal wardrobe.

Evening Jacket worn by Marlene Dietrich
Travis Banton/Howard Greer
c. 1936
Department of Recreation and Parks, City of Los Angeles, FIDM Museum
INV. 1137

Detail of INV. 1137

Hollywood Scandal! : Edith Head and Celanese “Star in Crepe”
by Kevin Jones

This is a convoluted story of eleven dresses in the FIDM Museum’s Hollywood Costume Collection. The collection came as a loan to FIDM in 1990 from the City of Los Angeles, California, after being stored in an abandoned city jail for more than twenty years. Many of the garments have been exhibited around the world as authentic; half of these gowns, though, are spurious. While dressing the costumes for an exhibition, it was noticed that some of them did not look as they appeared in publicity stills. Were these the same garments? Had they been altered? A detailed analysis of the gowns ensued. The gowns’ provenance, though, proved to be the thriller of this drama.

In 1960, the rayon manufacturer Celanese teamed with Paramount Pictures costume designer Edith Head to launch a new material called “Star in Crepe” by showcasing eleven original “Golden Era” crepe gowns in fashion shows in the United States, with contemporary interpretations of the garments to inspire consumers to purchase the new material so they too could dress like a star. The first fashion show was held at The Plaza Hotel in New York. Thereafter, identical copies of the gowns and their interpretations were worn in fashion shows around the country. Later, the costumes were donated to Hollywood Museum Associates, an organization planning a museum of Los Angeles movie history. The copy gowns were donated to various other institutions. By 1968, Hollywood Museum Associates was defunct, bailed out of debt by the City of Los Angeles who twenty years later loaned the eleven gowns to the FIDM Museum.

Which famous dresses are these? Who were the movie queens wearing such beautiful creations? Have any of the original dresses survived? Stay tuned for the ending to this most dramatic Hollywood Scandal!

Sketch of the gown worn by Greta Garbo in the film Inspiration

Gilbert Adrian design for Greta Garbo in Inspiration, 1931
Modern Screen Magazine, March 1931
Image courtesy of Richard Atkins
FIDM Museum

Actual gown worn by Greta Garbo in Inspiration

Gilbert Adrian for Greta Garbo in Inspiration, 1931
Silk velvet and rhinestones
Image courtesy of the Drexel University Historic Costume Collection, PA
Gift of Mrs. Thomas E. Burns Jr., 76-1-1ab
Photography by Dave Gehosky
Image courtesy of the Drexel Digital Museum Project , http://digimuse.cis.drexel.edu

Fake version of the gown worn by Greta Garbo in Inspiration, created in 1961.

Fake by Edith Head for Celanese Corp., 1961
Representing Greta Garbo in "Inspiration," 1931
Department of Recreation and Parks, City of Los Angeles, FIDM Museum

Image of model wearing fake Inspiration gown in 1961 fashion show.

Fake gown by Edith Head for Celanese Corp., 1961
Representing Greta Garbo in Inspiration, 1931
Model wearing the costume for a Celanese Fashion Show, 1962
Department of Recreation and Parks, City of Los Angeles, FIDM Museum

1 Dietrich, Marlene. Marlene. trans. Salvatore Attanasio. New York: Grove Press, 1989.

Adrian Ltd.

"What must be admired most in Adrian's fashions is their construction; he is an architect, balancing proportions and studying every line. His approach is original and frequently unconventional, but that is what makes the viewing of an Adrian collection exciting."¹

When Adrian decided to leave the world of costume design in 1941 and open Adrian Ltd, he could have had no knowledge of how perfect his timing would prove to be. With the Nazi invasion of Paris in 1940, all contact with the French fashion industry halted. As nearly all American designers based their designs on those originating from Paris, the absence of information from France created a fashion vacuum. American designers stepped up to the plate, and soon began to create fashions based on an idealized American lifestyle. These new fashions were often casual, practical and made of durable fabrics. Both New York and Los Angeles fought for the title of "America's Fashion Capitol." The February 19, 1941 title of a Los Angeles Times article declared, "East and West Struggle for Fashion Dictatorship," and suggested that Los Angeles would win the battle, ultimately becoming "more powerful in its sway over the civilized world than Paris ever thought of being."

Adrian debuted his first collection for buyers in January of 1942 at the May Company department store in Los Angeles. Buyers were not particularly excited about this initial collection, so Adrian held another show in February of the same year. This show was a great success and Adrian was soon selling his designs in department stores throughout the country. At the time he said, "It is thrilling to be designing for American women and I can only hope the women will enjoy wearing my clothes after they have purchased them for their own."²  Adrian's timing was perfect; with his well-regarded name and design skills, he was bound to be a success. 

In his new incarnation as fashion designer, Adrian intended to design for everywoman, not just movie stars. Throughout the years of World War II, Adrian's collections were considered wearable and practical,yet stylish and flattering. Individual garments were always given witty, topical names and showcased the inherent qualities of the chosen fabric. Drapeable jersey was used for slinky evening gowns and sensible woolens were used to create suits with interesting details such as mitered stripes and geometric appliques. Wartime restrictions on fabric usage and ornamentation meant that Adrian, like all American designers, had to be inventive with his detailing.

With the end of World War II era fabric rationing, Adrian was free to create evening gowns that incorporated multiple yards of fabric. Though Adrian's day fashions tended to showcase clean lines and surprising details, Adrian's evening gowns were often quite dramatic, offering a touch of glamour that hearkened back to his days as a costume designer. Taffeta was a favorite fabric as its inherent stiffness lent itself to dramatic, sculptural shaping, as in the gown below.

Evening gown
Adrian
1948
2006.883.1
Gift of Bob Diamond

This gown incorporates elements typical of Adrian's evening gowns of the late 1940s. Swagged iridescent taffeta creates a full skirt with draped effect and dramatic fabric panniers at each hip. The back of the skirt features an asymmetrical train, another favorite device. Adrian repeated this 18th century influenced silhouette multiple times, creating similar versions of this gown using different colors of taffeta and varying the bodice. He designed a version for his wife, Janet Gaynor, which was called "The Tigress" and featured tiger striped taffeta. Other evening gowns from this period feature taffeta wings jutting from hips and shoulders and voluminous skirts, all with a sculptural feel.

Back view of 2006.883.1

Side view of 2006.883.1

Adrian's design career effectively ended in May 1952, when he suffered a heart attack during work on his fall collection. Adrian's ability to span the gap between the silver screen and everyday life indicated a level of creative ability possessed by few designers, and rather than entrust someone else with design duties, Adrian decided to close his company. Adrian and his wife moved to Brazil in 1954, returning to Los Angeles in 1958 when Adrian was asked to design costumes for a stage production. On September 12, 1959, Adrian passed away due to a cerebral hemorrhage.

1 Pope, Virginia. "Wide Range Seen in Style Designs" New York Times. 22 Sept. 1948.: 37.

2. Weaver, Sylvia. "Designers Here Best on Earth" Los Angeles Times.18 Feb. 1942.: B14.

Esquevin, Christian. Adrian: From Silver Screen to Custom Label. New York: Monacelli Press. 2008.

 

Adrian: Hollywood Costume Designer

Because of our location in Los Angeles, the FIDM Museum is fortunate to house costumes from a variety of Hollywood films. Many of these costumes are associated with the early years of the film industry and were worn by stars such as Marlene Dietrich and Rudolph Valentino. You can look forward to seeing some of these costumes in future blog posts!

This week we're going to feature a few Hollywood related highlights from our collection. Today begins a two-part post on Adrian (1903-1959), who was both a costume designer for Hollywood films and a successful designer of couture and ready-to-wear women's clothing. Between 1922 and 1926, Adrian worked in New York and designed costumes for a number of stage shows and also designed costumes for the Rudolph Valentino film A Sainted Devil (1924). In 1928, Adrian signed a contract with Hollywood based MGM, where he remained as chief costume designer until 1941.

As a costume designer, Adrian only designed for women, while his assistants developed costumes for male actors. This lead to Adrian's cinematic credit line, "Gowns by Adrian." Working with superstars such as Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo, Adrian created costumes which were intended to reveal information about setting, character and plot through fabric, fit and embellishment. In a 1937 interview Adrian noted that "Few people in an audience watching a great screen production realize the importance of any gown worn by the feminine star...the fact that it was definitely planned to mirror some definite mood, to be as much a part of the play as the lines or the scenery, seldom occurs to them."¹

Period costumes are a particular challenge to the costume designer, as they must be both authentic to the era depicted and accessible to the audience. Adrian excelled at balancing these competing priorities and created costumes for numerous period films. These included Marie Antoinette (1938), Anna Karenina (1935), Romeo and Juliet (1936) and Pride and Prejudice (1940). Adrian also designed the fantastical costumes for one of the best-loved films ever, The Wizard of Oz (1939).

Bonnet
Adrian
1940
Gift of Stacy Behlmer
2003.798.2

The bonnet above was donated to the FIDM Museum in 2003 and came to us with an attribute of Adrian for the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice. It bore a label reading "Ann Rutherford." Rutherford was a well-known actress, starring in numerous films throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Shortly after the donation, our curator, Kevin Jones, happened to be watching television and came across the same movie during the exact scene in which Ann Rutherford wears our bonnet. Kevin was able to actually see the label reading "Ann Rutherford," proving that our bonnet was worn in the film and was therefore designed by Adrian. You can watch the 1940 trailer for Pride and Prejudice here. The New York Times named it one of the top 10 films of 1940, calling it "one of the most charming and elegant costume pictures ever made."²

Adrian often used images of historic dress as a reference point, taking authentic period styles and altering them to appear more dynamic onscreen. With its tall, upright, flattened brim, our bonnet is a case in point. Though the trimming of feathers, vines and ribbon are period-appropriate, the overall silhouette is exaggerated beyond what was actually worn in the 1830s. The various greens used in the bonnet were not popular in the 1830s. These colors, which appear as shades of gray in the black and white film, must have been chosen for their onscreen appearance.

Back view of 2003.798.2

Though Adrian designed specifically for the screen, his aesthetic was highly influential in mainstream fashion. MGM used Adrian's costumes as a promotional tool, allowing industry magazines to document the process of costume making so that home-sewers could mimic his aesthetic. Dresses based on "Gowns by Adrian" were sold through Macy's Cinema Shops, which sold variations of dresses featured in Hollywood films. Other Adrian knock-offs were also available, including a line designed by "Adrienne," which featured dresses named after Hollywood stars. Perhaps most influential was the dress worn by Joan Crawford in Letty Lynton(1932). A floor-length, full skirted dress with a fitted bodice and exuberant rows of ruffled fabric at the shoulders, the dress was a sensation. Versions were sold at multiple price points throughout the country, demonstrating that costuming and plot were equally important to the film-goer.

By 1941, Adrian costume designs were both widely admired and widely imitated. He had worked with some of the most iconic women in Hollywood, helping to shape their cinematic personas and thus influencing fashion for all women. It was time to move on to new challenges. In August 1941, Adrian left MGM with the intention of opening his own shop.

Check back tomorrow for a look at one of Adrian's designs under his own label!

 

1 quoted in Gutner, Howard. Gowns by Adrian: The MGM Years: 1928-1941. New York: Abrams. 2001. p. 9.

2 Crowther, Bosley. "Again the 'Ten Best' " The New York Times. 29 Dec. 1940.:X5.