The Dress Doctor: Prescriptions for Style, From A to Z

Book Preface

It is a little known fact that there once stood a doctor’s “operating room,” tucked away in the corridors of Paramount Studios. On any given day, the patient may have been Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, or Barbara Stanwyck. The medicine prescribed: a potent mixture of style and glamour befitting the role in question or a personal appearance at an upcoming Hollywood event. Costume designer Edith Head’s sartorial precision earned her the moniker of “dress doctor,” though she just as easily could have been called a fashion alchemist, such was her ability to magically transform the average girl-next-door into a standout beauty, and vice versa. When cataloging the most famous actresses of the twentieth century in their most noteworthy roles, they are very likely wearing clothing designed by the legendary Edith Head.

No one can forget Bette Davis’s award-winning performance as Margo Channing in All About Eve, though equally memorable is her off-the-shoulder cocktail dress, which aptly reflects Channing’s off-kilter persona during the film’s heated party scene. For a decadent dose of glamour à la Old Hollywood, one need only think of Hedy Lamarr in the final scene of Samson and Delilah. Made entirely of peacock feathers, Lamarr’s dress canonized the actress into public consciousness and earned Head her second Academy Award. Far less decadent than Lamarr’s exotic wardrobe but no less notable are the ensembles Head designed for Grace Kelly in Rear Window, the most iconic of which was a billowing black velvet and white tulle number. Kelly’s wardrobe in this film defines elegance and sophistication, two qualities that the public would forever associate with the actress, in no small part thanks to Head’s deft handiwork. Lending her inimitable flair to now-classic films such as Sunset Boulevard, Roman Holiday, and Vertigo, among hundreds more, Head created costumes as indelible as the legendary stars who wore them. Besides administering to the standard costume fitting, Head also designed much of her clients’ personal wardrobes, in essence making her Hollywood’s first celebrity stylist. Her unerring sense of style and innate talent ensured that Hollywood’s stars always looked chic, whether they were having lunch with an agent at the Brown Derby or attending an Oscar party at Chasen’s

Head didn’t grow up among filmdom’s elite in Beverly Hills. Oddly enough, she made her way into the Hollywood spotlight by way of Searchlight, Nevada, a small mining town, where she entertained herself by playing outside in its vast desert landscape and demonstrating an early passion for style. A favorite pastime was playing dress-up with her cat and dog, and she often adorned the town’s local mules in elaborate headdresses of ribbons. When Head was a teenager, her mother and stepfather separated, and she moved to Los Angeles with her mother. After graduating with honors from the University of California at Berkeley and receiving a master’s degree from Stanford, she secured a job teaching French and art at the Hollywood School for Girls. The pedigree of students was impressive. Most of the students were daughters of cinema’s biggest stars, and the school often shut down to accommodate parents’ shooting schedules, giving Head her first glimpse into Hollywood’s rarified world and its machinations.

In 1923, at the age of 26, Head’s life took a definitive turn. Lured by the promise of a higher salary, she applied for a job in the costume department of Paramount Studios. Though she lacked any formal art training, she had been taking evening classes at the Chouinard Art College in an attempt to stay ahead of her students’ work. When Howard Greer, Paramount’s head designer, asked for her portfolio, she produced an impressive array of sketches, all of which were “borrowed” from fellow colleagues at Chouinard. Remarking that he had never seen so much talent in one portfolio, Greer hired her on the spot.

As Head attempted to hide her inexperience, her start in show business resembled the plot twists of a screwball comedy, the likes of which included her first debacle, creating the costumes for the Candy Ball dance number in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Golden Bed. Head drew the chorus girls as lollipops, peppermint sticks, and chocolate drops—candy, after all, was easy enough to illustrate. But when it came time to transform her sketches into actual costumes, she was at a loss. She used red house paint to draw peppermint stripes on the leotards—the wet lines wiggled and waved on camera—and outfitted the girls with long fingernails made of actual peppermint sticks two feet long, which quickly broke off. Worse, Head had put real candy on the girls’ hair and shoulders, and whenever they got within a half foot of each other, the candy would stick. From that moment forward, Head resolved never to draw anything she couldn’t make. Luckily, she wasn’t fired, and she salvaged her reputation dressing Lupe Velez and Gary Cooper in The Wolf Song. After that film, Head’s career progressed on a steady track, eclipsing that of both of her bosses, Howard Greer and Travis Banton. She went on to design costumes for all of Hitchcock’s films—as well as for Hollywood’s most beloved—and for dozens of what are now considered film classics, including Mae West in She Done Him Wrong, Paulette Goddard in The Cat and the Canary, Veronica Lake in Sullivan’s Travels, Ingrid Bergman in Notorious, Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress, Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun, Marlene Dietrich in Witness for the Prosecution, and Sophia Loren in That Kind of Woman, among countless others.