My Favorite Gown

I'm a big old movie buff. 

In early April we talked about glamour, the good the bad, was it still around and did we even care.  For me, if there's one garment that epitomizes what glamour is all about, it's the evening gown.


In old movies, they're everywhere, in almost every film genre barring Westerns.  Gown designers often got their own screen credit (back when screen credits were brief) -- i.e., "Miss So-and-so's gowns by _______." 

It's amazing how prevalent gowns still are on the fashion runway, at "red carpet" pseudo events, and in films like Sex and the City.  Apart from the odd wedding, when does a woman wear a gown anymore?  It's like we're not ready to let them go.  I'd argue that gowns are more popular today than say, forty years ago.

There still are formal affairs like fundraisers and galas where women wear gowns, primarily in big cities.  But it's rare to see a woman who isn't wealthy or a celebrity wearing a gown.  Not good not bad, just the way things are.

I decided to choose my all-time favorite movie gown.  You've no doubt seen it before.  It's the feathered gown Ginger Rogers wore in the Cheek to Cheek number in Top Hat.  It was designed by Bernard Newman, apparently with a lot of input from Ms. Rogers herself.

I actually got to see the original at a Hollywood costume design exhibit Diana Vreeland organized at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the mid-Seventies, a wonderful, wonderful show.  Let me tell you, Ginger Rogers was petite and Astaire wasn't much bigger.

The gown truly seems to come from another world: it floats, it's white (on screen at least; I think the real thing was pale blue so as to photograph better); it shines (on the satin mid section); it's fragile but also sturdy.  It bounces to the music and supports the mood of the lyrics.

You've probably heard the old story that Astaire hated the dress because the feathers had a tendency to fly off and stick to his tailcoat and in the film you can see a few feathers aloft.  Rogers was adamant about wearing it and I'm glad she stood her ground.  

If you've never seen it in motion, you must.  The dance itself starts at 2:10.



It's hard to separate a famous costume from the actor who wears it.  In this case, it was a perfect pairing.  No one wore -- or danced in -- a gown in quite the same way as Ginger Rogers.  Breathtaking.

As long as there's video, kids, glamour lives on!

Cathy models the 1937 Hollywood dress!

The purple dress finished, yesterday Cathy and I set out for another fun-filled fashion shoot on the gritty streets of Gotham.

Once again our story takes us back in time -- to 1937 to be exact.  I think you'll agree that Cathy looks especially fetching in Thirties frocks.

For the literal-minded among you, please note: the character of Cathy's grandmother, Beatrice Lane, is played by Cathy herself.  Beatrice, poor thing, is in an urn somewhere in the closet.

So sit back, suspend your disbelief, and watch Cathy as she models Hollywood "Pattern of Youth" #1471!



To see these photos full-size, please click on any image and then, in Picasa, choose "View All" in the upper left hand corner, and "Slideshow."

I think you'll agree I owe that girl lunch, at the very least.

You can also follow some of my dress construction process here.

Enjoy!

Is Glamour Dead?

I just borrowed what looks to be an interesting book yesterday entitled, "Glamour, A History" by Stephen Gundle, a British writer.  It's a study of the concept of glamour throughout history: its origins and its varying definitions during different eras (the 1930's and 40's in particular), up to and including the present.

I haven't really started it but it's already got me thinking:  Do women aspire to be "glamorous" anymore?  Glamour seems to me to be a dated concept, at least the way I've always thought about it.  For me, glamour suggests drama, artifice, and exoticism -- all missing in today's 24/7 media landscape and the middle class, (primarily) suburban culture we Americans have been steeped in for better or for worse (even if we're not suburban or middle class).

I think contemporary life has just become too informal, too come-as-you-are, too frank about sexuality and uncomfortable with obvious (social) class difference, for the concept to hold any attraction for most people today. 

Most women I know want to be, first healthy, then probably thin, and then some variation of pretty (as THEY define it) -- and ideally a combination of all three.  Do they want to be glamorous?  The very word evokes stylized images like these from Thirties and Forties Hollywood:

By the Fifties and Sixties -- a time of greater economic equality too -- idealized women were more likely to be girl-next-door types than glamorous and remote (I don't think Dietrich ever posed with a fishing rod.):

Today, well......

How about Beyonce, you ask?  Isn't Beyonce glamorous?  Maybe, but if so, what is it that makes her glamorous rather than "merely" beautiful?  

So readers-of-the-female-persuasion and men who hold an opinion on this topic, I ask you:

Does glamour have meaning in your lives?  Are you or would you like to be glamorous and how would you define it?  Who are your contemporary glamour role models?

Conversely, do you think the concept of glamour is dead?  If so, what killed it?

I'd love to hear what you think!

Style Wars: Ginger vs. Marlene

After digging around the vintage sewing blogs lately, I've noticed a surprising appreciation for the style of Ginger Rogers.

Casey's article last month about Thirties film fashion is an excellent example.

While Ginger is best remembered as Fred Astaire's dancing partner, she was a tremendously popular dramatic and light comedic actress in the late Thirties and early Forties, winning an Academy Award in 1940 for "Kitty Foyle." 

During Ginger's heyday, she embodied a classic film type: the shopgirl Cinderella -- tough, hardworking, no-nonsense, quick-witted.  Audiences connected -- and still connect -- with Ginger's ability to project both strength and vulnerability; there's a Depression-era weariness and, I believe, woundedness that lurks just below the surface that feels very real. 

Although she was sharp-tongued, Ginger wasn't brassy, like Lucille Ball; sarcastic and desexualized, like Eve Arden; or willing to play "the girl" or the sidekick, like Joan Blondell and Una Merkel (the latter playing the same types Ginger did in the early-Thirties but never getting promoted).

Oddly, Ginger's star began to descend relatively early, after a dreary performance as Liza Elliot in "Lady in the Dark," which I wrote about here.  Ginger never completely faded, however, and she was still turning up well into the Eighties on "Love Boat" and the celebrity talk show circuit. 

You see Ginger's persona best in "Stage Door," where as a working class dancer living at the Footlights Club,  she's forced to share a room with wealthy aspiring actress Katherine Hepburn.  Ginger gives a wonderful, wholly credible performance as tough-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside Jean Maitland.

Ginger wore clothes beautifully, and a lot of the costumes she wore in the late Thirties look almost contemporary today: the sporty rehearsal outfits, the tap pants, the day clothes, the soft, shoulder-length hair.

It's unfortunate that as her star ascended, Ginger became increasingly shellacked and mannered; less accessible and less loveable.  Compare Penny Carroll from "Swing Time" to Irene Malvern of "Weekend at the Waldorf."  Two very different Gingers!

The anti-Ginger was Marlene Dietrich.

Where Ginger was all-American, Marlene was exotic: the foreign accent, the langorous body, the seductive, sophisticated air, the decadent opulence.  Where Ginger worked as a dance instructor, shop girl, or radio actress, Marlene was an empress, an international jewel thief, a gypsy.

Ginger always looked modern; Marlene looked like a fetish object.  Marlene's style seems inaccessible today: the endless feathers, beads, and veils, the half-moon eyebrows and softly-shadowed facial contours.  The early films she made directed by Josef von Sternberg must be seen to be believed.  The art direction and costuming stun.

One of my favorite Marlene Dietrich films is Ernst Lubitsch's sophisticated comedy "Desire," co-starring Gary Cooper.

The gowns, by Travis Banton, with whom Marlene worked closely to create and maintain her glamorous image, are other-worldly.

One highlight below (with a lovely song by Marlene at 0:35):



You can wipe me up off the floor now!

What makes both actress's images so powerful and enduring is that these women played to type, again, and again, and again.  They worked for major film studios dedicated to maintaining a star's image for as long as the public would buy it.  When they left their respective image-defining studios (RKO for Ginger, Paramount for Marlene), they often struggled.  Times changed, too, and interest in their types either waned (as in Marlene's case) or shifted to younger actresses (as in Ginger's).

In closing, do you agree that Marlene is the anti-Ginger, or am I comparing apples and oranges?

Who, if anyone, are their modern descendents?

I'd love to hear from you.

I love a movie fashion show...

..and this one is immediately followed by a glorious dance by Astaire and Rogers, from the film "Roberta."

Gowns designed by Bernard Newman, head costume designer at RKO Pictures.

TRIVIA QUIZ - Can you name the tall blonde in the feathered cape?