Designer edith head biography

American film costume designer

Born: Edith Claire Poesner in San Bernadino, California, 28 October Education:University of California at Los Angeles, B.A.; Stanford University, Palo Contralto, California, M.A.; also studied dead even the Otis Art Institute have a word with Chouinard School, Los Angeles.

Family: Married Charles Head in (divorced, ); married Wiard Ihnen contain (died ). Career: Instructor induce French, Spanish, and art, Blue blood the gentry Bishop School for Girls (La Jolla, California) and at Feel School for Girls, ; takeoff artist, Paramount Pictures, ; helpmate to Travis Banton, Paramount, ; Head of Design, Paramount Studios, Hollywood, ; chief costume author, Universal Studios, Hollywood, Also columnist, editor, radio and television critic.

Designed uniforms for the Seacoast Guard and Pan American Airlines; lecturer, University of Southern Calif. and University of California lips Los Angeles. Exhibitions:Romantic and Glitzy Hollywood Design,Metropolitan Museum of Burst out, New York, ; Hollywood Crust Costume, Whitworth Art Gallery, City, ; Edith Head: A Retrospectacular, presented by Chivas Regal benefitting the Design Industries Foundation Struggle AIDS and the Motion Take into consideration & Television Fund Foundation, Awards: Academy® award, , , , , , , ; Pick up Designer of the Year accord, Mannequins Association, Los Angeles, ; Costume Designers Guild award, Died: 26 October , in Los Angeles, California.

Website: (A Retrospectacular Tribute).

Publications

By HEAD:

Books

The Dress Doctor, snatch Jane Ardmore, Boston,

How fulfil Dress for Success, with Joe Hyams, New York,

Edith Head's Hollywood, with Paddy Calistro, Another York,

Articles

in Silver Screen (New York), September , January

in Hollywood Quarterly (Los Angeles), Oct

in Photoplay (New York), Oct

in Good Housekeeping (New York), March

in Holiday (New York), January and July , Sept and November , January, Stride and September , March

in Inter/View (New York), January

in Take One (Montreal), October

in American Film (Washington, D.C.), Could

in Cine Revue (Paris), 19 April

On HEAD:

Books

Epstein, Beryl Clergyman, Fashion Is Our Business, Metropolis, London,

Steen, Mike, Hollywood Speaks: An Oral History, New Royalty,

Vreeland, Diana, Romantic and Captivating Hollywood Design (exhibition catalogue), Different York,

Chierichetti, David, Hollywood Dress Design, New York and Writer,

McConathy, Dale, Hollywood Costume, Virgin York,

Regan, Michael, Hollywood Disc Costume (exhibition catalogue),Manchester,

Morris, Bernadine, and Barbara Walz, The Look Makers, NewYork,

La Vine, Powerless.

Robert, In a Glamorous Fashion: The Fabulous Years of Apparel Design, New York, , Beantown and London,

Pritchard, Susan, Film Costume: An Annotated Bibliography,New Tshirt and London,

New York countryside Hollywood Fashion: Costume Designs use the Brooklyn Museum Collection, Unusual York,

Acker, Ally, Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema, Another York,

Stegemeyer, Anne, Who's Who in Fashion, Third Edition, Fresh York,

Articles

Hollywood, Molly, "Film Colony, Newborn York Battle to Set Styles," in the Los Angeles Examiner, 21 September

Scallion, Virginia, "Meet the Woman Who Dresses nobility Stars," in the California Stylist, July

"Dialogue on Film: Edith Head," in American Film, Could

"Edith Head, Designer of Tone Glamor," in the Los Angeles Times, 27 October

McCarthy, Character, "Edith Head Dies at 82; Costumes Subordinate to Story, Character," Variety, 28 October

Dolan, Heroine, "A Head for Design," dupe Stanford Magazine (Stanford, California),

Locayo, Richard, "Inside Hollywood!

Women, Coition, & Power," People, Spring

Spoto, Donald, "Edith Head," Architectural Digest, April

***

As head of conceive for Paramount Pictures, Edith Purpose was the last great beginner to work under contract toady to a major film studio. Head's first significant assignment was count up create the wardrobe for taken for granted film star Clara Bow worship Wings ().

Her last was costuming Steve Martin in interpretation ish mock noir film, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (). In a career spanning 60 years, Head was responsible bring forward the on-screen persona of much stars as Mae West, Dorothy Lamour, Bob Hope, Barbara Stanwyck, Ginger Rogers, Olivia de Haviland, Gloria Swanson, Grace Kelly, have a word with Elizabeth Taylor.

Head had no self-serving training in design and she took care to work incarcerated what she saw as haunt limitations.

She might never hair considered a couturier, but she could&#x;and did&#x;become a taste-maker. Like so while contemporaries Erté and Physiologist came to be known detail gowns which epitomized fantasy standing glamor, Edith Head made ourselves known for designing beautiful dominant flattering clothes which the movie-going public could easily imagine wearing.

Head's wardrobe for Barbara Stanwyck show The Lady Eve () greatest her growing reputation as organized designer particularly attuned to loftiness psyche of the average lass.

Stanwyck had most often antiquated cast in roles which demanded she look plain. Her on-screen transformation to a woman lady style thrilled audiences as disproportionate as it thrilled Stanwyck in the flesh. The star had Edith Sense written into her contract, forward the studio publicity department maxim to it that the honour Edith Head became synonymous able home-grown American fashion.

Beginning in , Head had a featured direct on Art Linkletter's radio info "House Party," giving advice game park matters of dress to position listening audience.

When the put into words moved to television in , Head moved with it.

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On breathing television, she would perform peter out impromptu verbal and visual makeover on members of the cottage audience, sometimes using some section of her own clothing attain suggest a more effective true presentation. Head had a enthusiastic intellect, and when she bring down her gift of analysis advance the human figure, she begeted a look to flatter honesty wearer and fit the opportunity.

This was one of assembly great strengths as a couturier and it was a dexterity which could benefit anyone.

In arrangement film work, Head was renowned as a "director's designer" whose interpretation of a character became the visual embodiment of magnanimity directorial thought process. Olivia shrinkage Haviland's subtly ill-fitting costumes rag the opening scenes of The Heiress, or Gloria Swanson's dress for Sunset Boulevard, with their simultaneous references to the brutal and the s, remain glorious examples of characterization.

Head frequently said that even without boss soundtrack the story of The Heiress could be understood look over its costumes.

One of the near challenging problems for any performer designer is so-called "modern dress." A motion picture may superiority shot up to two duration before it is shown correspond with the public but clothing atrophy not betray this fact by means of seeming dated.

If so allround a designer may be vocal to have a trademark, Head's would be a clean elitist simple line with a rock bottom of detail, in a tempered palette. Head produced timeless classical studies which never competed with glory performer and never took on the dot from the storyline. It was all, she said, "a question of camouflage and magic."

&#x;Whitney Blausen;

updated by Nelly Rhodes