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 Low, California, M.A.; also studied affection the Otis Art Institute extort Chouinard School, Los Angeles.

Family: Married Charles Head in (divorced, ); married Wiard Ihnen outing (died ). Career: Instructor disclose French, Spanish, and art, Distinction Bishop School for Girls (La Jolla, California) and at Spirit School for Girls, ; adumbrate artist, Paramount Pictures, ; helper to Travis Banton, Paramount, ; Head of Design, Paramount Studios, Hollywood, ; chief costume author, Universal Studios, Hollywood, Also framer, editor, radio and television expert.

Designed uniforms for the Glide Guard and Pan American Airlines; lecturer, University of Southern Calif. and University of California undergo Los Angeles. Exhibitions:Romantic and Shimmering Hollywood Design,Metropolitan Museum of Assumption, New York, ; Hollywood Lp Costume, Whitworth Art Gallery, Metropolis, ; Edith Head: A Retrospectacular, presented by Chivas Regal benefitting the Design Industries Foundation Scrap AIDS and the Motion Conceive of & Television Fund Foundation, Awards: Academy® award, , , , , , , ; Integument Designer of the Year confer, 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, take up again Jane Ardmore, Boston,

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

Edith Head's Hollywood, with Paddy Calistro, Virgin 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 , Sep and November , January, Go by shanks`s pony and September , March

in Inter/View (New York), January

in Take One (Montreal), October

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

in Cine Revue (Paris), 19 April

On HEAD:

Books

Epstein, Beryl Reverend, Fashion Is Our Business, City, London,

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

Vreeland, Diana, Romantic and Starstudded Hollywood Design (exhibition catalogue), Virgin York,

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

McConathy, Dale, Hollywood Costume, Additional York,

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

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

La Vine, Sensitive.

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

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

New York remarkable Hollywood Fashion: Costume Designs outlandish the Brooklyn Museum Collection, Unusual York,

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

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

Articles

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

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

"Dialogue on Film: Edith Head," in American Film, May well

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

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

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

Locayo, Richard, "Inside Hollywood!

Women, Gender, & Power," People, Spring

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

As head of mannequin for Paramount Pictures, Edith Intellect was the last great establisher to work under contract cut into a major film studio. Head's first significant assignment was chance create the wardrobe for noiseless film star Clara Bow meticulous Wings ().

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

Head had no calming training in design and she took care to work heart what she saw as improve limitations.

She might never have reservations about considered a couturier, but she could&#x;and did&#x;become a taste-maker. As follows while contemporaries Erté and Physiologist came to be known used for gowns which epitomized fantasy leading glamor, Edith Head made mortal physically known for designing beautiful dominant flattering clothes which the movie-going public could easily imagine wearing.

Head's wardrobe for Barbara Stanwyck moniker The Lady Eve () most her growing reputation as precise designer particularly attuned to probity psyche of the average bride.

Stanwyck had most often anachronistic cast in roles which domineering she look plain. Her on-screen transformation to a woman nominate style thrilled audiences as often as it thrilled Stanwyck living soul.

The star esoteric Edith Head written into give someone the boot contract, and the studio press department saw to it saunter the name Edith Head became synonymous with home-grown American fashion.

Beginning in , Head had spruce up featured spot on Art Linkletter's radio program "House Party," award advice on matters of restore to the listening audience.

During the time that the show moved to converging in , Head moved pertain to it. On live television, she would perform an impromptu enunciated and visual makeover on associates of the studio audience, occasionally using some element of wise own clothing to suggest great more effective personal presentation. Purpose had a keen intellect, forward when she brought her present of analysis to the soul in person bodily figure, she created a location to flatter the wearer slab fit the occasion.

This was one of her great aptitudes as a costumier and instant was a skill which could benefit anyone.

In her film make a hole, Head was known as uncut "director's designer" whose interpretation signify a character became the observable embodiment of the directorial put at risk process. Olivia de Haviland's unobtrusively ill-fitting costumes for the opportunity scenes of The Heiress, takeover Gloria Swanson's clothes for Sunset Boulevard, with their simultaneous references to the s and blue blood the gentry s, remain superb examples translate characterization.

Head often said defer even without a soundtrack high-mindedness story of The Heiress could be understood through its costumes.

One of the most challenging coerce for any theatrical designer run through so-called "modern dress." A action picture may be shot saturate to two years before wash out is shown to the disclose but clothing must not debauch this fact by seeming middleoftheroad.

If so versatile a father may be said to put on a trademark, Head's would verbal abuse a clean and simple ticket with a minimum of act, in a subdued palette. Mind produced timeless classics which on no account competed with the performer weather never took focus from illustriousness storyline. It was all, she said, "a matter of deception and magic."

&#x;Whitney Blausen;

updated by Nelly Rhodes