The Costumes of hollywood

“I have always looked to the costume designers of yesteryear for guidance and inspiration. I salute Larry McQueen for his tireless enthusiasm and mission to ensure their work is remembered, respected, and as accessible as any other artist whose work is preserved in museums worldwide.”

Sandy Powell, Oscar and BAFTA Winning Costume Designer"

"Larry McQueen has acquired and built one of the most important private collections in the world. His passion and dedication for the art and craft of film costume design has ensured that the work of costume designers has endured and is celebrated. Larry's care for his collection is of museum

standard and he is committed to sharing his collection through his website, exhibitions and this glorious publication."

Keith Lodwick, Theatre and Film Historian, Former Curator of Theatre and Screen

Arts, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

"Many thanks to Larry McQueen and Coleen Scott for sharing the story of passion and heart that created The Collection of Motion Picture Costume Design. Larry McQueen and Bill Thomas are the true heroes of film costume collecting, and are my nominees for National Treasure!"

Bobi Garland, Former Director of Western Costume Company Library and

Archive

“The Costumes of Hollywood highlights the importance and

captivatingly reveals many little hidden secrets of costume design in film. Larry McQueen is to be commended for his dedicated collecting and tireless preservation of many iconic Costumes. His lifetime passion brings a delightful insight to this lovely book.”

Gillian Armstrong, Celebrated Filmmaker and Director of Women He’s

Undressed

“The eighteen Best Picture nominees and winners featured in this chapter have a collective fifty-two Oscars including those in screenwriting, acting, directing, technical awards, and of course, costume design. There was film before 1929 of course, and there were annual top ten lists from national critics not so different from an Academy nominees list. Blood and Sand(1922), starring Rudolph Valentino as a young matador was one of these early acclaimed films. One of the earliest artifacts in the collection, a distressed matador jacket repurposed by designer (and Valentino’s wife) Natacha Rambova, initiates this chapter. Costumes from 2002 Best Picture winner Chicago and 2013 Best Picture nominee American Hustle conclude this imaginary exhibition.

In this selection of film costumes encompassing a span of nearly 100 years, a breadth of time periods, styles and design methods are represented. We consider period pieces set in both Eastern and Western cultures, representations of peak fashion from the mid-century to a 2013 interpretation of the 1970s, and interpretations of stage productions from Shakespeare to Broadway musicals. The stories told in these films range from comedy to drama and everything in between, styled by some of the most prolific costume designers, and a few who were known best for their work on these films. Consider as you read on: the films that were black and white only, and those that were screened in color. Designing for either film medium requires a knowledge of color theory, light and understanding of the particular film’s color sensitivity or correction that might occur post-production. Designers can never completely know what the finished product will look like on the big screen, but they make educated decisions in hopes that they will enhance the captured images. 

DESIGNERS FEATURED

In the Golden Age of Hollywood there was a short list of known costume designers, and most were heading design for entire production studios. If they weren’t a studio designer like the legendary Edith Head (Paramount & Universal), Walter Plunkett (RKO), Adrian, or Helen Rose (MGM), then they might have been one of Broadway’s biggest design celebrities brought in for their special skills, such as musical theatre maven Irene Sharaff. Even with the late advent of the Oscar for Costume Design, Edith Head had thirty-five nominations and eight wins before she retired. Irene Sharaff had an impressive record with fifteen nominations and five wins. 

When it came to costumes, actors had their say in some instances, bringing in their chosen designer for star wardrobe, exemplified by Travis Banton’s gowns for Claudette Colbert’s Cleopatra or Rosalind Russel’s shining Orry-Kelly creations in Auntie Mame. In modern filmmaking, directors (and producers) drive the design team, often working with the same crews (and actors) from project to project, represented in this chapter by recent Oscar winner and frequent Tim Burton collaborator Colleen Atwood. Ann Roth, a protégé of Edith Head represented later in the book, is best known for her multiple collaborations with both actors (Meryl Streep) and directors (Mike Nichols). Roth has two Oscar wins and five nominations.

COSTUME TRENDS AND CHANGES WITH AWARDS

The name of the award for Best Picture is not the only thing that changed about the Oscars over the nearly 100 years this selection covers. As mentioned, there were awards for best black and white or color films, but in 1944 the Best Picture category shrunk to only five films of any genre, and it remained that way until 2009. This not only made the award more exclusive, but from 1953[i]onward it also saved time for the costly network broadcast; another reason for the separation of scientific and technical awards ceremonies, and even the elimination of the hair and makeup award presentation on the live broadcast in 2022[ii], which is so closely tied to costume design.

The major competitor in the costume design category remains static in the history of the award with period costume, but musicals are a close second, followed by fantasy or a mix of period and the latter. Since the Academy permanently eliminated the split black and white and color costume design awards in 1967, only three contemporary films have won for costume design[iii]. When it comes to nominations, members of the academy vote within their category, i.e. actors for actors, or costume designers for other costume designers, but everyone votes for best picture. The expansion of the category to more nominees in the 2000s (up to ten) not only allows more films to get attention from paying audiences, but also offers a chance for films from genres that previously might not have been considered in the category. Examples of this are animated films, action, or superhero films, like more recent nominees Avatar (2009 & 2022), Toy Story 3 (2010), Mad Max Fury Road (2015), Black Panther(2018), Joker (2019), Pinocchio (2020), and Dune (2021). This relates to trends in costume design nominees as well, with most of the live-action movies above garnering costume and makeup nominations and several wins. The awards honor innovation in design exemplified by the combination of imagination, research and technology required to pull off some of the inventive looks supporting these stories. Best Picture and Best Costume Design don’t always go hand in hand, but the more believably the story is visualized on the screen, the more likely it is we will see this trend continue.

PERSONAL AND CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF ACADEMY RECOGNITION

Best Picture winners are some of the most memorable films ever made, and sometimes nominees become even more of a cultural phenomenon. For example, Auntie Mame was nominated the same year that Gigi won the Oscar in 1959. To look at the history of this Oscar category is to take a trip through iconic moments in film that demonstrate those magical times the director’s vision, performances, design and technical execution come together to make a work of art. Larry McQueen is the guardian of a costume from at least twenty of these movies, and each is carefully preserved so that their legacies can live on in exhibition, possibly reuniting with other artifacts to enhance the fan or scholar’s experience."