Fashion Influential #39: Edith Head
images via alabaster brow and canaltcm.comEDITH HEAD
Born:
October 28, 1897
Died:
October 24, 1981
Most Fashionable Films:
Lady in the Dark, Notorious, All About Eve, Sunset Boulevard, Rear Window, Roman Holiday, Sabrina, Funny Face
Beginnings.
Edith Head was the Languages and Art teacher at the Hollywood School for Girls when she answered a Paramount Studios ad seeking a costume designer. She was hired with no previous design experience - she'd stolen someone else's sketches for her interview - and served as Paramount Studios' most beloved costume designer for 44 years.
Career Highs.
Head was nominated for 35 Academy Awards during her career, eight of which she won. The biggest names in Hollywood adored her for her personalized working style: she consulted extensively with the stars before she designed for them. Head believed that costumes should help the audience better interpret characters and storylines.
The cardinal sin is not being badly dressed, but wearing the right thing in the wrong place.
- Edith Head
Head was responsible for costuming Alfred Hitchcock's "Cool Blondes."Career Lows.
Head was often criticized for her subtlety; she shied away from trendy or outlandish designs in order to keep the films she costumed from looking dated. In one sense, Head's designs were anything but groundbreaking, but she managed to preserve a sense of timelessness nonetheless.
Legacy.
That before 1949 Costume Design was not even a category at the Academy Awards is a testament to Head's mark on Hollywood. Few costume designers have achieved household name status, but Head's ability to reveal character traits via simple details, like the varied hats in 1971's The Sting, for example, made her The Woman behind the most memorable dresses captured on celluloid for over half a century.
The Incredibles' Edna Mode.Interesting Fact.
Edith Head was likely caricaturized in Pixar's The Incredibles. The fictional costume designer Edna Mode is almost the spitting image of Hollywood's biggest-winning designer, from her round glasses to her get-down-to-business attitude.
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