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| The Little Extras - Buttons and Bows | |
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| The Little Extras - Buttons and Bows | |
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Me Voilà
Cristobal Balenciaga is known as the designer’s designer. The intensely private Basque opened his couture house in Paris in 1937. His combination of craftsmanship and dramatic flair soon made his creations a standard to which other designer’s clothes were compared. Sculptural and sober, Balenciaga’s clothes had an unmistakable authority. As Balenciaga said himself, "A woman has no need to be perfect or even beautiful to wear my dresses, the dress will do all that for her."
Taking advantage of Onassis's seemingly limitless wealth, Jackie Kennedy set off on a series of shopping binges which were almost unprecedented amongst American society, running up quite astronomical bills, for purchases which she could well have done without. Unable to make up her mind which of the six shades in a particular Valentino range suited her complexion, she would take them all, at $10,000. On one occasion she spent $25,000 on lingerie, yet reproached Onassis as wasteful for doling out $100 bills for her children - who disliked him slightly less than his son and daughter loathed her - to buy sweets and Coca-Cola.
The transformation of Maria Callas from overweight opera singer to stylish international celebrity was one of the most remarkable make overs in make over history. Maria was so large she was disparaged in the opera world, a milieu accustomed to hefty individuals. Taking Audrey Hepburn as her ideal, Maria effectively halved her weight in a few years. Soon after she was dressing in Parisian couture and sunning her lithe self on the yacht of her lover Aristotle Onassis. While Maria Callas never resembled Audrey Hepburn, by using Audrey’s style as a starting point she developed a look that became the Maria Callas style.
When asked to design Joan Crawford's gowns for the movie Letty Lynton, designer Adrian excelled himself. He decided to make Joan's broad mannish shoulders an asset, and he emphasized them with padding. Women everywhere adored the style, and padded shoulders swept the fashion world. Edith Head, who has won ten Academy awards for costume design, has called Letty Lynton the single most important influence on fashion in film history. Adrian continued designing all of Joan's clothes on the screen, and much of her private wardrobe throughout the tumultuous MGM years.
American designer Claire McCardell was always ahead of her time. In the 1930’s she introduced the first unfitted dress that could be pulled on over the head and adjusted with a belt. Spaghetti straps, wrap around clothes, denim for evening wear, and even hoodie jackets were some of her innovative designs throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s. McCardell died in 1958. A decade later her ideas were utilized by Halston and other designers to create the clean and functional look of American high fashion in the 1970’s."
The period wardrobe worn by Bette Davis in the movie Jezebel was designed by Orry-Kelly. The idea for the scandalous red dress, worn by Bette's character Julie Marsden at the all-white Olympus Ball in 1850, was said to have been inspired by a real-life incident from 1936. At the Mayfair Ball that year, hostess Carole Lombard requested that her female guests wear formal gowns of snowy white. Making a last entrance was Norma Shearer 'wearing a spectacular scarlet gown.' Witnessing her arrival was John Huston, who reportedly inserted the incident during his revisions of the Jezebel script.
Jacqueline Kennedy was in effect Givenchy attired during her White House years. Oleg Cassini was her official designer and created elegant Givenchy inspired ensembles for her, but a shop named Chez Ninon also supplied Mrs. Kennedy with Givenchy originals. Her time in the limelight of the White House was brief; JFK served as President for three years, but due to the births of her sons John and Patrick the full force of Jacqueline's glamour and charm was on display for less than two years. But in that short time as a style leader she created an image and persona that remains powerful, enigmatic, and fascinating.
When Christian Dior introduced the New Look in 1947, he reintroduced luxury and abundance to fashion. The fact that his financial backer, Marcel Boussac, was one of France’s largest textile manufacturers meant that Dior had vast quantities of quality fabric at his disposal. After the fabric rationing of the war years, an afternoon dress that required as much as 50 yards of material was a dizzyingly luxurious prospect. The very excessiveness of it was a large part of the appeal. After so many years of scarcity, women longed for anything new, fresh, and dainty. The first of the Dior perfumes, Miss Dior (1949) was composed of rose, jasmine, gardenia, and lily of the valley, all infinitely feminine scents and in perfect keeping with his confectionary fashion designs.
The movie costume designer Orry-Kelly was renown for his use of fine finishing techniques. Pin tucks, ruching, and lace were favorite motifs. But the delicacy of his designs and materials did not limit Orry-Kelly to costuming ingenues. His ability to delineate any character through costume was highly effective, and Bette Davis resembles an evil doily in Orry-Kelly's turn of the century lace costume from The Little Foxes.
Audrey Hepburn did not always look like Audrey Hepburn. In photographs from her early career she is almost unrecognizable, with frizzy permed bangs, unremarkable eyebrows, and a surprisingly round face. She bore a mild resemblance to Lucille Ball. But within a short time she had lost twenty pounds and created a new and distinctive look. The trademark piecey bangs, overdrawn eyebrows, doe-eye makeup, and carefully constructed pale mouth would create the Audrey Hepburn look we instantly recognize. "You have to look at yourself objectively," she advised fans early in her career. "Analyze yourself like an instrument." In analyzing herself and creating a distinctive look, Audrey would influence the style of generations of women to come.
"You don’t have to be born beautiful to be wildly attractive." Diana Vreeland, legendary editor of Vogue magazine, was not born beautiful. But she made herself outrageously stylish. Diana was one of the original fashionistas; her strong sense of personal style attracted the attention of Carmel Snow, editor of Harper’s Bazaar magazine, who offered Diana a job covering fashion in 1936. In 1962 Vogue asked her to be editor-in-chief, the biggest job in fashion journalism. Her motto was "I’m looking for the suggestion of something I’ve never seen before", and her quest for the new and innovative made Vogue cutting edge during the 1960’s. Diana Vreeland was also known for her pithy fashion observations and bon mots. This saying admirably summed up her aesthetic: "Elegance is refusal."
Thanks to Caroline for the anecdotes! |
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![Harper's Bazaar [MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION]](images/Society_Divas/Diana_Vreeland_book_01.jpg)
