HONORING EDITH HEAD

Image via elleuk.com

“People say to me, ‘Edith what makes you different from other designers?’ and I tell them ‘I am not different; I’m just the best.’ I hate modesty. Don’t you?”-A Conversation with Edith Head

You probably won’t believe me when I say this, but I’ve been planning this feature on Edith Head long before we published our first post. That is even longer before Google launched a doodle on what would have been her 116th birthday and Grace Kelly’s upcoming Tatler cover on December, wearing a dress designed by her; the same dress Kelly wore at the Oscars in 1955. Head once said that “a designer is only as good as the star who wears her clothes.” And, judging by the Hollywood superstars who were delighted and honored to wear her exquisite designs, she really was.

Born Edith Claire Posener on October 28, 1897, she obtained a Bachelor of Art’s degree in Letters and Science from University of California, Berkeley in 1919 and a Master of Art’s degree in Romance Languages from Stanford University in 1920. In 1923, she married Charles Head and, despite their separation in 1936, she will be known as Edith Head for the rest of her life.

Her first job was actually the exact opposite of glamorous: she was hired as a French language teacher at Bishop’s School in La Jolla. At the same time, being aware of her lacking in drawing skills, she started taking evening classes at the Chouinard Art College to improve her technique. In 1924, she became an assistant to Hower Green (later she admitted that she borrowed a friend’s sketches for her interview) and then to his successor Travis Banton, before she was promoted to head designer in 1938, becoming the first woman to hold such a position at that time.

The first movie she worked on was The Wanderer (1925), but it was the “sarong” dress which she designed for Dorothy Lamour in The Hurricane that made her popular. However, it wasn’t until 1944 that she gained public attention: the notorious mink-lined gown she designed for Ginger Rogers in Lady in the Dark attracted highly critical comments because it contrasted with the wartime austerity.

During her 54 year old career, she worked on 1,131 films, she was nominated for 35 Academy Awards, including every year from 1948 through 1966, and won eight Oscars (her first for Olivia de Havilland’s dress in The Heiress in 1949, and seven more for her dresses in All about Eve, Samson and Delilah, A Place in the Sun, Roman Holiday, Sabrina, The Facts of Life and The Sting) — more than any other woman. And that was another first in her career.

She worked closely with Alfred Hitchcock in several of his films. “Hitchcock had a complete phobia about what he calls ‘eye-catchers,’ unless there is a story reason for the color,” Head once said about the director. But she was the one who knew exactly what he liked and what he didn’t, and everything she designed was perfect for each role. Of course, she had previously studied the actors carefully: how they moved, how they walked, how they looked on screen.

Images and illustrations via Pinterest

She is also the author of How to Dress for Success, a handbook which provides expert guidance on how to build your wardrobe in order to gain more self-confidence and achieve success, and was published in 1967. The same year, after having worked for Paramount Pictures for 43 years, she left to join Universal Pictures, where she remained until her death in 1981. Her last film project was the black-and-white comedy Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, starring Steve Martin and Carl Reiner. The movie was released shortly after she died and was dedicated to her memory; she died on October 24, 1981, of bone marrow disease, just four days before celebrating her 84 birthday.

Image via glamour.com

She left her archive of 1,800 sketches to the Wisconsin Center for Film and Television in Madison, Wisconsin.

P.S: Please excuse the Grace Kelly overdose but a girl is allowed to have certain weaknesses.

A.