Welcome to BFGB Fashion Week! Our weeklong tribute to books for the best-dressed comes to you courtesy of Bud, our resident red-carpet critic.
To me, costume design for the movies reached its apex in the 1930s. Hollywood’s golden age of filmmaking was considerably burnished by the talents of such designers as Travis Banton, Dolly Tree, Orry-Kelly, and Edith Head.
One of the best known and most talented costume designers was Gilbert Adrian. Better known simply as Adrian, his famous film credit line, “Gowns by Adrian,” is always a welcome sight for fashionistas lusting after gloriously glamorous and outrageously outré costumes. Mata Hari, Grand Hotel, Dinner at Eight, The Women, and Marie Antoinette are just a few of the films that he worked on.
Gowns by Adrian: the MGM Years 1928-1941, by Howard Gutner, covers Adrian’s 13-year reign as head costume designer for MGM studios. It’s packed with glossy photos (only a few in color, unfortunately) and interesting behind-the-scene stories of the many movies that Adrian worked on and the stars he worked with. Special emphasis is given to three of the best-known actresses whose on-screen images he meticulously embellished. Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, and Norma Shearer each get a chapter of their own, but Adrian’s early movies and the wonderful spectacle films, like Madam Satan, where his imagination really ran wild, are not slighted.
Adrian retired from MGM studios in 1941 and opened his own couture house in Beverly Hills. This period of his career is covered in Adrian: Silver Screen to Custom Label, by Christian Esquevin.
The book explains Adrian’s design aesthetic and provides detailed descriptions and photographs of his couture collections from 1942 until his untimely death at the age of 56 in 1959. Also detailed are his early years at MGM, his personal life, including his marriage to actress Janet Gaynor, and the lasting influence that he has had on American style and fashion.
Both books provide lovely tributes to a uniquely talented American designer. If you like movies and/or couture you’ll enjoy them both.
Check the WRL catalog for Gowns by Adrian: the MGM Years 1928-1941.
Check the WRL catalog for Adrian: Silver Screen to Custom Label.
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