A-LISTS book rage by bill biss Edith Head:
The Fifty-Year Career of Hollywood’s Greatest Costume Designer AN INTERVIEW WITH
AUTHOR JOR JAY
GENSEN
Think Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor and Kim Novak…or possibly any actress of superior talent and beauty and more than likely, fashion designer Edith Head dressed them at one point or another in their career. Her legendary reign at Paramount Studios created thousands of costumes. Many of them are iconic reminders of glamour, beauty and were even trendsetters at the time of their creation. Author Jay Jorgensen pays homage to the work ethic and great skill of Edith Head. A costume designer who was awarded eight Oscars and 35 nominations in her 50-year career.
Edith Head: The Fifty-Year Career of Hollywood’s Greatest Costume Designer is a beauti- fully done book. The flow of the chapters, the extensive photos comprised of stars in their costumes, sketches and the costumes alone are quite remarkable and create a fascinating read for Hollywood or fashion aficionados. Giving the major thumbs-up on Jay Jorgensen’s work, he replies, “Thank you. It was a lot of work and quite an invest- ment in time. The one thing I really learned about her was that she was a workaholic. I think she deserves the attention that she has gotten over the years.” Edith Head definitely had a vision in how important the character of each film star is
to the costumes and this really created her dynasty in fashion costuming at Paramount Studio. Not all costume designers were thinking along those lines at the time. “That aspect was definitely her training with Travis Benton and that was the thing she defi- nitely excelled at. That goes back as well to her schoolteacher background. She created a unified style for herself and her designs but the authenticity of the time or designs… that was important to her.” Continuing, Jay adds, “Edith Head also worked to make the stars feel appreciated
and comfortable in the clothes. She worked very hard to avoid friction and to make everything smooth. She had a lot of conviction about her clothes and what she would bring to a project. When actresses look back, they don’t want to see the designer; they just want to see themselves. She was the first designer to realize that. She was the first female out there, heading a wardrobe department the way she did.” There are a lot of behind-the-scenes stories that are given in Edith Head: The
Fifty-Year Career of Hollywood’s Greatest Costume Designer. This is just one of the many facets that spark interest to fashion and film lovers in Jorgensen’s book. “I really just tried to concentrate on the films that I could find the story behind. Luckily, she gave so many interviews it was possible to find a good number of them.”
Barbara Stanwyck in an Edith Head design for Ball of Fire (1941)
The longevity of Edith Head’s career is outstanding. From her very beginnings in the
early 1920s, her skill and craftsmanship in design carried on until the mid 1970s. This is a stunning accomplishment. Jay Jorgensen replies, “One of the things I came up against was that this woman worked so much that she didn’t have what you might consider an incredibly rich personal life. Her entire life revolved around her work, so that was really what I decided to focus on in the book. I wanted to find out what her philosophy of design really was. That was the real story that I could tell, that was different.”
24
RAGE monthly | NOVEMBER 2010
Author Jay Jorgensen
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92