That Costume Queen

"WE MAY REHEARSE OUR LINES, OUR MOVEMENTS, AND OUR EXPRESSIONS," Bette Davis writes in the foreword to Edith Head's Hollywood, "but not until we finally slip into the costumes does everything come together so that we actually become the character. If we are not comfortable in those clothes, if they do not project the character, the costume designer has failed us. Edith Head never failed."

Bette Davis was just one of countless actors for whom Edith Head worked her sartorial magic. As chief designer at Paramount's costume department, Head designed for hundreds of films, starred in by some of Hollywood's most stellar leading ladies: Grace Kelly, Anne Baxter, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Gloria Swanson and Tippi Hedren, to name a few.

With a motto asserting that "the audience should notice the actors, not the clothes" Head created costumes that were flattering to the actors, but ultimately essential to the roles they played. It's hard to think of Anne Baxter's Nefertiri gowns without thinking of Anne Baxter, or Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond ensembles without thinking of Gloria Swanson. There is no other skirt suit for Tippi Hedren to be attacked by "the birds" in, and no other anything for Audrey Hepburn to do her Funny Face dance in. Under Head's charge, the roles, actors and costumes appeared one and whole, in a congruence we now seldom see in contemporary film.

For a position she somewhat cheated her way into, Edith Head proved phenomenally deserving. In 1924, with no relevant training or experience, she applied for a costume sketch artist job at Paramount, using illustrations that weren't even her own. A decade later, she was chief designer, and with the establishment of the Academy Awards category for costume design, Head went on to make history with 35 nominations and eight wins. She still holds the record for the woman with the most number of Oscars.

Edith Head worked industriously until her death in 1981, ending a career that spanned 57 years. For what would have been her 116th birthday, on this day last year, Head was commemorated with a Google Doodle featuring six of her costumes.

It feels almost serendipitous for a person, born just days before Halloween, to fashion a career in costume design. "Between magic and camouflage," as she herself put it, Head's work embodies the might and the mirth of costume, in transforming its wearers, and how other people perceive those wearers. "What a costume designer does" she said, "is a cross between magic and camouflage. We create the illusion of changing the actors into what they are not. We ask the public to believe that every time they see a performer on the screen, he's become a different person."

Comforting to know that we can emulate new personas with clothing and costume. What will you wear today?

Edith Head, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Gloria Swanson, Bette Davis, and Anne Baxter, images from oscars.org, fanpop.com, icollector.com, christies.com, gonemovies.com, classicflix.com, gettyimages.com

That Leisurely Mid-Century

WHILE THE SUMMER SUN BLAZES ON IN BARCELONA, it has begun to feel as if the season has reached its peak and is now on gradual decline. Locals are very slowly back from vacation, tourists are no longer as plenty as in previous weeks, summer sales have ended, and both retail and media encourage thoughts of autumn.

But with the days still long and the sun still high, I won't let go of summer just yet. There are still a couple seafood lunches to be had by the water and there is still over a month of warmth to wear summer clothes in.

Not a beach bum at heart, I skipped yet another beach holiday this year and head down to the local beaches mainly for dining. Despite bothersome tourists outnumbering the beautiful ones, there is enduring appeal in seaside leisure, which in the 20th century, has forever changed our relationship with the sea. Trade, navigation, food production and power generation perhaps never thought it would have such a frivolous industry as "leisure" alongside it, but as tourism and bathing costumes evolved, so have our concepts of the seaside.

Since Gabrielle Chanel's accidental popularization of the tan in the 20s, seaside leisure has washed in wave after wave of cultural phenomena; some exclusive as a luxury resort, some accessible as a game of beach volley. Some short-lived as a summer movie, others as eternal as the bikini. What I wish had lasted: mid-century beach glamor. Editorial images in the 50s and 60s have their share of bikini-clad celebrities, but it's hardly peculiar to see clothes with seams or footwear made of leather.

If this is the leisurely elegance we've evolved from, would it be wrong to devolve back into it?

Elizabeth Taylor 1956, Salvador Dali 1951, Paul McCartney and John Lennon 1964, Catherine Deneuve 1968, Warren Beatty 1965, Marilyn Monroe 1955, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin 1969, Brigitte Bardot 1956, Jane Fonda and Alain Delon 1963. All images from gettyimages.com

That Violet Vision

HAVING GIVEN US THE MOST MAGNIFICENT Cleopatra there ever was and having been born with the most envy-inducing double-row-eyelash "mutation", not to mention all the jewelry we could only ever dream of, Elizabeth Taylor will forever be to us, a paragon of glamor. A queen. A star.

Rest in peace.

Elizabeth Taylor, 27 February 1932 – 23 March 2011.

Photograph from the Billy Rose Theatre Collection, image from digitalgallery.nypl.org