letty lynton dress designer

“Elizabeth prided herself on her tiny waist and was always willing to wear her gowns very tight to achieve a waspish look. ( Log Out /  The couple was married at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills on May 6, 1950; Father of the Bride premiered at New York’s Radio City Music Hall just 12 days later, on May 18. As David Chierichetti notes in Hollywood Costume Design, one fashion writer commented of the copied dress, “Go to any party this summer, and you’ll see at least 10 of them.” Never one to shy from the idea of embellishing a story, Head would note in interviews that anywhere from seven to 37 girls had been spotted at the same party wearing Taylor’s now-famous dress. After World War II began in 1939, women's fashions became increasingly militarised. When the dress finally debuted in the film, it set of a nation-wide fashion craze as every woman decided she wanted to look like Joan Crawford! Did you scroll all this way to get facts about letty lynton dress? “The dress became especially dramatic because I made the skirt exceedingly full, with yards and yards of tulle over a pastel underskirt, and the flowers made the bust look fuller. But, like Crawford herself, the legend is hard to separate from real life. Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in 1951’s “A Place in the Sun. One of those two dresses reportedly will be on view to the public in April 2021, as the Academy Museum in Los Angeles has announced that “Elizabeth Taylor’s iconic dress designed by Edith Head” would be among the key pieces in its costume-design collection. “She was a bewitching debutante who was to attend her coming-out party,” Head reasoned. View a_rose_for_ellen’s profile on Instagram. Perhaps his most famous creation was the white, froofy, frothy and unforgettable dress (below) made for Joan Crawford in Letty Lynton (1932). Both were considered serious, “New York” actors, and such thoughts dredged up Taylor’s insecurities about how own talent, even as she had resided atop the box office since the age of 12, when her role in 1944’s, Working with a director like Stevens indeed gave the actress a chance to evolve both her acting career and her onscreen persona, so she threw herself wholeheartedly into preparations for. The mainstream fashion industry leveraged formal couture showcases and print publications to spread trends. “Elizabeth prided herself on her tiny waist and was always willing to wear her gowns very tight to achieve a waspish look,” Head said. Dior’s New Look employed very slender waists and full skirts; I knew that when I was working on the costumes. Great photos …, Oh really?! The dress that spawned a million copies: Joan Crawford’s cotton organdy gown designed for the MGM 1932 drama Letty Lynton. Fast-forward 17 years, and Elizabeth Taylor was about to smash that statistic. With eager prodding from MGM, Taylor (after a quick succession of boyfriends and broken engagements) fell in love with hotel heir Conrad Nicholson “Nicky” Hilton, Jr. Joan Crawford’s gowns in Letty Lynton are some of my all time favourites and the history behind them and the film is forever fascinating. on its 1950 release schedule, and studio execs were concerned that the two films would compete against each other, both at the box office and during awards season. For Letty Lynton, Adrian created what is now known as “The Crawford Look”! The tulle-skirted silhouette she conceptualized continues to reign as the ultimate in princess dresses, while her original design continues to spark interest almost 70 years later. Adrian routinely produced 50 sketches a day and earned $1,000 a week. Crawford plays the title character, who gets away with murder in a tale of love and blackmail. Versions of the dress can be seen as wedding gowns in every decade since. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. But Adrian always put his own stamp on his designs and in my opinion, they are all absolutely stunning and suit Crawford to a “T”! $50 to $100. I’d never made the connection (or dis-connection) between Adrian’s designs in still and in motion. Great article! Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. There are 2 letty lynton dress for sale on Etsy, and they cost $265.57 on average. As completion on, When filming wrapped in December 1949, Taylor went straight from her role as Angela Vickers into production on. Love her outfits in ‘Today We Live’. Jun 8, 2017 - Explore Vetcka Vetcka's board "Letty linton" on Pinterest. With duplicates of costumes often created to account for wear and tear on a set, two versions of Head’s dress have come up for auction in recent years. Joan Crawford plays socialite Letty Lynton who finds herself with an abusive ex-lover. With that in mind, A Place in the Sun’s release would be delayed until 1951. His only reference to the bride in the film was to call Taylor “the happy little lady.”, Fifteen months after Father of the Bride’s release, and after a successful showing at the Cannes Film Festival, A Place in the Sun premiered in Los Angeles on August 14, 1951. (2 Results) Price ($) Any price. Eventually, he used his success to launch a fashion career, leaving Hollywood to start his own fashion house in the 1940s. And if Edith Head’s goal had been to create a gown that felt both stylish and timeless, she succeeded in that idea as well. With duplicates of costumes often created to account for wear and tear on a set, two versions of Head’s dress have come up for auction in recent years: at Bonhams in 2005, and another at Julien’s Auctions in 2012, where it sold for $28,125. Paramount also staged a publicity contest that awarded Taylor as the prom date for the evening to the UCLA student named the school’s “Great Lover.” The winner of the contest: a blond sophomore named Bob Precht, who escorted the actress to a prom staged on the Paramount lot; Bob Hope served as the evening’s emcee. “She never registered any enthusiasm at her fittings,” Head said. Perhaps his most popular look created in the 1930’s was the Letty Lynton dress designed for Joan Crawford in 1932. In Head’s eyes, Taylor was only a delight, also because she brought her dog to her fittings, and the pair discovered their mutual love of animals. But it took one particular designer to discover the secret to her glamour. With Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery, Nils Asther, Lewis Stone. Her violet-splashed debutante dress, designed by Head. $25 to $50. It could be quite a challenge to try to find a … Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. It’s not available on DVD or VHS, yet it’s said to be one of the most influential films on the fashion industry in Hollywood history! The film has one or two powerful scenes itself and as Crawford demonstrates some of her considerable (and tragically overlooked) acting chops in a particularly dramatic scene, she does so in a stunning gold lamé evening gown. Meanwhile, the Elizabeth Taylor publicity machine rolled on in earnest. Fig. (I often wonder though, was it scratchy to wear? Paramount executives also expressed their doubts about Taylor, who in 1949 was just 17 years old and had only begun to transition into adult roles. Over $100. “Since I was fitting Olivia de Havilland for The Heiress, Bette Davis for All About Eve, Gloria Swanson for Sunset Blvd., and that sweet, young Elizabeth Taylor for A Place in the Sun during the same months, the contrast made it all the more difficult to enjoy working with Hedy Lamarr.”. As a designer for the stage as well as for couture, Adrian himself was drawn to the theatrical, the over-the-top, the glamorous. The following year Joan Crawford wore them in the film "Letty Lynton" in a dress designed by costume designer, Adrian. The tulle-skirted silhouette she conceptualized continues to reign as the ultimate in princess dresses, while her original design continues to spark interest almost 70 years later. The gown is made of white crepe and black bugle beads, with one section forming a wrap tied at her hips. Adrian designed knockout looks for Crawford that flattered her body shape and despite the popularity of the Letty Lynton dress, she also wore the slinky styles that were popular in the decade (Fig. Allow me to introduce myself… and what the heck I’m doing here! The design, which emphasized Crawford’s naturally broad shoulders, has been widely credited with setting the vogue for the shoulder pad…” George Hurrell. I read somewhere that after the movie's release, Macy's had 500,000 copies of the Letty Lynton gown made--assumably, all of them sold. You guessed it: pink. Thousands of more affordable copies were made for department store sales and allegedly every single one of them sold! I also knew that the only time something is out of fashion immediately is if the public doesn’t buy it.”, Though Christian Dior had debuted his New Look collection two years earlier, Head felt confident that women would continue to embrace his style, particularly the combination of a small waist and full skirt, for the foreseeable future. Letty Lynton is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film starring Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery and Nils Asther. Legendary costume designer Edith Head once said that Joan Crawford’ s giant white dress from the 1932 movie Letty Lynton was “the single most important influence on fashion in film history.” This dress forever changed both the 1930s silhouette and the fashion industry. He designed a dress to reflect the 1930s eagerness to “get back to femininity” after the flapper years and thus yards and yards of fluffy organza was used to create an excessive ruffled effect. Head, of course, would realize no financial gain from the myriad knock-offs of her design, but she did reap at least one reward: The dress featured at the 2005 Bonhams auction in Los Angeles. She is still remembered for her iconic style today. Marketing in trade publications and on the radio created a sense of timely excitement. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Both were considered serious, “New York” actors, and such thoughts dredged up Taylor’s insecurities about how own talent, even as she had resided atop the box office since the age of 12, when her role in 1944’s National Velvet turned her into MGM’s number-one child star. Fran Labuschagne | Illustrator & Animator. They all manage to combine female sexuality with Crawford’s inherent masculine traits, creating a powerful silhouette of strength and self-confidence which is glamorous and appealing to both women and men. Custom. As David Chierichetti notes in. I’ve often been irked by his costumes for period films, he did have a tendency to go completely over-the-top and not always to his credit. Joan Crawford in the famous Adrian designed evening gown for ‘Letty Lynton’ (1932) He designed a dress to reflect the 1930s eagerness to “get back to femininity” after the flapper years and thus yards and yards of fluffy organza was used to create an excessive ruffled effect. 13). He could design something as basic (yet revolutionary) as the "Letty Lynton" dress, or as dazzling as the costumes in "The Great Zigfeld," both in the "A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody" number, then in the "You Never Looked So Beautiful Before" stage show. The gown is made of white crepe and black bugle beads, with one section forming a wrap tied at her hips. Notably, New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther barely mentioned Taylor in his review, instead focusing most of his thoughts on Tracy. Crawford had odd features for an actress of her time and many designers had trouble disguising her square jawline and broad shoulders. Actually a very interesting article. “That dress was such a success; it was beautiful on camera,” Head said. Letty Lynton (1932), courtesy MGM But still, it would be a wonderful thing so… we live in hope…. ( Log Out /  Edith Head once said it was “the single most important influence on fashion in film history” and with it, the Crawford shoulders were born! Image from the book “Gowns by Adrian” Here’s the story about the Letty Lynton dress — that I could gather. I’ve always wondered. “For the debut gown, I relied on flowers, little violets, to accent the bodice, and I sprinkled them on the skirt,” she explained. Apparently, designer Edith Head Designer Edith Head called this dress, "the single most important influence on fashion in film history." Granted, it will be a huge undertaking for whomever chooses to do so, so I doubt it will happen any time soon. By all accounts, Taylor loved the dress. 12 - Photographer unknown. The waist was cinched to show off Crawford’s best attribute and the shoulders were emphasised, as Adrian desired. For Photoplay, celebrated gossip columnist Elsa Maxwell wrote a fawning cover story titled, “The Most Exciting Girl in Hollywood,” in which she predicted that Taylor would “live in the tradition of great beauties who lived lives more colorful and romantic and exciting than any role they ever essayed on screen or on stage.” (Time would prove Maxwell correct.) Letty Lynton Dress American designer Designed for films o Wizard of Oz, Camelot High fashion and glamour Blockbuster studios such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Paramount were responsible for promoting some of the most well-recognized & prestigious stars of the 20 th century Produced some of the most lavish costumes which complimented the elaborate film sets Greta Garbo, designing … This dress was a huge hit; it was copied and sold in department stores, and its large ruffled sleeves rippled into many other designs. "That single gown marked a moment in American fashion—one in which costume designers in Hollywood, not couture houses in Paris, started telling American women what to wear. Some clothing manufacturers copied it – ‘knocked it off’ as they say in their trade – and the dress was mass-produced to hang in every department store in the country.”. I can still hear her telling me, ‘Tighter, Miss Head, tighter.’ ”. Joan Crawford in her Adrian-designed Letty Lynton dress, 1932. “It is a shaded, tender performance and one in which her passionate and genuine romance avoids the bathos common to young love as it sometimes comes to the screen.”, Women of every age, meanwhile, were falling in love with Taylor’s costumes, her debutante dress in particular. Letty Lynton had nothing on Angela Vickers. The most popular color? I read somewhere that after the movie's release, Macy's had 500,000 copies of the Letty Lynton gown made--assumably, all of them sold. The second image shows a department store version of the Letty Lynton dress. Macy’s in New York alone sold over 50,000 copies of a $10 version of “The … Really great argument and really great read! This dress was widely copied and sold in Macy's department stores, helping to popularize the look. Meanwhile, the Elizabeth Taylor publicity machine rolled on in earnest. The other, forming a true assymetry on her left side. When filming wrapped in December 1949, Taylor went straight from her role as Angela Vickers into production on Father of the Bride, co-starring Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett, while behind the scenes, decisions were being made about the release of A Place in the Sun. See more ideas about linton, 1930s fashion, vintage outfits. =), I’ve worn lame, and it was not scratchy …! In 1932, Adrian designed a striking dress for the movie Letty Lynton, starring Joan Crawford. The famous Letty Lynton ruffled dress broke away from the Art Deco mold and harked back to more feminine times while most of the other outfits created for the film are more typical of the Deco style with their sleek lines and bias cuts. Long thought to be white and important like Crawford herself, the Taylor. Montgomery Clift in 1951 ’ s outfits for Crawford in ‘ Today We Live ’ routinely produced 50 a... Smaller than it was. ” smaller than it was. ” scroll all this way to get facts about Letty,! 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