Gowns By Adrian

Hollywood’s Golden Era had no shortage of distinctive and wonderful costumers, such as Edith Head, Irene Sharaff, Kalloch, and Walter Plunkett, but for sheer prestige, we have to look to Gilbert Adrian, whose story is told in Rizzoli New York’s Adrian: A Lifetime of Movie Glamour, Art, and High Fashion.

The book covers the three distinct stages of Adrian’s career in a thick, sturdy, and glossy style as befits a man of Adrian’s stature, and how long it takes to go through it will depend on how much one decides to study the illustrations. For film historians, art lovers, and people who love clothes, it’s an absolute dream. The book is also heavy enough to kill small rodents with, not that anyone would want to do that, but I digress.

Gilbert Adrian was born Adrian Adolph Greenburg on March 3, 1903 in Naugatuck, Connecticut, and from the beginning he showed an aptitude for drawing, producing remarkably accurate pictures of jungle animals such as leopards. He seemed destined to work in show business in one way or another, making his debut as a costume designer at eighteen for George White’s 1921 follow-up to his hit, Scandals, designing two costumes for a Don Juan number.

After that, school was just a formality. Adrian first went to the New York School of Applied Art and Design, which is today known as Parson’s, and soon transferred to their Paris campus to study not only design but also show business, taking in such shows as the Folies Bergere, which were, naturally, an eye-opener for him. He made an impression of his own while abroad, however, as a dress he designed for a friend for a private party caught the attention of one Irving Berlin, who asked Adrian to come back with him to Broadway to design costumes for his new Music Box show.

And how did Adrian come to Hollywood? Rudolph Valentino and his then-wife, Natacha Rambova, asked him to come out and design costumes for their new films, but unfortunately both the Valentinos and their film company broke up. Adrian then went on to a contract with Cecil B. DeMille, who brought him to MGM.

Adrian goes through Adrian’s MGM career in a whirlwind fashion, and we get to see what it was like to outfit the stars of the Golden Era, and many of them, such as Norma Shearer, liked to draw the process out as long as possible. Adrian quickly became a fashion influencer, emphasizing broad shoulders and flowing lines, running counter to many of his contemporaries who designed very rounded silhouettes. Joan Crawford’s distinctive shoulder pads, for instance, were Adrian’s idea. He was incredibly quick at generating ideas, turning out at least twenty sketches a day.

Only one actress, however, gets her own chapter, and that’s Greta Garbo. She wasn’t easy to get close to, and Adrian had a tough time as well, but she allowed him a measure of access and he was in awe of her. What brought Garbo slightly down to earth for him was her insistence on wearing sneakers at fittings, but he saw her as a goddess to be arrayed in finery.

In fact, Garbo was the reason Adrian quit MGM. When the studio made an ill-fated attempt to de-glam her in 1941, Adrian stormed into the Thalberg Building and handed in his resignation. He was not about to watch Garbo turned into, in his words, “a sweater girl.”

After that, Adrien opened his own clothing store in Beverly Hills, and later a second store in New York City, where he sold women’s apparel, jewelry and perfume. Since the Second World War was on, this was a big risk, but Adrien plunged ahead anyway. Naturally, his designs were scaled down from his film costumes, plus the war meant fabrics and trimmings were rationed, but Adrian Limited clothing still conveyed a unique, special glamour.

While Adrian is glossy and gorgeous, I wish it went into more detail about Adrian’s design process. His designs seem to exist as if they sprung out of nothing, which they kind of did, but there’s always more to these kinds of things. Granted, with a designer like Adrian, it’s best to let him be, not ask too many questions, and bask in the moments as they come. It just would have been nice to get in his head a little bit more.

It also would have been fun to see more of Adrian’s outlandish designs. While the book gives us a taste, such as Adrian’s Ziegfeld costumes, it devotes a single page to what plenty of people, including myself, think is one of his best projects, The Women. That movie is not only fashion crazy, but it’s not often we come across a swimsuit coverup with a literal mannequin hand for a clasp and gloves that could double as blunt force weapons (Watch the fashion show here).

In all, though, Adrian: A Lifetime of Movie Glamour, Art, and High Fashion is meant to inspire curiosity as opposed to being an exhaustive catalogue, and it certainly nails what made Adrian special.

A new Shamedown is coming up tomorrow. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you then…

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