Adrian (costume designer)
Adrian Gilbert ( born March 3 1903 in Naugatuck, Connecticut, † September 13, 1959 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California; actually Adrian Adolph Greenberg) was under the name Adrian one of the most famous and influential costume designers in Hollywood.
Life
After training at the New York School for Applied and Fine Arts (now Parsons School of Design ) and some work for the revue George White's Scandals, he went to Hollywood, where he first worked for Rudolph Valentino. His breakthrough came when he designed in 1925 for Murray Mae their costumes for The Merry Widow at MGM. He stayed for almost 20 years at MGM and rose rapidly to become one of the most influential designers of Hollywood. Adrian had the biggest budgets of all designers in Hollywood to available and had by far the most extensive staff. His partly very lush designs were soon to become hallmarks of MGM films. He worked with each of the female superstars together and developed as needed, individual solutions: with Norma Shearer was the problem in her wide hips and short legs, which had to be concealed. Some of his most elaborate costumes were designed by Adrian for the film Marie Antoinette Shearer from the year 1938.
Greta Garbo was famous for her flawless face, so that the clothes were not allowed to distract too much from it. This also explains why the actress often wore outlandish hats, so the Cloche in Woman of Affairs from 1928, a beret in the style of Empress Eugénie in the movie romance, a yarmulke in Mata Hari of the following year, and a somewhat bizarre creation called Pillbox in the Painted Veil of 1934, in which Garbo, however, explicitly does not bear the titular veil. The best known, however, the designs for Garbo's historical films, the collar of Queen Christina, in simplified form, managed their way into the everyday fashion, especially in Europe. Barry Paris reports in his biography of Garbo, the costumes, the Garbo in As You carried me wish in 1932, including a spectacular black pantsuit, a deliberate caricature of the wardrobe are that Marlene Dietrich would show in their films.
However, his most famous creations he designed for Joan Crawford. The actress had pronounced broad shoulders and strong hips. So far had been mostly trying to conceal the blemish, but went into the film Letty Lynton Adrian aware the opposite way. He reached on an idea by Elsa Shiaparelli from Paris and emphasized the shoulders or by padding. These shoulder pads were for the rest of their career become a trademark of Crawford. Jokingly Adrian commented once, his career was built on the shoulders of Joan Crawford. When Adrian in 1941 was commissioned to dress Greta Garbo for her film The woman with two faces than typical American, he finished working with MGM with the words. " When the glamor goes for Garbo, it goes for me as well"
He became a very successful freelance designer. However, at the personal request of Joan Crawford, he designed costumes for the movies of 1946 and Humoresque Possessed of the following year.
At Adrian's favorite designs included a skin-tight creation that 1930 was Kay Johnson in the film Madame Satan as well as a gold lamé pantsuit, the vorführte Greta Garbo in Mata Hari. However, one of his most influential designs was a white organdy dress with puffy sleeves, the Joan Crawford Letty Lynton presented in 1932. The model was sold as a simplified copy at Macy's and worn by millions of Americans in the season. He was nominated not once for an Oscar.
Adrian was married to actress Janet Gaynor in 1939.
Filmography (selection)
Adrian was head of the wardrobe department of MGM and thus responsible for most films until 1941. Regard, only a selection of important stripes. He designed, among other things, the costumes for the most important films of Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Marion Davies.
Literature on the subject of costume design
- Howard Gutner: Gowns by Adrian. The MGM Years, 1928-1941. Harry N. Abrams, New York, NY 2001, ISBN 0-8109-0898-0.