by Brenda Polan
In 1939 the imminent threat of war spelt the end of Mainbocher’s Paris period. His final collection, featuring nipped-in waists and corselets, was ill-timed but demonstrated his couturier’s vision and anticipated Christian Dior’s New Look by some eight years. Shortly afterwards, Mainbocher shut up shop in Paris and sailed for New York, together with his mother and sister. Profiled enthusiastically by The New Yorker in early 1940, Mainbocher quickly settled back into his native country. ‘He has spent twenty years of his life in Europe with Europeans, but his Illinois identity has remained intact,’ concluded The New Yorker. Thanks to a contract with the Warner Brothers Corset Company, he had the funds to reopen his house near Fifth Avenue at 6 East 57th Street, replicating the atmosphere of the salon in the Avenue George V and swiftly picking up where he had left off in Paris. The client list swelled again, including iconic society ladies such as Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper, Barbara Paley and Ceezee Guest.
Mainbocher’s contribution to fashion design was precisely categorised by the couturier in later life. He loved the idea that his clients could reuse his designs time and time again. He admired clients who were individualists and perfectionists, prepared to endure his famously long fittings without complaint. Top of his list of achievements were his black evening dresses, typically short and versatile. He designed simple dresses with tie-ons, such as lace or brocade aprons or overskirts, creating a radical transformation. Belts were frequently used for simple effect. Also much admired and copied were his beaded cashmere sweaters, perfect for an evening look that mixed formal and informal in one. Furthermore, Mainbocher enjoyed experimenting with fabrics, such as batiste, voile, organdy, and pique, creating surprising juxtapositions, such as a lumber jacket in lamé or an evening dress in gingham. The versatility of his work chimed with the mood (and the regulations) of America during the early 1940s, when the country was at war. Repetition was a core theme of his repertoire. Drawing on his musical experience, Mainbocher described his design development as similar to classical musical development, where themes are restated and revisited. Critic Dale McConarthy wrote: ‘For Main-bocher, there was nothing new in fashion. He possessed an extreme self-consciousness about his work that caused him to return again and again to his sources … He often repeated himself and glorified in the women who wore his dresses for twenty or thirty years and returned to have them copied.’
In America, Mainbocher maintained his status as a couturier and steered clear of Seventh Avenue and the ready-to-wear industry. He never licensed his name, although a fragrance called White Garden was released in 1948. While his costumes for Broadway brought his work to a larger audience, most notably for Mary Martin in One Touch of Venus in 1943, he showed no interest in reaching a broader market. Until her retirement in 1956, Carmel Snow, editor of Harper’s Bazaar, was a champion of his work. In the early 1960s, Mainbocher was still a favourite of America’s best-connected women, who adored his boxy suits worn with sleeveless blouses, his four-seam sheath dresses and, as always, his bias-cut evening wear that looked back to the 1930s and forward to the 1970s. He favoured simplicity over complication, decrying exaggeration in fashion (he had a particular loathing for Schiaparelli in the 1930s). ‘I dislike fashions that go off in your hands like fire-crackers,’ he said. Fashion editor Bettina Ballard described him as ‘a sort of magic fashion mountain to climb for the woman who is sure enough of her money, her success, or her social position to wear his understated clothes.’ But as the ready-to-wear sector developed through the 1960s, Mainbocher became increasingly irrelevant to the onwards march of fashion. By the time of his retirement in 1971, the years of his greatest triumphs were but distant memories.
Further reading: The definitive account of Mainbocher’s life up to his return to America is ‘Pioneer’ (13 January 1940), an article by Janet Flanner published in The New Yorker. Mainbocher is also profiled by Dale McConathy in American Fashion (1975), edited by Sarah Tomerlin Lee, and features in Caroline Rennolds Milbank’s New York Fashion: The Evolution of American Style (1989).
12 ADRIAN (1903–1959)
He was known simply as Adrian, enjoying a rise to success that was meteoric by any standards. He was the American costume designer who dressed Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford and a galaxy of Hollywood stars in the 1920s and 1930s, then switched to launch his own ready-to-wear fashion house in the 1940s. As chief costume designer at MGM during the golden years of Hollywood, he had a spectacular influence on a generation of American women and was copied relentlessly by the manufacturers of Seventh Avenue. Elsa Schiaparelli noted: ‘What Hollywood designs today, you will be wearing tomorrow.’
Designing for films far ahead of their release put particular pressure on Adrian to think into the future. In 1938, he explained: ‘With modern fashions, I get entirely away from current trends, for screen fashions must, of necessity, be designed so that they will be, dramatically, months ahead when they will be seen on the screen by the world at large.’
For all his talents, his inclusion in a roll-call of designer greats would probably have been questioned by contemporary American fashion editors. In her memoirs published in 1954, Vogue editor Edna Woolman Chase gave him merely one, somewhat patronising, reference: ‘There was a time when, in all conscience, I had to be severe with him about his designing.’ The failure to appreciate fully Adrian’s important role in fashion history might be partly ascribed to a collective sneer at his origins in costume design and the vulgarity of his more fantastical designs for the Hollywood stars. Then there was the issue of his location on the West Coast, always second best for American fashion, which was (and is) driven by New York’s Seventh Avenue. Finally, his greatest work was achieved during a period when the American fashion industry was still in thrall to the fashion houses of Paris: the concept of an American designer was somewhat novel.
By the end of his life, the influence of Paris was less omnipotent, for which Adrian deserves some credit. This was the designer who faced up to Christian Dior in a much publicised public debate over Dior’s New Look. That he would lose the debate was never in doubt, but he had struck a new defiant attitude for American fashion designers. Other design talents have emerged from Hollywood, including Bonnie Cashin and Irene of California. But Adrian, in the words of fashion historian Caroline Rennolds Milbank, proved that ‘America could have its own style and that it didn’t have to evolve from sportswear but could emanate from Hollywood, bypassing Paris altogether.’
Adrian arguably created no look or style that changed the course of fashion, but he was an influencer for millions of women, both in America and beyond. In 1930, 8 million Americans were going to the cinema each week. By 1938, Vogue acknowledged that Hollywood ‘is certainly the most perfect visual medium of fashion propaganda that ever existed.’ An outstanding example of Adrian’s influence was the impact of a long dress in white organdy with extravagant ruffled sleeves, designed for the actress Joan Crawford in the film Letty Lyn-ton (1932) and widely copied on Seventh Avenue. The film studio even encouraged copying by leaking details of the dress before the film had been released: Macy’s was reported to have sold 50,000 copies, which was probably an exaggeration, but not by much. Adrian himself did not believe American women should try to dress in his more fanciful Hollywood creations. ‘The average woman should limit herself to the costumes worn by the heroines of light comedies … in moderate-sized towns.’ By switching from costume design to ready-to-wear in the 1940s, Adrian made explicit the connection between Hollywood and the American fashion industry that continues to this day. He was also a superb publicist and spokesman for his own brand, always immaculately dressed and ready with a quote.
His family background was ideal for a designer. He was born Adrian Adolph Greenburg in 1903 in Naugatuck, Connecticut, the son of milliners Gilbert and Helena Greenburg. Taught sewing by a Swedish nanny, he displayed exceptional early talent as a draughtsman, encouraged by his uncle Max Greenberg, a scenic designer. A place at Parsons School of Fine and Applied Art in New York beckon
ed by 1921, where teachers quickly agreed that his undoubted talents might be more challenged and developed in the Paris branch of Parsons. Changing his name to Adrian, he arrived in Paris in 1922 and stayed a mere four months—time enough to create a costume for a friend at the prestigious Bal Du Grand Prix and secure an invitation from Irving Berlin to design costumes for his New York revue.
That commission took Adrian back to America in double-quick time. Although Adrian’s contribution in the revue turned out to be much smaller than he had hoped, it was not long before other theatre folk were taking notice of the confident young man. Natacha Rambova, the flamboyant wife of Rudolph Valentino, gave Adrian his first major break, inviting him to Hollywood to work on a Valentino film. He bought himself a white suit and a black cape lined in red satin and prepared to take the West Coast by storm. At the tender age of 24, he found himself designing costumes for Cecil B. De Mille’s The King of Kings, a biblical epic on which no expense was spared. Adrian had arrived.
The popular new costume designer was blessed with exceptional confidence in his own abilities and a talent for charming people that made him a social hit in Hollywood. He was swiftly headhunted by Louis B. Mayer, the autocratic but perceptive boss of MGM. His first movie for Mayer was A Woman of Affairs, starring Greta Garbo. Right from the start, Adrian caught the eye of Seventh Avenue, too: Garbo’s slouch hat and belted trench coat made the pages of American trade newspaper Women’s Wear Daily. During Adrian’s twelve-year stint working for MGM, Hollywood emerged as an important influence on American women’s style, arguably as influential as the fashion houses of Paris.
Adrian’s output was extraordinary, regularly amounting to fifty or more sketches in a day. The work pace was relentless, particularly for the period epics, such as Marie Antoinette, which required some 4,000 costumes, including 34 for leading lady Norma Shearer. He designed virtually everything Joan Crawford wore both on and off the screen, including her signature square-shouldered suits, from 1929 until 1943. Rather like a method actor, Adrian spent time thinking his way into the period of each movie, determined to capture the essence of the era before creating his costumes. His way of working was punctilious and disciplined, aiming to fit his actresses early in the morning before they were tired out by shooting. No expense was spared, no director’s fantasy left unfulfilled, from the spectacular coronation robe worn by his favourite actress, Greta Garbo, in Queen Christina to the bugle-beaded negligee with twenty-two inch ostrich-frond cuffs worn by Jean Harlow in Dinner at Eight. His futuristic costumes for Garbo in Mata Hari drew particular attention; perhaps only an actress of her stature could have carried them off. By contrast, he also designed Judy Garland’s blue and white gingham pinafore and sequinned red shoes in The Wizard of Oz.
Hollywood studios worked directly with retailers for tie-in deals. At Macy’s in New York, a Cinema Shop was opened where imitations of the clothes worn by actresses could be bought. For example, suits, coats and hostess gowns inspired by the film Queen Christina were offered for sale in 1933. Academic Anne Massey notes that sewing and knitting patterns were also created to imitate the fashions of the big screen. She points out that ‘Hollywood cinema played a crucial role in creating and disseminating a streamlined moderne style that made a massive impact internationally.’
Adrian’s lifestyle was comfortable and lavish, buoyed by a salary of $1,000 a week. He hosted lunch parties and oversaw an antiques shop on Sunset Strip. He also bought a ranch shack in the desert at Palm Springs, which he used as a retreat for painting and for visits by favoured friends who could handle the rudimentary facilities. Marriage to Fox star Janet Gaynor completed the picture of a designer who lived life to the full. A colourful paisley print smock he designed for her pregnancy caught the attention of the media, and Seventh Avenue’s copyists were not far behind.
The good times did not last. As MGM and other studios sought to impose cost controls in the late 1930s, the nothing-spared atmosphere was replaced by a more cautious attitude to film production. Garbo’s last film, Two-Faced Woman, was also Adrian’s last at MGM. Depressed by the new mood, one afternoon Adrian tore up his sketches and walked out. His next move, long nurtured and discussed with Woody Feurt, a friend with fashion industry experience, was to launch Adrian Ltd in Beverly Hills. The beginnings were not promising, with the rest of the world at war and America, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, poised to play its role, too. Struggling with the logistical and financial challenges of launching a fashion house, Adrian was obliged to show his first collection on the patio of his home. For a second collection, shown in August 1942, Adrian decided to pull out all the stops. The result was a storming success, with orders flooding in to the fledgling house. His broad-shouldered suits were applauded, and a black dress went on to become a long-term best-seller.
Adrian realised that the war, which had forced most Paris fashion houses to close their export operations, presented an opportunity for American designers. Together with the publicist Eleanor Lambert, he urged his fellow designers to take advantage. Material, particularly wool fabric, was in short supply, forcing designers to use all their ingenuity to keep the look fresh. Adrian responded to the L-85 regulations, introduced to restrict the use of materials for the fashion industry during wartime, by narrowing sleeves and introducing self-piping ties on jacket fronts to replace buttons. He mixed materials to conserve the finest for the key pieces. His broad-shouldered tailored silhouette was the wartime favourite, establishing Adrian as a household name—despite little support from the East Coast-edited fashion magazines. In 1944, he won a prestigious Coty award.
Adrian’s skill with fabric was exceptional. Pola Stout’s striped and geometric woven fabrics were a favourite for jackets, skirts and dresses. He enjoyed cutting the fabric into panels and resewing them in patches on jackets. He also combined similar fabrics in one look to dramatic effect. His suits often comprised long collarless jackets with a single closure at the waist worn with a straight skirt with a kick pleat. His evening dresses, perfectly draped, reflected his experience in creating show-stopping dresses for the MGM stars. His cocktail dresses and ball gowns sometimes tipped too far towards his roots in costume design, certainly way too far for the tastes of the arbiters of style at Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Fashion historian Caroline Rennolds Milbank considered him at his best when working within the restrictions of a theme, such as for a Greek collection with columnar white dresses or for a Gothic collection with jersey dresses and trailing medieval themes. The link with the disciplines of his Hollywood career was self-evident.
After the war, Christian Dior’s New Look, with its return to full skirts and restricted waists, caught a new mood. Adrian’s response was to clash with Dior in a broadcast debate and to stick to his broad-shouldered look. ‘I do not like padded hips,’ he told Life magazine. ‘To try and make women pad their hips in this day and age is a little like selling armour to a man.’ Determined not to lose momentum, he showed his collection for the first time in New York in 1948 at the department store of Gunther-Jaeckel, prompting a buying frenzy from public and store buyers alike. What ultimately stopped Adrian was not the changing tides of fashion—uncomfortable though they were for the designer—but ill health. In early 1952, he suffered a heart attack and, after some soul-searching with his business partner Woody Feurt, decided to close the business. Thereafter, he spent much of his time with his wife and family in Brazil, where he designed a jungle hideaway. Tempted by friends back into designing costumes (for a stage musical, this time) in 1958, he was poised to re-enter the world of work again, only to suffer a second and fatal heart attack in September 1959.
Further reading: Christian Esquevin’s Adrian: Silver Screen to Custom Label (2008) is a long overdue summary of the designer’s career. In American Fashion (1975), edited by Sarah Tomerlin Lee, Robert Riley contributes a section on Adrian.
13 SALVATORE FERRAGAMO (1898–1960)
In the history of dress, shoes have never been accorded quite the co
nsequence they deserve. In the drama that is fashion, shoes are quite literally accessories, supporting characters, there to facilitate the action and way down the cast list. True, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, they elbowed their way centre stage but that was probably more the result of marketing than a real shift in our perceptions. Yet, when it comes to defining gender, class and erotic intent, shoes have, through most of history, packed a bigger punch than mere clothes. It’s safe to argue that nothing else people wear has been quite so thoroughly and repetitively fetishised—a factor exploited by designers and marketers at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Even so, fashion and its contemporary commentators have tended to overlook it, regarding shoemakers as artisans rather than artists or designers.