Sunday Fashion Fix: Nautical

Sailor style seems to be a fashion trend that never goes out of popularity. The use of the colours: blue, white and red as well as strategically placed stripes and interesting cuts are both alluring and attracting on all body types. Celebrities from the early 1930’s to now have been utilising the intricate nautical influence for casual events and on screen. Fashion designers have also taken this trend over the decades as inspiration for high fashion pant suits and dresses, eye-catching hats and various accessories as well as basic striped shirts and 1950’s-style dresses. Nautical pieces can be incorporated easily and suit everybody; take a look at images of the Precode outfits, modern-day celebrity looks and designer pieces. 

Precode Looks:

Clara Bow stands out in her starring role in True to the Navy alongside Fredric March, Harry Green and, her future husband, Rex Bell.

Cute little Shirley Temple plays a sailor.

  Jean Harlow often appeared in nautical inspirited outfits in fashion and publicity shoots.

 

Joan Blondell (top) and Ruby Keeler (bottom) both appear in nautical inspired looks

in the film Footlight Parade (1933).

 

 

A model from 1935 exhibiting a high fashion look.  

 

Modern Celebrity Looks:

Taylor Swift and Leighton Meester in blue, white and red sailor outfits.

Designer Looks:

Sailor-inspired jewellery and accessories:

from Ali Express

from Baby Loves Pink

from Social Vixen

High fashion pieces also include a few sailor-inspired touches:

from Harpers Bazaar

from Vogue

 Nautical pieces can also be part of a casual, everyday outfit:

from Wedding Thingz

from Mom Fabulous

  

Precode Beauty Tips

Take the advice from Precode’s biggest stars on how to stay screen ready:

Tip 1 - For Luscious Lips:

“For clearly defined, smooth rouged lips, follow Mary Carlisle’s advice: ‘Outline lips horizontally with edge or point of stick, then fill in vertically with flat side.’”

 

 

Tip 2 - To Even Skin Tone:

 “Almond meal mixed to paste with lemon juice makes a good, safe bleach, says Maureen O’Sullivan. Apply to cleansed skin, let dry, remove with cold water. Leaves the skin soft, clear.”

 

 

Tip 3 – Food and Skin:

“Una Merkel considers cucumbers a definite skin beautifier, not only in creams and lotions, but in the diet. Una looks as if she enjoyed them, too.”

 

Tip 4 – For Soft, Smooth Hands:

“Mary Carlisle remembers to slip on cotton gloves over her well-oiled hands before retiring, a sure way to flower-like skin. Specially treated sleeping gloves come for those with unusually sensitive skin.”

 

Tip 5 – Something Extra:

The beautiful Jean Harlow used a beauty mark to add to her attractiveness. “Beauty-marks are for the fair-skinned only, where the contrast between black and white is striking and exotic.”

 

For anyone wanted to measure their attractiveness. This is a devise used to measure a person’s beauty by looking at an individual’s symmetry. According to Max Factor and its inventors the nose, the forehead and between base of the nose and tip of chin should be the same length. The distance between the eyes should be the same as the length of the eyes. The actress is Sheila Terry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Precode Fashion Fix: Loretta Young in 'Midnight Mary' (1933)

 

There has been a bit of talk about Loretta Young’s wonderful costumes in the crime film, ‘Midnight Mary’ (1933), on Facebook lately and I thought I would delve further into it myself. I don’t think I have seen Miss Young looking so radiant and stunning nor have I seen her behaving so sinful. It seems beauty and immorality go hand-in-hand in the Precode era.

Her clothing was curtsy of famous film costume designer, Adrian. Born, Adrian Adolph Greenberg, he had been MGM’s chief designer for five years when he was enlisted to create pieces for Young’s bad-girl role.

He was known for the creation of provocative and eye-catching evening gowns over the early thirties and beyond. His signature style included simple dresses – often silver or gold – with emphasis on draping and external elements, such as, fringes or ruffles. These can be seen in these fabulous costumes for Loretta Young from ‘Midnight Mary’.

 

Or look at Una Merkel’s Adrian designs from the same year:

Adrian’s other triumphs include creating iconic gowns for Norma Shearer in her Oscar winning role, ‘The Divorcee’ (1930), Joan Crawford in ‘Letty Lynton’ (1933) and Jean Harlow in ‘Dinner at Eight’ (1933). Notice again the clear similarities between all Adrian’s pieces, he obviously had a signature style.    

‘The Divorcee’ (1930)

 

 

‘Letty Lynton’ (1933)

 

 

 

‘Dinner at Eight’ (1933)

 

 

Hollywood Costume exhibition in Melbourne

Its times like these I wish I lived in Melbourne. The arts capital of Australia is playing host to an amazing collection of costumes cataloguing decades of film history. The ‘Hollywood Costume’ Exhibition from the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London and touring worldwide is on its final stretch closing August 18. It features a massive array of iconic pieces, such as De Givenchy’s famous LBD for Audrey Hepburn in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ (1961) and Vivian Leigh’s green curtain dress in ‘Gone With the Wind’ (1939).

The exhibition, housed in the ‘Australian Centre for Moving Image’ (ACMI), also includes other components of the costume making process including scripts, sketches and costume fitting photographs as well as film clips, montages and interviews to accompany the pieces. In addition to the exhibition, the ACMI is running a number of events focusing on key figures and designers; such as, Australian-born Orry Kelly programs on his creations in ‘Some Like it Hot’ (1959) for Marilyn Monroe and ‘Gypsy’ (1962), and special showings of ‘The Addams Family’ (1991), ‘The Wizard of Oz’ (1939) and ‘102 Dalmatians’ (2000). Some other costumes featured in the exhibition were featured in: Titanic (1997), Ben-Hur (1959), Casino Royale (2006), ‘Superman’ (1978), ‘The Iron Lady’ (2011) and many more. I encourage any film loving Australian to go see it as I probably won’t be able to make the trek from Brisbane to Melbourne before it moves overseas. 

Below is a few pictures from the exhibition mostly from its original home at the V&A:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The clip below features the exhibitions curator, Academy Award nominated film costume designer and historian, Professor Deborah Nadoolman Landis, discussing the exhibition and its importance in film history.



 

 

 

 
 

Precode Fashion Fix: Metallics

With economic depression raging through America, Precode films seemed to compensate by draping the goddesses of the screen in glittering gold, silver and bronze:

Lillian Roth and Frances Dee - The Shimmering Mermaids

Glittering Chorus Girls:



Chorus Girls in 'Murder at the Vanties' (1934)

Adrienne Dore
 

Goldwyn Girls in 'Roman Scandals' (1933)
 

Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell in 'Gold-diggers of 1933' (1933)

Mary Lou Dix

 

 

 

The Golden Stars of Hollywood:

 

Loretta Young

 

Katharine Hepburn in 'Christopher Strong' (1933)

 

Joan Crawford in 'Dancing Lady' (1933)

 

Greta Garbo

 

Clara Bow in 'Hoop-La' (1932)

 

And the Queen of all the glittering metallics:

 

Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra (1934)