Swank in The Arts; 123; Edith Head, costume designer

Good evening. I'm Patsy Swank. Miss Edith Head might be characterized as a working legend. She is probably one of the busiest costume designers that Hollywood has ever, ever known. Besides that, she loves motion pictures and cheese in Dallas because the Benson and Hedges series of 100 Greatest Films are now being shown here and three of the films that she costume happened to be included among most hundred. Edith Head was obviously a child bride to the great god film. She worked on her first picture in 1925 and her next one is just about to start. It's being produced by Alfred Hitchcock. If you look in any list of film credits for the designers of the Golden Hollywood years, Edith Head's list will top them all by about a column and a half. The reason for that, I think, is pretty obvious. Edith Head is a superb designer. She would have been a success wherever she

had chosen to work. That being the case, Miss Ed, what was it about the film that engaged you and that kept you? Actually, you know, I'm an ex-school teacher and I have a theory that once you've taught school, you can do anything. But, you know, years ago, school teachers didn't make a large salary and come summer vacation, we had to get a job. There was an advertisement in the paper that Paramount Studio needed a sketch artist. I could draw a bit. So I went to the studio, became a sketch artist, fell in love with the make-believe of pictures, and never went back to teaching. But an awful lot of your contemporaries have come and gone and they've been fine designers too. But you're still here and you're still working and you're still productive. What is it about you or your job or the business that has kept you all together? You mean why I've survived so long? Well, if you want to put it that way, yes, I think that's it. No, I think I have a philosophy that is different. In other words, assuming you're a motion picture star, and when you come to an average designer, they will say,

here is a sketch. Now, here is a sketch that's so far and so on and you're going to wear it. Now, with me, I would do the three sketches. I would say, this sketch will make you look very glamorous. This sketch is much more intellectual. This third sketch has drama. Now, which you as an actress, which will enable you to play the part in the film you're doing? So, in other words, I work with people, not for them. And I think that that's why people like to work with me. Do you understand what I mean? Yes. It's the fact that I feel it's very important to get the point of view of other people rather than say, this is what I like. I hope you like it. What happens when you never can come together and you know that what they want is not? I do three more. No, because you see, don't forget. We expect the public to take the same star and every time they see a picture, believe they're a certain person. So, there are three magicians, hair, makeup and clothes. And through the three of us, we translate people, men, women, children, into characters. And

we ask you the public to believe that they are not themselves. So, obviously, I'm not trying to please you as an actress. I am trying to help you be what you aren't. And most actresses are intelligent enough, at least the ones with whom I've worked. They're intelligent enough to realize I'm helping them, not trying to, you know, talk them into something. One of the other factors, the actresses certainly aren't the only ones. Do you have to deal with producers? You know, so many people say, isn't it lovely being a studio designer? You do beautiful clothes, whatever you want. You don't. You see, I have a script first. And the script says, for example, Grace Kelly is a beautiful aeros, you know, into catch a thief. She has lovely clothes. The next picture could be Grace Kelly and Country Girl who is a middle-aged, very frumpy, very unattractive, you know, middle-aged woman. So, in other words, I do not actually design what I want. I follow the script. And then I have to show it to the director, the producer. You show it to the cameraman. You show it to the art director. To see, I don't do a great suit and a great set. You also show it to the man

who designs the decor for the set. And last of all, we have something horrible called a budget. So, but the time you will have satisfied all those, it is not just what I want to do. It is how I can correlate with these other departments and still achieve what I would like to. How much does the technical side of it bear on what you do? That is, do you have a pretty intensive sessions with the director with the cinematographer, the lighting? No, no. It depends. Now, for instance, with Hitchcock, when you will have read a Hitchcock script, you know what you're doing. Other scripts just say she wears a dress. That means you will have to have meetings. And it means you do have to have meetings. You have to discuss things with a person who wears the costume. The others are not, for instance, I can talk, let's say to a cameraman, they're very important. And he could say, Edith, can you possibly not give me a white dress? It's a garden scene and the moonlight is going

to be very difficult. Can you do it off-white or a pastel? You see, that's what you call cooperation. Not that they are saying I can't do it, but it will be easier. Does that ever affect the line or the fabric as well? No, because I mean whether I make a dress in pink or blue really isn't that important. It's just actually, in other words, when I will have designed a dress, I realize it is subject to change even then. So it's never set? It's never set to the pictures. I don't think most people realize the difference between costume designing and fashion. Because in fashion design, I would design what I as a designer want. As a costume designer, I design what I have to do because of the script. Well, where does... It's a terrific difference, you know. Where does style come in here? Because that's the third word in that triumphant. Style may not enter or tell. I can get a script where style doesn't mean anything. But you have a style. I do, if I have a contemporary picture.

But when you do a period picture, I just finish little women. That has great style and beauty, but I didn't originate the hope skirt. So you see, actually, I can't say that it's a need of head and original. Well, let's talk about some need of head originals. The hair, for instance, is a rendering of a dress that you did for Carol Lamar years ago. And that also became a symbol of what we call the Lambert look, the lovely bias dress. It could almost be worn today without the train, the separate scarf that came off of Dittichal and the overtunik. But don't forget, now, this was in a period where we could use any color we wanted. We didn't have to worry. It was black and white. Before color came into the picture. But I'll tell you, can we go a little further? Let's go to one of the pictures that I'm interested in now on this tour, which is all about eve.

The script says, now this is a part of a sequence. The script says she comes rustling down the staircase. That obviously means that I can use a tap at a brood, a laundry or a crisp material, which usually I can't use because they don't like noise. Also, she comes down with her hands and her pockets. Obviously, I'm going to use pockets. It says she pushes up her sleeves every so often and likes to cigarette. Obviously, I'm going to do, you know, short sleeves. So actually, the whole dress is motivated on the story. So that's what I mean by saying. And I think it's a very important subject to bring up that what I have to do is interpret a script and make it come to life. But that doesn't limit you. That never has limited you. What other people would consider their limitations simply seem to sharpen what you come up with. Well, that doesn't mean that I didn't do beautiful clothes. I think I got an Academy Award. I think it's an extraordinary picture from a costume point of view. But if I had not had a script, I might have done something different. In other words, it's a guideline.

And this happens to theater, to television, to pictures. Any form of visual art is motivated by a story. Well, take, for example, another one of your Academy Award winners. I think was a Samson and Delilah. You did the elaborate and beautiful costumes for Haiti Lamar and that. How do you arrive at those? That's historical in one sense. Well, of course, that is one of the saddest things to tell you. You want to hear a sad story? Yes. But years ago, we had something called censorship. Which censorship says that you cannot show a bosom. You cannot show a lady's navel. Did you know that? No, I did. Well, in Samson and Delilah, you could not show Haiti Lamar's navel, but you could show Samson's navel. And no one has ever explained to me why a male navel is not censorable and a female one is. But anyhow, that's what happened. But the thing is, what we did, we did a great deal of research. And then we would have to change. We would have to cover up things that ended up by being a much more covered costume than the original things. Not today, we have

less censorship. We have more reality. If I were to do Samson and Delilah today, I would probably do very accurate Egyptian costumes. Or, well, was it Egyptian Samson and Delilah no? Well, it's Middle Eastern somewhere in that, not it, but it's over in that whole area where the same things would prevail. But then for the eras, you could do an extra course that everybody was covered up in the eras. Well, also in the eras, don't forget. It's a period about which a great deal has been written. And there still is a great deal of authentic material around. Actually, Willie Wiler was such a perfectionist that he set me east to go to two or three galleries to get a real car set. Do you know what a real car set looks like? I don't know that I can describe it, but it had bones. But the real car set changed, you should see. In one period, it had bones here and another had there. So he wanted one for the scene in the bedroom. And we had to copy authentic pedicodes, authentic, in other words, it could have been a real representation of a real thing.

But that's what's exciting about pictures. I don't think the public realizes that today, everything we do is so academically perfect that it's as close to the real thing as you could possibly. And you know, that's why I'm so pleased to be here in Dallas because I understand Dallas's interest in seeing famous pictures. And it's fun to talk about them. It's nostalgic. And I think the taste of the public is so superb nowadays. Well, I think that's true. I think Dallas also has some reputation as a market center and as a style center. And perhaps this more is more sensitive to some of those aspects. Perhaps, I don't know whether that's a showmanistic remark or not. Well, I find Dallas very receptive to a contemporary design. I designed for Vogue Patterns. And I did a lovely fashion show here at the wonderful Dallas, I think it's the Dallas Owens Club, fantastic place. And we showed all the great costumes of the past. And then I showed the contemporary patterns, which are more or less influenced by the great clothes of

the past. Why aren't you in the Couture Business? Because I'd rather be in the pattern business. If I were in the Couture Business, I would have to build dozens of clothes and worry about whether they sold or not. You know, it's precarious thing. And also, I like doing patterns better. You know, the camper doesn't lie. And I can make anybody look better or thinner, younger, tall or anything I want because I've learned over the years that the clothes really are magic. So when I do the Vogue Patterns, I do them with the point of view, not will a woman have a pretty dress, but will a woman herself look better? It's fun. I feel a little like a doctor. You know, years ago, I did a picture called a dress doctor. And I commence every so often to feel a little medical when I say, lady, you're kind of big below. You know, there are three major faults. You know one of the greatest things that happens. As you get older, a woman can get top-heavy, bottom heavy or heavy all over. Did you know that? Yes, I know. You heard of that. Yes, I have

heard of that. And if you were the right pattern, you can disguise them. It's camouflage, Trillian. Well, what do you do when, for instance, you're making a picture? I know about costume pictures, and I know that that presents a certain kind of problem. But I've seen a lot of pictures lately, dealing with clothes of the forties and clothes of the fifties. And they are accurate, as nearly as I can tell, from the tip, they don't look like the clothes I wore in the forties and the clothes I wore in the fifties. You know what? I change the eye. No, I think that we have a tendency. In every period, there are good clothes, bad clothes, and medium clothes. And I think that the designers, when we design a period film, try to take the best of the design and skip the horrors, because every period does have ugly clothes. And so, in other words, the choice between a shoulder that looks like a football player or a medium shoulder, we're apt not to pick them or extreme, which is the safest thing to do. But, you know, every picture, I just finished doing little women for the

third time. For the third time? How wonderful. Lovely Greergarson, who is incredibly beautiful. She plays the wealthy aunt and looks incredibly handsome. And so, that's the sort of thing that makes up for the things that aren't pleasant. And then you do pictures where you have, I just finished doing one for Elizabeth Taylor, where she plays a middle-aged school teacher, you know, just playing vanilla clothes. So, everything you have is a different language. Is there anything different do you feel in the way we look back at what happened? Is it different? What is different in the present eye? Does that affect the way we remember, does our memory affect the way the clothes look good? Well, I think what has happened, we have always, until the last few years, had a certain amount of regulation. In other words, we wore certain clothes to places of worship. We saw our certain clothes at the beach, we wore certain clothes morning, noon and night. Today, I just think you throw anything on and go any place you want, which is very unfortunate, because I don't think we'll ever go back

to regulations again. I don't think we can. I don't think, I think a lot of people have to go from places of work when they go out and things, so that's sort. But I think this one dress for all things is a cruel, unkind thing. I think that that fashion today has two things. It has the ugliest fashion that's ever been designed, and still some of the best. Some, we have some American designers, I think, who do fantastic clothes. Can you, can you say which ones you like? Well, I think for just general sport clothes, Calvin Klein does fantastic clothes. My favorite designer is Oscar D'Lorento, don't you like me shirt? Yes, I do like this shirt. I like this clothes too. So you see, we have great designers here. However, we get so much freak design, like I saw one on the paper the other day, you're supposed to look like one of Hitler's main officers with great shoulders. Well, why is there any reason why, in this day and age, we should have padded shoulders? We're in a period of freedom and comfort. And believe me, they are not that comfortable. Well, doesn't that go back to the, to the whole sense of, of

fashion control, which traditionally for so many years was out of France, has, has spread to some degree, but shirt, skirt lengths always go up, go down, go out, go in. What, what does control list? Well, I think the whole point is an economic reason. I think that stores want to sell clothes. I think designers want to make money. The way to do it is to hit a headline and say, this is it, this is the great fad. If a thing gets a next exposure and enough publicity, people will buy it. And unfortunately, nowadays, you have to do something pretty unusual to get headlines. If you do something bad enough, believe me, people will buy it. If it gets enough exposure. However, I've just been talking to some people here on the newspapers and saw some of the new things. There's some perfectly beautiful, perfectly normal, lovely clothes coming in. So, you have to make up your mind. Are you going to be a freak or aren't you? How do you feel about it?

No, I try not to be a freak, but it's that way. But doesn't that go back to some of the elements that we were talking about before? The suit that you have on, friends. It's an old suit. Uh, I have no idea whether it's an old suit or whether it came out of this year's collection. It will be just as good. No, this is 12, 13 years old and I wore it deliberately. Does that have anything to do with the reason for the freakiness that that? No, it's just that I happen to like some of my old clothes, but the new clothes. But isn't that what I'm saying is, isn't that the reason for the freakiness if all of us could wear all of our clothes and love them for 10 or 15 years? Yes, but you notice I didn't keep any football shoulders in my collection. No, no football shoulders that I've noticed. But there is fashion that is good this year. There's fashion that is unkind and in my going back to my patterns, I try to do normal seal clothes. Naturally, I do glamour clothes, beautiful clothes, not just everyday clothes, because I represent a glamour industry. But everything I do is made so it can be worn day or night. For instance, a suit which will have a long skirt, short skirt,

and a pair of pants along with the top. Because I think people who so should get a lot of mileage out of their clothes. But nobody is going to change fashion. There's no act of congress or the world that's going to tell women what to wear. It's going to be fun if we ever go in uniform. Well, we did once, sort of, during World War II. But what about that whole clothing revolution of the 60s of the young people? Wasn't it horrible? Well, it was troublesome in a way. I think to those of us who were used to thinking about clothes in a certain way, and I don't think they think about clothes that way. But the taste still came out. I mean, there were blue jeans and blue jeans and there were t-shirts and t-shirts. I think the 60s is the all-time low in fashion in America. I'll tell you so much was motivated by you can wear anything, anytime, any place. In other words, if you preferred not to wash your hair, you were much more chic. If you bought some old, dirty thing at a second hand store, that was just lovely. In other words, it was fun and amusing

for the kids to do it. But when the older people got to that look, then I thought it was rather pathetic. Yes, it really was. It was a movement of the young. It was a kind of a rebellion. I didn't hold it against the young people. I thought if they wanted to look like freaks, let them. But when you saw older freaks, I think freaks should stop at the age of 25. Well, that's when they start being freaks, I guess, and stop being younger people. What I was going to ask you, though, was if that concerned you at the time of the 60s? Yes, because I cannot remember anything as profound as that approach to clothes. I had a feeling of all sense of clothes as a celebration of place or celebration of event going by the board. I don't think it happened. Well, as it affected me, I ignored it. I did no hippie clothes, unless I got a picture with hippies, and then I really outhippied them. But I just felt that it

was a phase. I thought it was a fantasy. You can't criticize a thing like this. I don't feel an adult like myself. Has any right to criticize any movement of the young people? Because I think they have a terrific influence on fashion. What I resent is the older people following it. As they nearly always do. You know, there is a time and age where really women shouldn't wear tight blue jeans. It comes very early. Change like that. By the way, I think blue jeans are going to be here forever. Well, there are some things that come out of every fashion revolt that seem to stick around. You know, that's our earliest fashion in America, the blue jeans. The jeans? Sure. I didn't realize that. But not for women, was it? Well, no, but I mean, the blue jeans, the blue denim is originated in South, you know, the gold rush. So America's first contribution to fashion was the blue jeans. And I prophesied, it'll be the last one. We'll never give it up. I love them. I look wonderful in them,

but I don't wear them out when I work. I think there's a place for everything. Well, one of your Academy Awards was for the sting, for the men's clothes. Have you always designed for men? I did more men than women, actually, when I started. I dressed nearly every male actor, Carrie Grant, all of them. Well, if I say what's the difference, I'm sure to get a smart answer, not from you, but from somebody. But I mean, what's the difference in a approach? No, I know that. What's the difference in approach to... All goes back to your script. In other words, in the script, the men were prevalent. They were both stars. And it said that they were gangs.gangsters were crooks of that period. And so I did a lot of research and did accurate clothes. They were not original. I didn't invent the clothes of that period. But with two handsome men like that, it was a joy to work with them. But working with the man in anything, whether it's contemporary or a period, it's much easier because men have no hangups.

The average woman, the time she's an adult, has certain fixed ideas of certain color she likes, certain necklines she likes, certain fabrics. The average male, frankly, is not that particular. They may say, I don't like this or that. But as a rule, a man will look at a sketch and say, find, the average woman will say, oh, eat it, it's lovely. Can I have pink instead of blue or a different neckline? Because it's a female prerogative. Well, all of these years that you have been designing for the men, it seems to me that the real sort of turnover in men's clothes has been within the last five or ten years. Were you always doing what you felt to be basically the same thing for the men? Well, I have been always very much motivated by the British look because I think that over the years, if you had to say, do I like the French influence, the Italian influence, I would say the British influence has been more consistent with America's lifestyle and the way we live. You know what I'm trying to bring back for men? What? Tills. When did they leave?

Well, I don't think they've ever had America. No, but I was, I saw a picture the other night of a, of a Scotch regiment, and I, I have kills for three, and I thought, how fabulous they look. I come to think that I have never seen American men, I mean, I've seen, you know, the, on stage and things, but I've never been with a man and kills, have you? I have seen them, but not in America. Have you ever danced with one? No, I've never danced with a man and kills, but it must be. Shall we bring them back? Oh, I, I, you know, coming in to Texas yesterday. I saw more men in law, very, very short shorts, and I've ever seen in my life. Lots of law, lots of shorts, men's legs in my life. I think the women probably would, would, would resent it. The women cannot wear kills. The women, the Scots women, can only wear the, either the, the, the, uh, shawl throw. That I didn't know. Is that true? I think so. I think so. I've got a lot of Scots for them. What about first skirts? They have to wear whatever they're going to wear, but they, they simply wear the plan. Yeah, but it's, the, the, the killt is, is,

life trousers used to be for women. It is absolutely a man's garment entirely. Oh, being quite serious. I don't think that ever in our lifetime, we're going to see a drastic change in men's clothing. Well, we may see difference in the width of lapel, difference in the widths of tie, whether they will wear a vest or whether they won't wear a vest, but men, I think, I think men are not going to be easily pushed into any freaks. Men are much more sensible than women when you come to fashion. Why do you suppose that is? Because they're stubborn. And I don't think, I don't think, for example, suppose this, all right, suppose this is your morning paper here. All right. And on the front, it says, fantastic new outfit for men with one leg or kills or something, you know, ridiculous. Uh-huh. Men would, wouldn't, wouldn't go by it. Uh-huh. But if it were something we're thinking about, it's a woman would say, I think I'll go try it on. That's interesting. Men are very cautious.

Didn't you know that about clothes? Well, I have expected it for many, many years. But I do think, I noticed, actually, I noticed, I've been noticing particularly the men, I'm dressing so many pictures with men nowadays. And I noticed how comfortable and relaxed the men here look. Of course, it's hot weather. And that's the reason, but they all look so, you know, casual and not freaky. What about fabrics? What fact? How much have you been affected by the synthetic fabrics? I don't use it unless it's a reason to do it. Actually, I find out that most clothes make up better for my use in the real fabrics, cotton, linen, you know, silk. And you don't have the problem of maintenance, presumably. No, however, for travel and certain things, I think synthetics are wonderful because they don't must, you know, and they don't show, uh, show where. What do you like for yourself? For myself? Well, I have you, I have my own favorite guinea pig. I make things up for me. And if they're terrible, nobody ever sees them. So you see,

so anyway, that is my, my wish for Dallas, that everybody gets kind of clothes that makes them look their very best. You know, people today on the whole have the power of choice because it isn't a case of years ago when only people with money could buy clothes because even the most expensive clothes are sold off and much, you know, they're all kinds of stores. But if I had one rule, I would say don't buy a lot of clothes just by one or two clothes and then change it with accessories. For instance, I wear this with a black turtleneck sweater. Well, it looks like another costume or I wear it with a print blouse. In other words, the, the potential of being a woman is, is very special. It sounds more and more special all the time. Thank you, Edith, it's great for you talking to you. Thank you. We'll see you next week. Good night. It's a background.