Designing Hollywood

Studio Wardrobe in the Golden Age

By: Christian Esquevin

Narrated by: Scot Wilcox

Since the 1920s, fashion has played a central role in Hollywood. As the movie-going population consisted largely of women, studios made a concerted effort to attract a female audience by foregrounding fashion. Designers from a variety of backgrounds, including haute couture and art design, were offered long-term contracts to work on multiple movies. Though their work typically went uncredited, they were charged with creating an image for each star that would help define an actor both on- and off-screen. The practice of working long-term with a single studio disappeared when the studio system began unraveling in the 1950s. By the 1970s, studios had disbanded their wardrobe departments and auctioned off their costumes and props.

In Designing Hollywood: Studio Wardrobe in the Golden Age, Christian Esquevin showcases the designers who dressed Hollywood's stars from the late 1910s through the 1960s and the unique symbiosis they developed with their studios in creating iconic looks. Studio by studio, Esquevin details the careers of designers like Vera West, who worked on Universal productions such as Phantom of the Opera (1925) and William Travilla, the talent behind Marilyn Monroe's dresses in Gentleman Prefer Blondes (1953)). Designing Hollywood takes the reader on a journey from drawing board to silver screen.

The book is published by The University Press of Kentucky. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2023 The University Press of Kentucky (P)2025 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Fascinating, illuminating, entertaining and informative....a MUST read!" (Susan Claassen, Creator and star of A Conversation with Edith Head)

"A great go-to book about how and when movies were made and how they were designed..." (Jean-Pierre Dorléac, Somewhere in Time, Quantum Leap)

"Anyone who is curious about costume design...will find this fact-filled book extremely useful..." (Leonard Maltin, film critic and historian)