By Kristen Pignuolo, Curatorial Assistant
Edith Head (1897-1981) worked in Hollywood for over fifty years (from the early 1920s to the early 1980s) as a costume designer at both Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios. While she was highly respected for her costume design work, Head was not invulnerable to the occasional scandal or controversy during her long career. Even the story of how she landed her first job at Paramount has been the subject of criticism. In 1924, Head, who at the time taught French and art at the Hollywood School for Girls, saw an ad for a sketch artist position at Paramount Pictures. Unsure of her own skills, she petitioned her fellow classmates at Chouinard Art Institute for drawings to pad out her portfolio for the interview.1 In one version of the story, it is erroneously claimed that Head stole her classmates’ sketches. Costume designer Howard Greer complimented her stylistic “versatility” and hired her on the spot. However, shortly after beginning work at the studio, Head confessed what she had done to Greer. He later wrote in his memoir Designing Male, “she might easily have saved her breath and her confession for her talents soon proved she was more than worthy for the job.”2 When asked about the incident later, Head stated it never occurred to her that borrowing her fellow artists’ sketches was dishonest.3
Perhaps the most well-known scandal of her career involves the French fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy. While in pre-production for the film Sabrina (1954), Audrey Hepburn met Givenchy at his studio and attempted to have Givenchy contribute designs for the film, specifically for her character’s Paris wardrobe. What happened next is up for speculation. According to Givenchy, Hepburn asked to see “clothes already made for his collection, and that is what we see on screen in Sabrina.”4 However, according to Jean-Pierre Dorléac, a costume designer who worked and became friends with Head at Universal, Hepburn only brought a single black suit by Givenchy to wear in the film and no other clothes were borrowed.5 Givenchy also claimed that he was responsible for one of the most famous designs from the film, a black cocktail dress with an H-neckline that became known as “The Sabrina dress” and was later manufactured for the public.6 Paramount used the idea that Hepburn wore a “real Paris wardrobe” in Sabrina to market the film, which caused issues for Head’s reputation and led to accusations that she misappropriated Givenchy’s designs and passed them off as hers. Givenchy did not receive any screen credit for his contributions and Head’s subsequent win for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black & White resulted in further blowback from critics.
The last major scandal of Head’s career revolves around the 1973 Universal Studios film The Sting. Head was responsible for promoting the film and ensuring that the actors were happy with their costumes. Essentially, she had no design responsibilities for the film, but she received the singular design credit.7 The costumes for the two leads, Paul Newman and Robert Redford, fell to Peter Saldutti and Vincent Dee, and Andrea Weaver worked as the women’s costumer on the film. Fashion designer and former Paramount sketch artist Bob Mackie said “a lot of producers were very happy to have Edith’s name on a film because then you automatically get press because everybody knew who Edith was. She got more press out of The Sting than anything she ever did, and she didn’t even do it.”8 The Sting won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Costume Design. However, in Head’s acceptance speech, she offered “no acknowledgement of the contributions of Dee, Saldutti, or Weaver…”9, to the shock of others in the costume industry. While Head took an ad out in the Costume Designer Guild’s newsletter to thank her fellow costumers, the damage was already done.
Edith Head had a long and colorful career working on Hollywood films. To learn more about the acclaimed costume designer’s life and work, visit the exhibition Edith Head: Hollywood’s Costume Designer today!
Edith Head: Hollywood’s Costume Designer, organized by OKCMOA and presented by The Ann Lacy Foundation, runs through September 29. Buy your tickets here.
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1 Jay Jorgensen, Edith Head: The Fifty-Year Career of Hollywood’s Greatest Costume Designer (New York: Running Press, 2010), 14.
2 Jay Jorgensen and Donald L. Scoggins, Creating the Illusion: A Fashionable History of Hollywood Costume Designers (New York City: Running Press, 2015), p. 228.
3 Jorgensen, Edith Head, p. 17.
4 Jorgensen, Edith Head, p. 192.
5 Ibid., p. 192.
6 Ibid., p. 192.
7 Ibid., p. 356.
8 Ibid., p. 356.
9 Ibid., p. 356.
Image Credit:
Edith Head personality still. Courtesy of the Paramount Pictures Archive
