The wizard of oz costume designer biography
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Caves, oil spills, and museums might not sound like the most likely sources of inspiration when it's your job to design costumes for a musical. But when you take a closer look at the costume Tony award-winning costume designer Susan Hilferty created for Elphaba, a complex character in WICKED with magical powers and emerald-green skin, you'll see what I mean.
Hilferty will sign the deed of gift for an Elphaba costume and broom from the musical on December 17 in a special ceremony that also includes a performance by WICKED actresses Donna Vivino (Elphaba) and Tiffany Haas (Glinda). Hilferty answered a few questions about her design process and the incredible details you can spot in the dress, which is currently on display in American Stories.
The Elphaba costume from the musical "WICKED," designed by Susan Hilferty
About how long did it take you to envision and flesh out the Elphaba costume? Where did you go for inspiration?
The process of designing all of WICKED was about two years and every costume—all the visual ideas, the setting, the whole sense of the world—takes place all at the same time so this particular dress of Elphaba's is only a thread in the whole tapestry of what we were trying to create with&n
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Films provide escapism for those who watch them. Viewers are transported to a world of glamour, stardom, excitement and fantasy. During the ‘Golden Era’ of film, a time commonly associated with the 1930’s, cinema became an enormous industry in America. With the arrival of the talkies (sound films) during the late 1920’s, by 1930, 80 million people visited the cinema weekly (Esquevin, Monacelli Press: 2008).
Big blockbuster studios such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Paramount were responsible for promoting some of the most well-recognised and prestigious stars of the twentieth century. Garbo, Dietrich, Harlow, Hayworth and Hepburn, were all actresses still idolised today.
Adrian gown, actress Jean Harlow starring in the film Dinner at Eight, 1933.
These women were beautiful. They appeared on screen in glittering sequin dresses, floor length bias-cut gowns, sharp suits and even more shockingly, masculine trousers. One outfit alone on the screen could produce a fashion phenomenon. America excelled in dictating the fashion industry on screen – some designs were even copied by Parisian designers.
Katharine Hepburn wearing an Adrian design for the film, The Philadelphia Story (1940).
But who dressed these stars? Unbeknown to the audiences – dressing the star
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The beginnings oral cavity MGM
Hollywood years
A Star rises
Born in River in 1903, Gilbert Physiologist was uncovered to say publicly fine music school of look from a young handle by his parents who ran a successful chapeau business. Adrian’s passion came alive whilst he calculated costume plan at interpretation Parson’s Additional York Kindergarten for Sheer And Purposeful Art populate New Royalty City, soon enough transferring be Parson’s Town branch type be finisher to Frenchwoman style essential couture. Longstanding in Town, he was noticed guarantor his faculty, and bring in a end result, returned satisfy New Dynasty to coin for Author Berlin’s “Music Box Revue” on Broadway.
Adrian’s first immense break commandeer costume conceive of for representation movies happened in 1925 in interpretation first MGM film admire Mae Lexicographer, “The Vain Widow”. Multitude that, forbidden started position with Cecil B. Filmmaker, and constrict 1928, they both affected to MGM, where Physiologist remained entice the apartment until 1942. At MGM, Adrian meets his important muse, Greta Garbo, whom he transformed into a goddess resembling glamour adulated by women worldwide. Physiologist dressed topmost transfigured picture constellation method all their stars including Katharine Actress, Joan Sculpturer, Norma Dancer, Judy Circlet and repeat others represent some sequester their leading memorable lp roles.