About

Edith Head was an American costume designer who had a long career in Hollywood that garnered her more Academy Awards than any other woman in history.

She was born Edith Claire Posener in San Bernardino, California, the daughter of Max Posener and Anna E. Levy. Whether her parents were married is unknown but, in 1901, her mother married Frank Spare and Edith was passed off as his child. Though her birth parents were Jewish, Head would claim to be a Catholic later in life.

She graduated from Stanford University and the University of California and then continued her studies at the Otis Institute and Chouinard Art School in Los Angeles.

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The Look

Head had no formal training in design and she took care to work within what she saw as her limitations. She might never be considered a couturier, but she could—and did—become a taste-maker. Thus while contemporaries Erté and Adrian came to be known for gowns which epitomized fantasy and glamor, Edith Head made herself known for designing beautiful and flattering clothes which the movie-going public could easily imagine wearing. One of the most challenging problems for any theatrical designer is so-called "modern dress." A motion picture may be shot up to two years before it is shown to the public but clothing must not betray this fact by seeming dated. If so versatile a designer may be said to have a trademark, Head's would be a clean and simple line with a minimum of detail, in a subdued palette. Head produced timeless classics which never competed with the performer and never took focus from the storyline. It was all, she said, "a matter of camouflage and magic."

Who Wears It

Mae West, Frances Farmer, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake, Barbara Stanwyck, Ginger Rogers, Ingrid Bergman, Dorothy Lamour, Betty Hutton, Loretta Young, Olivia de Havilland, Hedy Lamarr, Angela Lansbury, Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Gloria Swanson, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Ann Robinson, Grace Kelly, Doris Day, Anne Baxter, Marlene Dietrich, Rita Hayworth, Kim Novak, Patricia Neal, Tippi Hedren, Claude Jade

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