Buy Marilyn’s birthday suit 1

Fashion · Film
Yes, Marilyn, you are attending President Kennedy’s birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden in New York. But that does not mean you have to wear your birthday suit! Instead, Monroe commissioned a super special gown from French-born Hollywood designer Jean Louis for the occasion. A real stunner. And it’s soon for sale courtesy of Julien’s ...

Jack Cole’s arm coaches Rita Hayworth in “Amado Mio” from GILDA

Dance · Fashion · Film
For the longest time, we have wondered whether the great choreographer Jack Cole (born in New Brunswick New Jersey, he got his start as a barefoot Denishawn dancer) worked with Rita Hayworth on her Latin-dance number, “Amado Mio” from GILDA (1946). That choreography would be above and beyond his well-acknowledged creation of Rita’s seminal, classy ...

TCM salutes Hollywood’s distinguished costume designers

Fashion · Film
We like Deborah Nadoolman Landis. She’s pretty, she’s nice, she wears spectacles, she has a cool husband, and she’s an arts·meme subscriber. Hey, she’s a Deborah! What’s not to love? More importantly, Ms. Nadoolman Landis is a huge expert in a super interesting field. She earned a Ph.D. in history of design from the Royal ...

Fred & Cyd march on tippy toe in “The Band Wagon”

Dance · Fashion · Film
In this publicity still for “The Band Wagon” (MGM, 1953), Cyd Charisse marches on gorgeous gams while her partner Fred Astaire embodies a human exclamation point. In the movie, Cyd dons a different frock. Costumes were by Mary Ann Nyberg, who has a wonderful film-costume portfolio. Nyberg ran into problems dressing Judy Garland in “A ...

John Singer Sargent dresses Rita Hayworth for “Put the Blame on Mame” 2

Dance · Fashion · Film
“The designer Jean Louis, supposedly inspired by John Singer Sargent‘s famous portrait of the décolleté Madame X, created for Miss Hayworth a fetishistic black satin strapless gown, with elbow-length gloves, and the dance director Jack Cole devised the strip-tease routine in which she flung those gloves to her audience. The director, Vidor, expected the filming ...