A rare glimpse of Mae’s pins, and what a pair they are as well.
Marlene. Click for Source.
Marlene auto reblog
Have I mentioned how much I am in love with this woman recently?
Marlene Dietrich and Maria Riva
Mary Pickford by Edward Steichen
Vintage silver print. Located in the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, USA.
via corbisimages
xyn:
Ginger Rogers & Fred Astaire in the “Cheek to Cheek” number from 1935’s Top Hat.
(via retrochic)
Oh man, this dress! I love this dress SO MUCH. There is just so much to say, I need to take a minute to process it…
Okay, here goes. One thing that is fun about looking at Ginger Rogers’ clothes in movies, is that overall she seems quite willing to wear what wardrobe decided she should wear. A lot of movie stars have a “look” that they wear, regardless of what role they’re in. This is not a bad idea - I still think “Audrey Hepburn” when I see Givenchy clothing, but it often means that the clothes say more about an actress then the role she is playing. Ginger’s outfits are really fun to analyze in the context of her movies, because they always relate to her character and what she is experiencing.
Which is not to say Ginger had no input over her clothing. She certainly had some say about this dress! She actually got in a fight over it with Fred Astaire. See, the thing that is amazing about this dress - is in a single still, it is a profoundly silly dress. For goodness sakes, it is covered in feathers! Remember that swan dress Bjork wore to the Oscars, years ago, the one everyone hated? This is Bjork’s dress x1000. With a random shiny patch in the middle! And in rehearsals, the feathers from the dress flew all over, shedding over the ground, not to mention Fred. He was not pleased.
So Fred was not pleased, and neither was the director, the choreographer, etc. Aaand Ginger…well, Ginger had helped design the dress. And loved it! So she got in a fight with the rest of the crew, and it was eventually resolved in Ginger’s favor, with the help of seamstresses who reattached the feathers so that (most of) them didn’t shed. Ginger then felt the guilt that is suffered when one has won an argument, and was convinced everyone hated her. Luckily, sweet Fred Astaire bought her a charm in the shape of a feather, gave her the nickname Feathers, and the rest is cinematic history. And thank goodness for that!
For this dress, however silly it may look in a still, looks positively amazing in motion! The feathers follow the steps of the dancers, accentuating the drama in their movements. And this dance is truly dramatic; Ginger and Fred are basically dancing the equivalent of a passionate love scene. His neat figure in black tie, twirling around Ginger in her messy wonderful dress that spins and twists and falls as she falls completely for him.
And so what makes this dress so silly, is what makes it so divine. Though it doesn’t quite work in real life, it has a much more important job than merely being wearable. It is there to function as emotion, to show what it is like to fall in love. It is there to transport you, to take you away from a reality where a dress with feathers would clearly shed, to a place where people can fall magnificently in love while dancing in the most beautiful clothes imaginable. It is the perfect movie dress, and I love it so.
Greta Garbo and Ramon Novarro, 1931, production still for Mata Hari
Madge Bellamy in White Zombie c.1932
Ginger Rogers rehearsing with Hermes Pan, 1930s
