Bill Travilla became a Hollywood star in his own right, thanks in large part to his premier client, actress Marilyn Monroe. Best known for designing Monroe's costumes in eight films--including Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire--Travilla also lit up the silver screen with designs for Tom Mix, Ann Sheridan, Errol Flynn, Joan Crawford, Jane Russell, Paul Newman, and Joanne Woodward, among others. When the golden era of Hollywood ended, Travilla focused on running his own couture-quality business. He also found time to free-lance for television epics such as Evita, The Thorn Birds, and Dallas. One Oscar and several Emmys later, it's easy to recognize the legacy of this outstanding designer. Showcased here are many of Travilla's original sketches for the stars, along with fascinating "costume check" and publicity photos. His rise from child art prodigy to celebrated designer is chronicled, painting a wonderful portrait of his rich contributions to the motion picture, television, and fashion industries. This beautiful book will be loved by all movie buffs, Monroe fans, Hollywood collectors, fashion historians, and students of costume design.

"Follows one of the best costume designers of all time and his most famous client, includes original sketches, rare costume test shots, dress patterns, photographs, and never-before-seen extracts from interviews"--OCLC

Marilyn Monroe made history by standing over a subway grating in a white pleated halter dress designed by William Travilla. Hubert de Givenchy immortalized the Little Black Dress with a single opening scene in Breakfast at Tiffany's. A red nylon jacket signaled to audiences that James Dean was a Rebel Without a Cause. For more than a century, costume designers have left indelible impressions on moviegoers' minds. Yet until now, so little has been known about the designers themselves and their work to complement and enrich stories through fashion. Creating the Illusion presents the history of fashion on film, showcasing not only classic moments from film favorites, but a host of untold stories about the creative talent working behind the scenes to dress the stars from the silent era to the present day. Among the book's sixty-five designer profiles are Clare West, Howard Greer, Adrian, Walter Plunkett, Travis Banton, Irene, Edith Head, Cecil Beaton, Bob Mackie, and Colleen Atwood. The designers' stories are set against the backdrop of Hollywood: how they collaborated with great movie stars and filmmakers; how they maneuvered within the studio system; and how they came to design clothing that remains iconic decades after its first appearance. The array of films discussed and showcased through photos spans more than one hundred years, from draping Rudolph Valentino in exotic "sheik" dress to the legendary costuming of Gone with the Wind, Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, Bonnie and Clyde, Reservoir Dogs, and beyond. This gloriously illustrated volume includes candid photos of the designers at work, portraits and wardrobe tests of stars in costume, and designer sketches. Drawing from archival material and dozens of new interviews with award-winning designers, authors Jay Jorgensen and Donald L. Scoggins offer a highly informative, lavish, and entertaining history of Hollywood costume design. About TCM: Turner Classic Movies is the definitive resource for the greatest movies of all time. It engages, entertains, and enlightens to show how the entire spectrum of classic movies, movie history, and movie-making touches us all and influences how we think and live today.

The story behind Marilyn Monroe's iconic dresses! William Travilla is one of the best costume designers of all time--and Marilyn Monroe was his most famous client. This gorgeous coffee-table book presents the striking dresses that Travilla created for Monroe, from his early work on the thriller Don't Bother to Knock, to the gorgeous pink gown in which Marilyn sang "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend," to the legendary white dress from The Seven Year Itch, which arguably contributed to the collapse of Marilyn's marriage to Joe DiMaggio. Featuring Travilla's original sketches, rare costume test shots, dress patterns, photographs of Marilyn wearing the costumes, and exclusive extracts from interviews with Travilla, this book offers fresh insight into the golden age of Hollywood . . . and Monroe's glamorous image.

From the lavish productions of Hollywood's Golden Age through the high-tech blockbusters of today, the most memorable movies all have one thing in common: they rely on the magical transformations rendered by the costume designer. Whether spectacular or subtle, elaborate or barely there, a movie costume must be more than merely a perfect fit. Each costume speaks a language all its own, communicating mood, personality, and setting, and propelling the action of the movie as much as a scripted line or synthetic clap of thunder. More than a few acting careers have been launched on the basis of an unforgettable costume, and many an era defined by the intuition of a costume designer—think curvy Mae West in I'm No Angel (Travis Banton, costume designer), Judy Garland in A Star is Born (Jean Louis and Irene Sharaff, costume designers), Diane Keaton in Annie Hall (Ruth Morley, costume designer), or Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark (Deborah Nadoolman Landis, costume designer). In Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design, Academy Award-nominated costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis showcases one hundred years of Hollywood's most tantalizing costumes and the characters they helped bring to life. Drawing on years of extraordinary research, Landis has uncovered both a treasure trove of costume sketches and photographs—many of them previously unpublished—and a dazzling array of first-person anecdotes that inform and enhance the images. Along the way she also provides and eye-opening, behind-the-scenes look at the evolution of the costume designer's art, from its emergence as a key element of cinematic collaboration to its limitless future in the era of CGI. A lavish tribute that mingles words and images of equal luster, Dressed is one book no film and fashion lover should be without.

Explores twenty definitive film noir titles from 1941 to 1950 and traces the evolution of popular fashion in the decade of the 1940s, the impact of World War II on home-front fashion, and the influence of the film noir genre on popular fashion.

Reprint. Originally published: London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 2012.