ACADEMY Award-winning costume designer Edith Head will feature in an exhibition at Bendigo Art Gallery opening this month.
Head had a 50-year career
in Hollywood and is considered the gretest costume designer in the history of cinema. She won eight Oscars from 35 nominations between 1949 and 1978. She died in 1981, aged 83.
The exhibition, The Costume Designer, brings together more than 70 costumes from the 1930s-’60s.
Pieces on display have come from the archives of Paramount, the Collection of Motion Picture Costume Design and other private collections.
Garments worn by Shirley Temple, Olivia De Havilland, Jane Russell, Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire and Yul Brynner will be featured, as will items from films such as The Ten Commandments, Samson and Delilah, Sunset Boulevard, Vertigo and The Heiress.
Head’s greatest skill was her capacity to recognise apparent “flaws” in the bodies she dressed, using drape, cut and pattern to disguise these imperfections and highlight the wearer’s “assets”.
Gallery director Karen Quinlan said she was thrilled to exhibit the creations.
“Here is a true Hollywood taste-maker, whose designs played a huge role in the history of fashion, design and cinema, and yet they’ve rarely been seen in the public domain or outside the US,” Ms Quinlan said.
- The Costume Designer: Edith Head and Hollywood opens September 29.
Phone (03) 5434-6088, www.bendigoartgallery.com.au
