museum of brisbane and audi centre brisbane present boulevard (1950) ... presented by museum of...

Museum of Brisbane Costumes from the Golden Age of Hollywood 22 November 2014 to 26 April 2015

Ann Miller in Small Town GirlDesigner: Helen Rose1953 - MGM

Museum of Brisbane and Audi Centre Brisbane present

Museum of Brisbane Costumes from the Golden Age of Hollywood 22 November 2014 to 26 April 2015

ContentsMedia Release ......................................... 3

Top 10 Costumes .....................................4

Background Information .........................5

Biographies ..............................................7

Media Enquiries .......................................8

Museum of Brisbane Costumes from the Golden Age of Hollywood 22 November 2014 to 26 April 2015 2

An extraordinary private collection of iconic costumes, props and ephemera from the Golden Age of Hollywood will finally go on show after remaining hidden for decades in suburban Brisbane.

One of the biggest and most ambitious undertakings by Museum of Brisbane in its 10-year history, which has been three years in the making, Costumes from the Golden Age of Hollywood will reveal the city’s best kept secret for the very first time on 22 November 2014.

Brisbane-based collector Nicholas Inglis has spent the last two decades acquiring hundreds of motion picture costumes, including signature pieces worn by Judy Garland, Grace Kelly, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rodgers, Lucille Ball, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis and Marlon Brando, alongside countless items of memorabilia.

A carefully curated selection of nearly 70 costumes, dozens of accessories and props and more than 100 photographs and sketches from the 1920s to 1960s will feature in Costumes from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Highlights include a stunning two-metre wide ball gown from Marie Antoinette (1938) created by the legendary designer Adrian, Gloria Swanson’s elegant pink silk nightgown from Sunset Boulevard (1950) and swimsuits worn by the ‘million dollar mermaid’ of the 1940s and 1950s Esther Williams.

Costumes from the Golden Age of Hollywood is more than a glittering display of couture creations for the silver screen; it will also take visitors on a journey through this unparalleled period in film history. It was a time when powerful studios owned their stars and cinemas, costume departments employed hundreds of artisans and millions flocked to the movies to escape the harsh realities of the era such as the Great Depression and World War II.

The exhibition is the result of a serendipitous meeting between co-curators, Museum of Brisbane Deputy Director Christopher Salter and fashion curator Dr Nadia Buick.

Christopher Salter said both he and Nadia had heard of a mysterious Hollywood collection, rumoured to be stored somewhere in Brisbane.

“Nadia and I met through a mutual friend and had begun conversations about locating this almost mythical collection and investigating its exhibition potential. As luck would have it, it turned out I had a link to Nicholas through Facebook and we were able to reach out to him and discuss developing an exhibition,” Mr Salter said.

“To create Costumes from the Golden Age of Hollywood, we spent hundreds of hours cataloguing the collection and have been working with one of Australian’s leading textile conser-vators who is slowly bringing the garments back to life.

“I think visitors will be astounded by the quality of the workmanship in each costume, the corsetry and beading, the luxurious fabrics. People will also be surprised by how colour-ful some costumes are, considering on screen they only appeared in black and white.

“There is still so much nostalgia for this period of films, and the costumes and props are a very real but magical link to some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, which is very exciting to share with people.”

In contrast to international fashion exhibitions bought in from other museums, this show has been curated by the Museum’s small in-house team and is free to the public.

Lord Mayor of Brisbane Graham Quirk said the Costumes from the Golden Age of Hollywood exhibition would be a major drawcard for the city.

“This unique collection of costumes will stand as a wonderful example of the creative and cultural treasures that can be found in our city,” Cr Quirk said. “We are pleased that we have the opportunity to display these costumes for the first time in Australia and that the exhibition will be an Australian exclusive during its run at Museum of Brisbane. “Brisbane is very much an emerging global city and its innova-tive offerings like this that will help propel us forward as Australia’s New World City. “An undertaking of this size is an admirable feat for Museum of Brisbane and I congratulate the team on curating this collection which I am sure will bring its visitors great nostal-gia.”

Costumes from the Golden Age of Hollywood runs from 22 November 2014 to 26 April 2015. Museum of Brisbane is open daily from 10am to 5pm on Level 3 of Brisbane City Hall, entry is free. For more details visit museumofbris-bane.com.au.

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Presented by Museum of Brisbane and Audi Centre Brisbane

Media ReleaseHollywood glamour comes to Brisbane in lavish world-first exhibition

Emma [email protected] 214 626

Michaela [email protected] 868 382

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Top 10 CostumesFred Astaire in Royal Wedding

Katherine Hepburn in Little Women

Grace Kelly in The Swan

Judy Garland in Easter Parade

Elizabeth Taylor in Raintree County

Marlon Brando in Desiree

Claudette Colbert in Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra

Greta Garbo in Queen Christina

Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl

Bette Davis in The Virgin Queen


Hollywood in Brisbane

Costumes from the Golden Age of Hollywood is an exhibition of costumes, props and ephemera connected to cinema’s most iconic stars, studios and designers. It is drawn from the significant private collection of Brisbane-based Nicholas Inglis.

This collection offers a glimpse into Hollywood in this era, influenced by Nicholas’ fondness for certain types of films, designers, and actors. The selection of items showcased in this exhibition features big name designers and stars, powerful studios and famous films, alongside those that have faded from memory. For this reason the collection encapsulates the complex history of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Gloria Swanson’s pink pleated silk nightgown from Sunset Boulevard (1950) is the first costume to greet visitors. As an object, it is imbued with the story of Golden Age Hollywood, created for a film about the decay of the silent film era and a reflection on the power-ful studio system of mid-twentieth century Hollywood.

The Golden Age of Hollywood1930s to 1960s

The studio system was central to the Golden Age. The major studios Columbia, RKO Radio Pictures, Metro Goldwyn Mayer, United Artists, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Paramount and Warner Brothers were all powerful, employ-ing thousands of people, often under exclusive contracts, and owning chains of cinemas.

Known as ‘Dream Factories’, each studio back lot was like a small city where thousands of artists — from stars and directors, set and costume designers, seamstresses, prop makers and stage hands — came together in the labour intensive process of motion picture making. Costume design departments were the centre of this world, equipped with immense resources and teams of expert craftspeople to create costumes for the silver screen.

The Golden Age saw more people going to the movies than any other time in history, seeking entertainment and escape in an era of social, cultural and political upheaval. The Great Depression in the 1930s, World War II during the 1940s and the Korean War of the early 1950s all impacted the lives of audiences during the Golden Age.

While everything behind-the-scenes was carefully constructed, front-of-house was also deliberately managed by the studios. Integral to the success of the studio system was a tactical process of production and distribution of films. The studios exerted control over the motion picture industry by owning chains of theatres across America, where they exclusively screened their own films and benefited from their profits.

In the exhibition, costumes worn by major stars of the era including Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner and Claudette Colbert give a figurative glimpse into the main complexities, biogra-phies and narratives attached to Hollywood cinema at the time.

The Relationship Between Costume Design-ers and Fashion

Costume design is central to the look and feel of a production, as well as the development of story and character on screen. While early Hollywood films relied on actors to provide their own clothing, by the beginning of Golden Age costume designers were firmly embedded in the studio system.

Like stars and directors, costume designers were signed to specific studios and contributed to their aesthetic identity. Some of these designers became household names, while others remained invisible along with their teams of talented support staff.

The relationship between costume and fashion is complex. Many leading costume designers of the Golden Age were trained in the fashion industry, including Travis Banton and Irene. Others had careers as fashion designers after (or during) their time in Hollywood, including Adrian and Helen Rose. Fashion designers left their mark on Hollywood with iconic collabora-tions like Hubert de Givenchy, Audrey Hepburn and ‘the little black dress’ from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

During the Golden Age, screen stars became style icons on the pages of fashion magazines and movie wardrobes often influenced wardrobes in the home. Costume designers set the on-screen and off-screen looks of major stars, while American women could purchase copies of gowns worn by their favourite celebri-ties in specifically licenced ‘cinema boutiques’ within major department stores.

The MGM fittings board in the exhibition is not only a rare piece of film history, but also the embodiment of a costume department behind-the-scenes. From the 1920s to late ‘60s, the board captured every major production and star at MGM.

Background


A Star is Born

The Golden Age was a time when the concept of Hollywood celebrity was solidified in popular culture. As part of an actor’s contract, the studio tightly managed their image and persona on and off screen. Performers were schooled in how important adhering to a particular image was. Certain types of films and characters could reflect that image and guarantee success for a star and studio. Costume played a key role in communicating a star’s persona to the movie-going public.

Archetypes such as ‘the girl next door’, ‘femme fatale’ or ‘the bachelor’ were common in Golden Age films. Stars often played variations of these roles, with appropriate costumes, over and over again, becoming ‘typecast’. Women’s costumes illustrate this more clearly than men’s due to the wide variety of cut and fabric choices that could be made. A cocktail dress could be demurely cut from a plain fabric, or be body hugging and covered in sequins. A perfect example in the exhibition is ‘bombshell’ Jane Russell’s head-to-toe sequin gown from The Revolt of Mamie Stower.

Costume design choices were a form of non-verbal communication with the ability to alter the type of character on screen and affect the choice of actor for a particular part. The designer’s complex role was to serve the star, the film and the narrative while also incorporat-ing their own visual language on screen.

The Stories Hollywood Tells

During their peak in the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s, the major studios required a constant stream of ideas for new productions. Hollywood looked to a number of sources for storylines, with a view to what would produce good box office results. Certain narratives and genres were favoured as safe returns on investment. Some of the most popular genres of the time were Westerns, War, Romance, Musicals, Comedy and Drama.

Within these genres, Hollywood continually renewed particular stories, often adapted from a literary or historical source, however loosely. As they are today, films were also remade from earlier productions, many contained a love story at their centre and most films presented an idealised version of the world, whether contem-porary or historical in nature.

A variety of these narratives are represented in the exhibition through the likes of Joan Collins’ hat from The Virgin Queen, Elizabeth Taylor’s wig from Cleopatra and Gregory Peck’s crown from David & Bathsheba.

The End of an Era

The Golden Age was inextricably linked to the studio system, but by the 1960s this system had radically changed. While the 1940s and ‘50s were still successful decades for the studios, competing forms of entertainment — particular-ly television — were eroding cinema’s audiences.

A major blow came in 1948, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the studios’ tactics of ‘block booking’ (selling multiple films to cinemas in lots) and operating cinemas exclusively screening their films, constituted monopolistic trade practices that were anti-competitive.

This enforced change left the old studios struggling to adapt. During the 1950s, as major stars were released from their contracts and began to freelance, studios turned to popular genres that exploited the scale of the big screen in a bid to keep audiences entertained. But by the 1960s reality hit. The growing taste for realism in filmmaking saw the end of the restric-tive Hays Code – Hollywood’s moral censorship guidelines – in 1966, which further made bloated and expensive studio productions seem irrelevant. Emerging independent films transformed American cinema. The musical survived on the backs of new stars like Barbra Streisand and Julie Andrews, but never recap-tured its prior popularity.

As the power of the studios waned, so did the massive departments that fuelled Golden Age films. Costume departments were stripped back and the labour intensive and specialised techniques crucial to Golden Age costumes vanished. Costumes from boutiques and department stores were a better fit for charac-ters that needed to feel ‘real’ to a contemporary audience.

Myrna Loy, I Love You AgainDesigned by Dolly Tree, 1940

Lucille Bremer, Zeigfeld FolliesDesigned by Helen Rose, 1945

Esther Williams, Million Dollar MermaidDesigned by Helen Rose, 1952

Photo credit: Atmosphere Photography


Christopher is Deputy Director of Museum of Brisbane. Born and bred in Brisbane, he has always held a profound interest in the arts.

As a teenager, Christopher hosted a local children’s television show on Channel 10 – a gig that continued until after he finished school and one he juggled with performances at Brisbane Arts Theatre.

While still acting and singing, Christopher began his studies in arts and marketing, which led to a five-year stint at Queensland Theatre Company, under the direction of esteemed playwright Michael Gow.

He joined Museum of Brisbane in 2007, bringing with him a passion to tell stories and connect with audiences. Christopher’s tenure has spanned many award-winning exhibitions including Prejudice and Pride, My own private neon oasis and The River: A history of Brisbane. He also oversaw the Museum

relaunch in its new gallery on the rooftop of City Hall in 2013.

Christopher has also been involved in several panels and boards including Arts Queensland, Circa, Museum & Gallery Services Queensland and most recently as of Deputy Chair of the inaugural Board of Mercy Heritage Centre. He is currently on the board of Ausdance Queensland and is undertaking his Masters in Creative Industries.

In a culmination of Christopher’s roles as a consumer and creator in the arts, Costumes from the Golden Age of Hollywood has allowed him to lead the curato-rial development of this large-scale exhibition for the Museum. With a strong interest in Golden Age cinema, which began in his younger years, he is excited to share this project with Australian audienc-es.

Nadia is a Brisbane-based curator, writer and researcher in fashion and design. She holds a PhD from the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology, specialising in curatorial practice. Her thesis, Framing Fashion Curation: a theoretical, historical, and practical perspective, proposed a new model for fashion curation and charts the historical development of the field in a range of sites. Her curatorial practice explores the impact of memory and narrative within fashion exhibitions, particularly in relation to women’s identity. Nadia regularly gives public lectures relating to fashion history and curatorial studies.

Nadia has cut an outstanding record as an indepen-

dent fashion curator, working in partnership with institutions and organisations such as State Library of Queensland, Museum of Brisbane, QUT Art Museum and Jean Brown Group. Through her curatorial work she has introduced significant national collections to Brisbane audiences, including the Darnell Collection, Australia’s largest private vintage and antique clothing archive. She curated a total of eight Brisbane-based fashion exhibitions in the space of three years, and also co-developed a cultural program for Mercedes Benz Fashion Festival. Nadia also runs The Fashion Archives, an online magazine facilitating conversations between design-ers, stylists, curators, artists, historians and collectors about the past and present of Queensland style.

Nicholas is a Brisbane-based lawyer who has been collecting Hollywood costumes for almost two decades. Over this time, Nicholas has amassed hundreds of original screen worn costumes, among countless accessories, props and memorabilia. He is believed to be one of a very small number of “Golden Age” costume collectors in the world.

His love for cinema began at a very young age. Nicho-las’ aunty owned the popular Dawn Theatre – the last of the single screen theatres in Brisbane – and he would often write letters to Hollywood stars, receiving in reply autographs from the likes of Frank Sinatra and Audrey Hepburn.

It was after seeing a Christie’s Auction House brochure that Nicholas realised it was possible to collect film costumes. He made his first purchase on

eBay not long after – a pair of slacks worn by Ava Gardner in Mogambo – and has been hooked ever since.

To pay tribute to the designers of the era, Nicholas runs a well-known blog, The Vintage Film Costume Collector, which allows him to not only share his passion for collecting but to connect with fellow collectors around the world. He often gives advice to individuals and auction houses, and has even inspired others to begin collecting. Throughout 2013 to early 2014, Nicholas assisted Singin’ in the Rain star Debbie Reynolds in cataloguing some of her collec-tion.

In his spare time, Nicholas satiates his love of theatre and the arts as an usher at QPAC, where he has been since his university days.

Biographies

Nich�as Inglis

Nadia Buick

Christopher Salter

Photo credit: Dylan Evans


For all media enquiries, please contact Agency North

Emma Rusher0423 214 626

[email protected]

Michaela Tam0431 868 382

[email protected]

Costumes from the Golden Age of Hollywood runs from 22 November 2014 to 26 April 2015

Presented by Musuem of Brisbane and Audi Centre Brisbane

Museum of Brisbane is open daily from 10am to 5pm on Level 3 of Brisbane City Hall, entry is free

For more details visit museumofbrisbane.com.au

Connect with Museum of Brisbane

Twitter: @MuseumofBris

Instagram: museumofbrisbane

#museumofbrisbane

#hollywoodinbrisbane

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