Earlier this week I had the most amazing opportunity to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum in central London to see their Hollywood Costume exhibit. The exhibit showcases more than 100 iconic film costumes from the last 100 years of cinema. About thirty of the costumes were from what I consider the "Golden Age of Hollywood," from the earliest silents through the 1960s. The designers featured included those familiar names we've seen so often in the opening credits: Edith Head, Adrian, Walter Plunkett, Travis Banton, Travilla, and Irene Sharaff, among many others.
There were costumes from all our favourite classic films, from Charlie Chaplin's Tramp costume in the THE CIRCUS (1928) to GONE WITH THE WIND (1939) and THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) to the Darth Vader get-up from STAR WARS (1977). The greatest film stars were also celebrated: both Katharine and Audrey Hepburn, Barbara Streisand, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Mary Pickford, John Wayne, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn - you name it! Below is a list of the costumes that struck my fancy, along with images from the original films.
Compared to the elaborate Queen Elizabeth I costumes which surrounded it, Hepburn's Mary of Scotland gown looked delicately petite. Walter Plunkett's frock is a crimson silk velevet with a gold leaf thistle pattern. Punkett remembers that after filming MARY OF SCOTLAND:
