Rebekah Jackson and Dr. Mary Farahnakian, Department of Media and Theatre Arts

This project has been an involved approach to studying the history of costume design both through conventional research and the more tactile, construction process. While Edith Head is a renowned costume designer with many books and articles on her life work, less has been done to understand how her designs functioned and evolved from idea to costume. This process is essential to understanding her career’s success and is exactly what my project is meant to explore. Studying how her design for The Great Race (1965) was changed from concept to construction gives valuable insight to how Head thought as a designer. It reveals what she was and wasn’t willing to compromise on, how she balanced aesthetics with practical considerations and how she worked with an actor or actress to achieve the proper look for their character. This information will help costume designers and students to implement Head’s strategies, improving our work and academic experience in film and theatre.

In order to reproduce this costume, the first basic steps were to understand Edith Head’s career, the costume and the time era the costume is meant to represent. It was important to realize that Head, despite her great achievements in the field of costume design and 50 plus years of experience, never had formal training in her line of work. She obtained her first job in motion pictures through dishonest means, gaining experience on the job and moving her way up through hard work and a keen business mind. This lack of formal training, however, did show up in some of her designs. In the red suit costume I have reproduced, there are certain details that are inaccurate for time it is meant to represent, or the year 1908. The bolero, for example, is unusual for that time, as it raised the waistline higher than what was fashionable. The bustier, in addition, points up rather than down making it slightly different from the typical bustier of the early 1900s, while the skirt has tighter fit at the hipline. In Head’s original costume sketch this was not the case, but somewhere between the sketch and completed costume she changed the design. Whether this was a lack of historical training or a conscious, artistic decision is arguable, but it was important to know as it affected the shape and fit of the costume.

After this initial research, the next step was to study the finished costume worn by Natalie Wood for The Great Race (1965). Unfortunately, few pictures were available of the garment and none showed it clearly enough to see how it was constructed. The film, though good quality for the 1960s, was also not clear enough to show seams or smaller details. Because of this, I decided to make my own color rendering of the costume and the undergarments, adding in details or designs that were unclear in the pictures or film. As the undergarments were never visible beyond the petticoat hem, I turned to historical documents and a later scene of The Great Race to design a corset, petticoat and chemise for understructures.

As I began to complete my renderings and research, I started to gather supplies through local shops and online stores, collaborating frequently with Dr. Farahnakian to choose appropriate fabrics and trims. Though I initially planned on purchasing commercial patterns as well, I came to realize that there was nothing close enough to what I needed. So I created several different paper patterns and “mock-ups,” or simplified versions of the costume in a cheap fabric, for each of the undergarments, skirt, blouse and bolero. This process, though simple in theory, took days for each pattern as I had little experience in pattern drafting and had to make several large adjustments to each one.

After some time I completed all patterns and finally started construction on the costume. First I created the corset, using an early 1900s corset from the Brigham Young University’s Historical Clothing Collection as a guide. With Dr. Farahnakian’s help, I was able to dye the white corseting fabric to pink, similar to a corset worn by Natalie Wood in The Great Race, and prepare it for cutting. As I needed a lightweight, thin corset, I chose to do only one layer of fabric, enclosing the raw edges of the seams in a method called flat-felled seaming. Though this method is not meant to be used on curved seams, it was necessary for the look of the corset and after many hours of experimenting I was able to use it for both the curved and straight seams.

In comparison to the corset, the other projects were much simpler to sew as I used techniques learned from past experience. The bolero was probably the most challenging, as I worked with difficulties in the pattern and worked fast to meet a deadline. As I had already created mock-ups for each item, however, the steps were already laid out and I already knew how to put it all together. So after hours of sewing, pressing and fitting, the final costume was produced in my size and shape, staying true to original design by Edith Head 48 years ago (see Figure 1).

Though Edith Head never would have been as involved in the sewing process as I was, as she acted more as a supervisor for that part, the deeper involvement gave me a greater understanding of the final costume. From creating the design on paper, then in pattern and finally in fabric, I was able to see not only how the costume looked like Head’s original, but why it looked that way as well. Though it may vary slightly because of slightly different fabrics or trims, the overall costume is a very close replica of the red suit worn by Natalie Wood. After wearing and examining the costume as well, I’ve realized why Head might have made the changes she did from her original sketch. As I am fairly close to Natalie Wood’s size and height, I can see now that the sketched design may not have flattered my short height or small torso in the same way as this costume. Head made the bustier wider and worn pointing upwards onto the rib cage, creating an emphasis on a small waist and elongating the area below as if to make Wood, or me in this case, look taller. This effect is much more flattering for a shorter figure and shows first-hand how Head was able to work with difficult figures. Her use of a bustier still gave a period look to the average audience as well, creating a balance between her aesthetic and historical considerations.

Through this project I have gained a lot of experience and knowledge, starting with the conventional research followed by the patterning and final construction, I have found insights to how Edith Head and her staff came to produce each costume. The steps I followed to recreate her costume have given me a pattern to follow in my own designing process, which I will use in my future projects and assignments. I also look forward to sharing my insights with others as I prepare to present at the Utah Conference of Undergraduate Research Conference in 2014.