I wasn't planning a Halloween post, but given the subject I believe that the story of Sunset Blvd and her star Norma is creepy enough to be fitting!
A few weeks ago, I suddenly realized that Tecla (Daria in her James Bond incarnation) looks a LOT like a young Gloria Swanson
same (bitchy) blue eyes, pointy chin, the same "morsus inversus", and big teeth! LOL
Don't misunderstand me, I love Gloria Swanson, and the fact she became such a huge star and sex symbol in spite her being anything but perfect and barely 5 feet tall!!!
She had a magnetic presence on screen and she had a great sense of humor.
So, getting back to Lucrezia, I decided to dress her up as "the greatest of them all": Norma Desmond,
from Billy Wilder's maserpiece Sunset Blvd.
I tried to update a bit the outifit, as in the movie Norma wears in fact a day Pijama complete with a long Dressing Gown (by Edith Head), I made a shorter gown and added a pair of stretch pants. On ebay I found this leopard cotton fabric, which had these very small spots. Being cotton it wasn't easy to accomodate with the black jersey, but Disegual taught us that no fabric mixing is tecnically impossible, so here she is:
. You see, this is my life! It always will be! Nothing else! Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!... All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.
There once was a time in this business when I had the eyes of the whole world! But that wasn't good enough for them, oh no! They had to have the ears of the whole world too. So they opened their big mouths and out came talk. Talk! TALK!
I'll be up there again, so help me!
But of course, Norma cannot exist (in my mind) without Joe, so Enrico got a new outfit, and he really looks the part. He looks it perfecty, as my doll came with a head constantly turned upward so he seems to be avoiding Norma on purpose.
I did my best to recreate the atmosphere of the movie, well the director of photography was a genius called John Seitz (the guy who "invented" the noir cinematography) ..... but I really did my best to recreate the darknes and grain of the picture
Joe: You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.
Norma Desmond: I *am* big. It's the *pictures* that got small.
The stars are ageless, aren't they?
no male doll with the gorgeus Bill Holden's face?
Joe: There's nothing tragic about being fifty. Not unless you're trying to be twenty-five.
As you guessed Sunset Blvd is my all time favourite movie, and the Norma Desmonds are going to be a fixture around here, as soon as I have time to sew them some more appropriate fashions!
The 50's were not such a great decade for the LBD, in fact in the movies of the era only femmes fatales or "bad girls" used to wear it.
With rare exceptions. And for me This is the exception of the exceptions. Because it was Haudrey Hepburn in Sabrin, and because the dress was designed by Hubert de Givenchy, who will be the main drive for the incredible rebirth of the LBD in the 60's.
There's a story about this dress, which I love very much. Maybe everybody knows about it but I can't resist telling a good story, even if it's 61 years old.
Edith Head's "original" design for the cocktail dress
In 1953 during pre-production of Sabrina, Billy Wilder wanted her to come back from Paris with a real parisian haute couture look. So he told Haudrey to go to Paris a choose some outfits. But there was a problem. The problem was called Edit Head, she WAS the costume department and in house designer at Paramount pictures since 1938, and she expected to design the dresses for Sabrina. So a compromise was reached. Head would design the exact models that Hepburn should choose in Paris (with Givenchy's agreement) and she also won an Oscar for them!!!
This is the only dress actually designed by Head, she won an Oscar for this
Givenchy dind't disclose this story until after Head's death. Even though the rumor had been circulating for some years (Wilder was a notorious loudmouth). Anyway, Edith Head won a total of 8 Oscars in her career and for 7 of them she was the actual designer! And she did design some wonderful outfits, think Grace Kelly in To Catch a thief or Rear Window.
One more bit of trivia: Givenchy was thrilled to hear that Miss Hepburn wanted to visit his atelier for the costumes for her new movie. But he expected Katherine not Haudrey (who had made only Roman Holidays and had not yet received her Oscar for it). So he was really disappointed and being busy with his new collection, Haudrey had to choose among the dresses of the previous season.
Anyway, this was the beginning of the incredible working relationship between Givenchy and Hepburn!!!
Now, this is the dress I choose to represent the LBD in the 50's, in one of his rare but defining appearances of the era:
Of course mine "in house" Haudrey is Virginia so she is modelling it.For the dress I used satin black linen. The shoes are by The Vogue HK and the little hat is by IT (courtesy of Mafalda). As you shall see this is not quite a perfect scale reproduction of the dress. I love Givenchy and tried several times to reproduce his designs but I found out that his dresses look simple but ARE NOT!!! And I need to improve my skills wit full skirts......
I'm happy to have finally Virginia in a post all for herself, I think she deserved it, she's the sweetest thing in my collection!
This time instead of doing a photomontage I tried to put together a little diorama with some Thai's jewel boxes and Burma's laquers and pottery,
Virginia is holding a Burma's pottery wistle, in a shape of a little bird
This issue's soundtrack: "Isn't it romantic" of course!!!! I picked the original rendition by Harold Stern Orchestra of this 1932 standard by Rodgers & Hart
