Few, if any, contemporary costume designers are household names. Some occasionally capture the zeitgeist and break through from big (or small) screen to mainstream fashion – think Catherine Martin and her recent “Gatsby” moment – but these are exceptions. Contemporary costume designers mostly fly below the radar of today’s audiences, but it wasn’t always so.
Hollywood in the 1930s to the 1960s – often referred to as The Golden Age – was a boom-time for costume designers. Currently at the Museum of Brisbane, Costumes From the Golden Age of Hollywood draws on material from a private collection, owned by Brisbane resident Nicholas Inglis, in an exhibition that runs until May 2015.
This period was the peak of control and output for the major studios, such as Columbia, RKO Radio Pictures, Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount, and Warner Bros. These four decades saw the majors employ thousands, generally under exclusive contract. Huge teams of talented artisans were brought together to make films, and little expense was spared.
