In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

336 C H a p t e r 2 0 Dressing the Part gloria swanson’s personal Creativity Had long Been visiBle in the way she chose and wore clothes. The child’s large bows and boys’ coats gave way to Paramount’s furs and feathered headdresses, then the sleek, modern styles of the 1930s and ’40s, yet Gloria never lost her fascination with fashion. In September 1950, she received the NeimanMarcus Award for Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion, presented since 1938 to the most sophisticated designers and style icons. It was the fashion world’s Oscar, and Swanson was the first actress to be chosen. For her trip to Dallas, she designed three gowns, not sure which she would wear to the ceremony: a red and black iridescent silk, a black wool with fox trim, and a white faille tunic and skirt. To her surprise, when the couturier collection was shown, Gloria heard her own name read out among the world-class designers: Schiaparelli, Balenciaga, Dior, Givenchy, and Gloria Swanson. “Neiman-Marcus had raided my hotel room and was showing my white evening dress!” she recalled. “The whole room burst into applause, and I burst into joyous, uncontrollable tears.”1 It was one of the proudest moments of her life. Swanson told Edith Head how elated she was by this honor, which she shared with “the girls back in the workroom”: “I can’t tell you how much I love you all and what your help and enthusiasm and generosity and unselfishness have done to make all this possible.”2 Stanley Marcus told Swanson she should be in the fashion business. In fact, after Marcus admired a three-tiered felt cloche of Gloria’s invention , the hat—called “the Tri-traveleur” because its layers could be recombined and reassembled for packing—was rushed into production for Neiman-Marcus. This experience encouraged Swanson to take her interest in clothing design seriously. Back in New York she negotiated a contract with Puritan Fashions for a line of dresses, thus beginning a stable, lucrative, long-term partnership with the company. Swanson d r e s s i n g t H e pa r t 337 made more money as a dress designer than her investment in Multiprises provided, and it was more reliable than her work in the movies, television , and theater. The “Forever Young by Gloria Swanson” collection was designed not for the chic set but for middle-class, middle-aged women who wanted to look smarter at affordable prices. The well-made silk and rayon dresses had clean lines and were generously sized. Swanson drew on her firsthand knowledge of the tricks women used to make themselves look and feel more attractive. She persuaded Arthur and Carl Rosen—the fatherson team who owned Puritan—to leave extra space in the seams and hems so women could buy smaller sizes and let the garments out. She insisted that lower necklines helped aging necks look more swanlike and that sleeves and waistlines be cut to flatter the mature figure: “All the while, the loving image I kept in mind was that of my own dear stout mother.”3 As a Puritan designer, Swanson traveled twice a year to the shows in Paris and Florence, translating what she saw into cocktail dresses and daily wear. She had “a nose for trends,” but this initially got her into trouble: “I wanted to create fashion like my mother had—not follow it. I had to learn the hard way that in the budget dress line this just isn’t done. Here you follow trends—you select and edit, you adapt.”4 A stickler for detail, Gloria visited the mills and factories across the US that supplied the fibers and fabrics used in her dresses, shaking union workers ’ hands and meeting with countless sales representatives. Puritan also marketed dress patterns for women to sew at home, and Gloria tried them out herself, chuckling at Carl Rosen’s surprise when he saw the workrooms Swanson had in her Fifth Avenue apartment. Rosen hadn’t just acquired a celebrity endorsement: he had gotten himself a committed designer. Swanson was happiest when she was learning something new, and she talked “Papa” Rosen into going on the road with her to meet the salesgirls who sold his clothes. “We had fun with new ideas. I told the ladies that since Grandmama had torn away the bonnet and shawl, there was no age in style. The body dictated...

Share