Cinemode: Rebel Without a Cause

It was supposed to be filmed in black and white. Rebel without a Cause was already in production when the studio made the decision to switch to color Cinemascope, introducing entirely new concepts for the cinematographer and costume designer. Thanks to the inexplicable change of plans, when Rebel was released on this day in 1955, audiences were able to drink in James Dean’s saturated red jacket, bright white shirt and deep indigo blue jeans. These three everyday items of clothing worn together by Dean have become the most iconic jean-and-T-shirt combination in movie history, and literally changed what teenagers perceived as cool. For the first time, dressing down was more favorable than dressing up.

The film about a troubled heartthrob looking for love and respect followed the success of Blackboard Jungle and The Wild One, the first films to depict young people as complicated and unhappy rather than obedient and cheerful. Director Nicholas Ray was passionate about wanting to depict the teenagers as realistically as possible, and he obsessed over every minutia of detail, even homing in on the symbolic use of color and how the costumes interacted in a landscape of primary tones.

Cinemode: All About Eve

This post is reblogged from the October 13, 2010, edition of On This Day In Fashion.

In 1947 Bette Davis already had a dresser, the famed costumer Orry-Kelly, who had worked for Warner Bros. since the early talkies. But the two fought like cats, and Kelly’s ongoing bitchy comments about Davis’s aging looks and expanding figure didn’t help the relationship. Perhaps that’s how Paramount costumer Edith Head came to accompany Davis on a shopping trip to advise her on what to wear for the upcoming film, Winter Meeting, even though it was a Warner Bros. project. Head favored the longer hemlines that were coming into style and told Davis, “Don’t let anybody talk you into wearing a tight skirt. You’re not the type.” Davis was so smitten by Head’s straightforward advice that she bought everything Head told her to, and even copied her trademark schoolmarm haircut for her Winter Meeting role as a New England spinster and submitted a request to Paramount to loan Head out to her for upcoming projects, becoming the first star to do so. This is how Edith Head came to design the costumes for 2oth Century Fox’s All About Eve, which premiered on this day in 1950.

All About Eve is a deliciously sharp and snappy behind-the-scenes look at the cutthroat world of New York theater, and well-known for its biting dialogue, particularly the famous “fasten your seatbelts” line. But another quip, an aside from the comedic actress Thelma Ritter, who plays the maid to Davis’s Margo Channing, could have summed