Stars & Style

These are ten women who fascinated the world in the twentieth century–and most of them still do. Ten of the most glamorous icons of the big screen are featured not for their remarkable film careers but for their inimitable sense of style, anchored on concepts of fashion that were as unique as their personalities.

The author of the black and white book, Star Style (Angel City Press, Sta. Monica, California, available at National Book Store) is Patty Fox, fashion consultant for the Academy Awards presentations and regional fashion director for Saks Fifth Avenue. The book contains many vintage photos from the author’s personal collection, as well as from Hollywood archives, almost 200 photos that practically define style as dictated by these legends of the modern world.

Famous quotes and definitive statements jump from the pages in big, bold type. Said actor James Garner of Doris Day, "Doris has the best tush in Hollywood." Katharine Hepburn’s signature sense of fashion is matched by her strong sense of self: "I’m very broad shouldered, long armed, like a gorilla" and "We’re all in a serious spot when the original bag lady wins a prize for the way she dresses" but also "I’ve always had a deep conviction of my charms".

Marilyn Monroe’s one-liners were almost as famous as her pouty lips and flying skirts and birthday singing. Try these: "I’m only comfortable when I’m naked." "All those lines and ridges in undergarments are unnatural and they distort a girl, so I never wear them." "In Hollywood a girl’s virtue is much less important than her hairdo." "I like to be really dressed up or really undressed. I don’t bother with anything in between."

The stars are featured not just in their official, on screen glamorous personas, but also in their private, off screen selves. The latter is where the personal sense of style shows through. This is particularly evident in the case of Katharine Hepburn, who made loose men’s shirts and all sorts of floppy hats and caps items of chic. Her closet is reportedly made up of 20 pairs of neutral pants, white custom-made shirts and solid-colored turtleneck and cardigan sweaters in black and white–and red.

It is the stars earlier in the 20th century that embodied an idea of glamor that persists to this day. Gloria Swanson ("she did more to spread Hollywood glamor than any other star"), Joan Crawford ("she had a special outfit for answering the fan mail"), Dolores del Rio ("the most beautiful woman I had ever seen," said Orson Welles), Greta Garbo ("an enigma in the form of a goddess"), Marlene Dietrich (according to Noel Coward, "she’s not content with being merely beautiful") set the standards that many of today’s actresses, celebrities and wanna-be’s aspire for.

Dietrich, by the way, is quoted to have said after World War II, "Hitler had wanted me as his mistress. Maybe, if I had con-sented, I could have saved millions of Jews."

Re-defining style were the queens of the second half of the century, led by Marilyn Monroe, who wore style and glamor if not much else. Katharine Hepburn upturned fashion and gave a whole new dimension to style. Lucille Ball warmed the hearts and tickled the funny bone of a whole generation, and she did it with a style that was all her own. Although the studio tried to package her as a seductress, she was most successful as a down-home gal. "At heart, I"m a frustrated hairdressed," she once said.

Doris Day was American girl next door, in pedal pushers, capri pants and white sneakers. Her sexuality–and that was part of her aura–was subliminal, but it was powerful. "I had become a new kind of sex symbol–the woman men want to go to bed with, but not until they marry her," was her own assessment.

Much has been said and written about Audrey Hepburn, but it is never enough. "She knew exactly what worked and how to use it," Fox writes. "When the glam girls went for décolletage, she elected the turtleneck; her presumed innocence was more powerful than the biggest breasts." Her legendary Givenchy suits and gowns, her pillbox hats–which later became the signature style of another icon, Jackie Kennedy–have been copied and imitated through the years and all over the world. And even today, Hepburn’s style is still in a class of its own–and what class it is!

Star Style is a sumptuous, juicy book, a peek into the closets, so to speak, of ten of the most talked about and ogled at women in film history. But Fox means the book not just as fashion chismis; believe it or not, she has a lesson for everyone: "We can learn from these ten legends... They key word is individual... Each of us needs to peer into our closets, pull out our favorite pieces, combine them in our favorite way, and find our personal style."

Hey, if Hepburn can wear a sweater till it’s threadbare, there’s hope yet for the rest of us.