{"id":1459,"date":"2011-08-15T07:30:46","date_gmt":"2011-08-15T14:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/?p=1459"},"modified":"2011-08-14T20:48:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-15T03:48:00","slug":"dolly-tree-a-costume-designer-gives-advice-1942","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/2011\/08\/15\/dolly-tree-a-costume-designer-gives-advice-1942\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolly Tree: A Costume Designer gives advice (1942)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Myrna Loy in a Dolly Tree design (the Thin Man, 1934)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Motion Picture magazine<\/em>, June 1942, this funny little article was posted about costume designer Dolly Tree. She was probably best known for her work in the 1920s and 1930s<\/a> – most notably The Thin Man series starring William Powell and Myrna Loy (For more on her early work in illustration, do travel over to this fascinating post at the Jazz Age Club<\/a>). The brief piece below offered 1942 readers the unique opportunity to learn about the field of ‘costume design’ as a career directly. Including qualifications, income, and hazards of the position. I’d love to hear comments from those currently in the field to find out how much still rings true.<\/p>\n

Motion Picture<\/strong> Magazine<\/strong><\/em>. (June 1942. 63(5): 27):<\/p>\n

Top designer Dolly Tree can tell you hers is nice work, but the competition in this field is plenty tough”<\/p>\n

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Motion Picture Magazine, June 1942<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Title<\/td>\nDesigner <\/p>\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Working <\/p>\n

Conditions<\/td>\n

Assistants start at $50 a week. Top designers get $1,500 to $2,000. They keep regular office hours, but can never limit their work to those hours. They\u2019re constantly getting rush calls for designs, both day and night. They have no guild.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Qualifications<\/td>\nFirst and foremost: tact. You have to please everybody. Also, you have to be a rapid sketch artist, with original and dramatic ideas. You must have an infinite knowledge of materials and dyes. And you must know dress construction, to be able to guide seamstresses.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Preparation<\/td>\nStart by designing, and making, your own clothes. You\u2019ll discover how much you need to learn about costuming, materials and actual manufacture. Then go to some good school of design and, after you graduate, get a job\u2014and experience\u2014with some successful designer.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Getting Started<\/td>\nKnow some influential person, and impress that person with your ideas. That\u2019s how Natalie Visart became De Mille\u2019s designer at 22. She learned he was going to film Cleopatra<\/em>, did research on things Egyptian, whipped up hundreds of sketches\u2014and got the job.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
What Lies Ahead<\/td>\nWith Hollywood fast becoming THE fashion capital, any successful Hollywood designer can stepout and open a profitable salon. (In fact, Adrian just has.) But, remember\u2014the competition is keen and only the best designers succeed.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Beware!<\/td>\nThe competition is the cut-throat kind. Just when you think you\u2019re doing all right, some smooth-talking newcomer from Paris or New York will talk you right out of a job, unless you can succeed in out-talking him first.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Motion Picture magazine, June 1942, this funny little article was posted about costume designer Dolly Tree. She was probably best known for her work in the 1920s and 1930s – most notably The Thin Man series starring William Powell and Myrna Loy (For more on her early work in illustration, do travel over to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,93,94,91,1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1459"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionhistorian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}