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Costume designer for Hollywood’s golden age, Jean Louis dressed Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich. A beautiful book now pays tribute to this illustrious unknown.
Jean Louis might not ring a bell. And yet, this French first name was well-known, and oh so beloved, by Marilyn Monroe , Elizabeth Taylor, Marlene Dietrich, and Rita Hayworth. In short, the cream of Hollywood’s golden age , whom this French costume designer dressed for decades. A star stylist before his time—on set as well as on the red carpet—he was the one who designed, among other things, the legendary form-fitting dress worn by Marilyn at President Kennedy ‘s birthday celebration , and which Kim Kardashian recently claimed to have worn herself (before backtracking and offering a version for under $200 under her Skims brand).
But who is this little-known man? Louis André Berthaud (his real name) was first and foremost a quintessential Frenchman, having studied at the École des Arts Décoratifs before joining Agnès Drecoll, a couture house on the Place Vendôme. Was it the clients, the magazines, or the burgeoning film industry of the early 1930s? Whatever the reason, the young man (born in 1907) had a dream: America. Midway through the decade, he found himself in New York, working with another couturier, Hattie Carnegie , a former milliner of Austrian origin who would soon be dressing prominent American women, including Joan Crawford and the Duchess of Windsor .
This young man was appreciated for his “French touch” and a small, fitted suit that soon found its way across the United States, thanks in part to a certain Joan Cohn, who was none other than… the wife of the founder of Columbia Pictures. It would take Jean Louis less than ten years to take the reins of the studio’s costume department… “His position at Columbia Pictures placed him in a structurally disadvantageous position. Unlike the ‘big five’ studios of the golden age—MGM, Paramount, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and RKO—Columbia was a more modest studio, with comparatively more limited resources, a less extensive distribution network, and producing fewer films that would eventually become part of the Hollywood canon.” “Jean Louis’ creations have nevertheless become iconic and we felt that he deserved a book dedicated to him,” explains Roger Padilha, co-author, with Mauricio Padilha, of the first beautiful book dedicated to the French costume designer, nominated thirteen times for Oscars (he only received one in 1957, for Richard Quine’s A Cadillac of Solid Gold).
His list of achievements is nonetheless dazzling, and the Padilha duo know it well: Rita Hayworth in Gilda and The Lady from Shanghai , Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer, Joan Crawford in Queen Bee. “We have always been passionate about Hollywood’s golden age and have always found it strange that the designer behind what can be considered two of the most famous dresses in history—the ‘Gilda’ dress worn by Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe’s ‘Happy Birthday’ dress—could be so deeply embedded in popular culture while remaining virtually unknown. His peers, notably Edith Head and Adrian , have been canonized by the Hollywood storytelling machine, while Jean Louis has been largely excluded from this narrative.”
The purpose of this beautiful book published by Rizzoli? To bring back into the spotlight this designer who passed away in 1997, and who continued to work well into his sixties in the ever-evolving world of cinema. “One could argue that Jean Louis was undoubtedly the most ‘fashionable’ of Hollywood’s great costume designers. His career was rooted in fashion: he honed his skills in the couture houses of Place Vendôme before coming to the United States to work at Hattie Carnegie, one of the most influential American ready-to-wear houses of the time. He thus brought to Hollywood a decidedly fashion-oriented perspective, approaching costumes with a sophistication and sensitivity that set him apart from his peers,” emphasizes Mauricio Padilha.
Clothing for the highest taxpayers in the United States
“Jean Louis was a translator. He translated character into clothes, clothes into movement, and movement into truth,” recalls another figure from that era, Kim Novak , in the book’s preface. His style? Utterly glamorous, with form-fitting dresses, plunging necklines, and accentuated hips: a mythology unto itself, which he would later put at the service of Universal Pictures and United Artists. He also collaborated with other fashion houses, while simultaneously creating his own couture house and readily working with television (the “Loretta Young Show,” broadcast on NBC from 1953 to 1961) and even other fashion houses. The New York Times thus mentions one of his collections for the Ben Reig fashion house, very prominent in the 1960s: “His evening gowns, presented at the end of a two-hour show, were intended to make every woman feel a little more like Rita Hayworth.” In a season where sequins reign supreme, Jean Louis has managed to make its mark,” the newspaper points out, also emphasizing that Jean Louis designs clothes “for the country’s wealthiest taxpayers” in his own Beverly Hills atelier. Soon after, a certain Yves Saint Laurent meets Jean Louis during his first visit to Los Angeles.
Having retired from the industry in his eighties, he disappeared into relative obscurity in 1997. According to Mauricio Padilha, his influence, however, never faded: “Jean Louis’s influence continues to inspire fashion designers today, and the dresses themselves now have a life of their own. Marilyn’s dress, for example, sold for $4.8 million in 2016 and was worn on the Met Gala red carpet by Kim Kardashian, several decades after Monroe wore it. His work has proven timeless.”
Jean Louis: Hollywood’s Bombshell Designer , by Mauricio and Roger Padilha, is published by Rizzoli New York, with a preface by Kim Novak.
