FFC 3 (1) pp. 15–29 Intellect Limited 2014
Film, Fashion & Consumption
Volume 3 Number 1
© 2014 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/ffc.3.1.15_1
Emmanuelle Dirix
The University of the Arts and The Royal College of Art
Birds of paradise: Feathers,
fetishism and costume in
classical Hollywood
Abstract
Keywords
This article aims to investigate the reasons for the prolific use of feathers in 1930s
Hollywood costume. Instead of positioning them merely as a spectacular tool of glamour in the Golden Age, it will focus on feathers as a form of material culture and
specifically on their fetishistic nature in order to pose an alternative explanation for
their sartorial popularity in a decade marked by the introduction of the Production/
Hays Code. I wish to demonstrate that by shifting the methodological emphasis on
feathers from object to subject, we open up an autonomous narrative for the material
that would be missed when focussing only on its contextual reading. This in turn
potentially offers a new dimension as to their use, in particular as a metaphor for
female sexuality and therefore as a vehicle for reading 1930s cinematic sexuality.
censorship
classical Hollywood
glamour
feathers
fetishism
material culture
Introduction
The 1930s Hollywood is commonly referred to as the beginning of a ‘Golden
Age’, an era typified by its world famous stars, high, standardized volume
of cinematic output, glamorous sets and even more glamorous, now considered iconic, costumes. From Adrian’s inventive creations for Joan Crawford
and Gene Harlow, to Travis Banton’s figure hugging gowns for Ginger Rogers
and Carole Lombard, the costumes – in particular those designed for evening
wear scenes – dripped with overstated glamour.
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Emmanuelle Dirix
Even though much has been written about specific designers’ oeuvres, the
fashionable Hollywood silhouette, the use of luxurious materials and the relationship between costume and ‘everyday’ fashions, relatively little attention is
paid to the use of specific materials within costume design (at least that goes
beyond the descriptive). Indeed, when a discussion of costume is present it
is merely as part of a wider argument on its ‘function’ within either a socioeconomic examination of female consumption or as a discussion of its stylistic
or symbolic role within specific film narratives.
Some highly influential studies on the role of film costume by Gaines
and Herzog (1990), Bruzzi (1997), Church Gibson (1998) and Berry (2000)
have significantly extended the field of knowledge in this area, but most of
these focus on an interdisciplinary approach that largely omits any material
culture analysis. Such an approach would foreground the study of materials
and could afford more of an emphasis on film costumes as objects in their own
right rather than as symbolic representations. This in turn would allow for a
wider, more holistic and tangible study of cinema that could acknowledge the
collaborative, interdisciplinary nature of the film-making process.
While the fashion and film historians who have included reference to
specific materials in their wider analysis of the decade’s movies have focused
on the use of velvet, satin and fur, little to nothing of depth is written about
to the use of feathers. The only study of film costume to dedicate a subjectspecific section to feathers is Margaret J. Bailey’s Those Glorious Glamour Years
from 1982 (and whilst this is highly informative it is also largely descriptive).
On the rare occasions that feathers are mentioned they are mostly passed
off as a tool to create or enhance the escapist and spectacularly glamorous
nature of the costume and, by extension, the production. However, there
is no denying that the excessive use of feathers was spectacular and glamorous
but to pass off their raison d’être as that alone limits their possibility as cultural
sign and reduces them to a mere object. This article therefore argues for a
closer examination of the use of feathers in 1930s Hollywood costume design,
not only to establish a better understanding of those fantastical plumes but
also to debate their role as multilayered subject.
Filmic feathers
While Aesop warned in one of his folk tales ‘that not only fine feathers make
a fine bird’ in the 1930s it is fair to say that all the ‘fine birds’ of Hollywood
most certainly had fine feathers. The decade was not the first time they had
been used in film costume: some iconic feathered creations had made their
silver screen debut much earlier. Theda Bara’s Cleopatra (Gordon Edwards,
1917) was decked out in the most spectacular dress with a train made entirely
of peacock feathers and Louise Brooks had danced in Pabst’s Pandora’s
Box (1929) dressed as a titillating little bird, ‘naked but for a handful of
feathers’(MacDonald 2011: 233). Yet there is no denying that in the 1930s
feathers not only became a staple of Hollywood costume but also, owing
to various factors coming together simultaneously, a ‘fabric’ of multiple and
complex meanings whose use reached far beyond the mere spectacular.
The first and indeed the most often cited reason for feathers’ sartorial
dominance is to be found in the realms of the technical and the practical. With
the eventual shift to sound after 1928, costume design, which had previously
been unrestricted in terms of its ‘noise’, now had to be silenced. The heavy
beaded dresses of the 1920s became a problem as they literally were too loud
16
Birds of paradise
when in motion and thus more ‘quiet’ materials were favoured. This practical
limitation did not spell the end for all beaded garments, in fact some of the
decade’s most splendid costumes such as Dorothy Lamour’s dress for Jungle
Princess (Thiele, 1936) featured intricately beaded bodices. However owing to
the change in silhouette ushered in late in the decade, dresses now followed
the contours of the body as opposed to the ‘sack dresses’ which had hung
off the shoulders. The bodice was now tailored to the torso and so unlike
1920s dresses remained perfectly still and did not ‘flap’ about.
Equally, velvet, silk and satin became ideal fabrics as they made no sound
even when moving and fur and feathers accompanied them as the perfect
trims: quiet yet sensuous and able to convey glamour, wealth and opulence.
Feathers were not only favoured for their ‘inaudible’ quality, their lightness
made them ideal for accessories such as capes, boas, wraps, fans but most
importantly for excessive dress trims. Their near weightlessness, in particular
that of ostrich feathers and goose down, meant they moved delicately in time
with the bodies of the stars they adorned, as opposed to fur which is much
heavier and dictates its own shape and movement. This ‘dainty’ quality is best
exemplified by the Bernard Newman creation for Ginger Rogers’ ‘Cheek to
Cheek’ dance sequence in Top Hat (Sandrich, 1935): as she dances, her feathers glide and sway with her, they are an extension of her body and mimic
her movements (Figures 1–3). The Newman dress also highlights the less
Figures 1–3: Ginger Rogers’ feathered gown and ‘Cheek to Cheek’ dance sequence in Top Hat (Sandrich,
1935). As she dances, the feathers glide and sway with her, they are an extension of her body and mimic her
movements.
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Emmanuelle Dirix
1. As Berry notes
‘Hollywood design
often represented
a kind of stylistic
mannerism: it took
a familiar line and
made it spectacular.
[…] and their
fashionable influence
had more to do with
the dissemination,
stylization and revival
of particular styles
than with radical
design innovation’
(Berry 2000: xx)
2. Vertical integration is
‘A term used to refer
to a film industry
practice put in place by
Hollywood (although
there are precursors)
whereby the entire
system of production,
distribution an
exhibition is controlled
by the studio making
the film product. Thus
the studio makes the
film, distributes it and
controls its exhibition
(often in its own
theatres)’ (Hayward
1996: 420).
18
charming aspects of feathered film costumes. It is rumoured that neither the
cast nor the production team saw the dress until the day of the dress rehearsal,
and whilst all were dubious of its ability to perform in such an intensive and
active scene, after Rogers threatened to walk away from the film if she was
not allowed her feathered fantasy, they decided to test it out. Their fears were
confirmed and the cast and set ended up covered in wayward feathers. Rogers,
who was enamoured with the gown, stood her ground and refuted all criticism and objection and in doing so created a legendary scene in an even more
legendary dress. Rogers’ would tell the story of how four days after the shoot
Astaire sent her a gold feather for her charm bracelet accompanied by a note
that read ‘Dear feathers, I love ya! Fred’ (Rogers 2008).
Still, aside from sound there was a financial imperative for the shift
towards feathers and fur. Film costume of the 1920s had often featured heavy
beading and extensive embroidery in line with current fashions.1 This often
meant that a great deal of time and labour went into the production of these
outfits, especially those worn by the main characters, which were most visible
on-screen and thus had to be perfect.
The 1929 Wall Street Crash and the subsequent Great Depression
impacted on all spheres of American life, including film production. This
left Hollywood in an ambiguous position: on the one hand film budgets got
smaller and on the other Hollywood, by now vertically integrated and the
world’s most powerful film business,2 was in an ideal position to consolidate
and even extend its power through the production of lavish and glamorous
films that would offer escape and relief from the harsh everyday reality thrust
upon people both at home and overseas. As Bailey notes: ‘in the Thirties
people demanded that their greatest fantasies be fulfilled for twenty-five cents
a night’ (Bailey 1982: 7).
Furthermore, owing to this power Hollywood understood its key role
in the promotion of consumer goods and thus its vital part in encouraging
consumer spending: by associating products with aspirational movie lifestyles
it therefore had a potential role in economic recovery. Commerce secretary
Herbert Hoover praised the industry in the 1920s ‘as a powerful influence on
behalf of American goods’. Hence the seemingly contradictory nature of 1930s
film – sheer excess in times of financial hardship – reveals both a social and
economic logic. Instead of being paired down, sets and costumes were infused
with previously unseen luxury and opulence. Nevertheless, that opulence had
to be achieved on tighter budgets and, as was the case at most studios, tighter
spending on costume.
Not all studios made blanket cuts. While at the majority most areas of the
organization were affected by reductions in pay and budget, Metro Goldwyn
Mayer continued spending as its vice-president Irving Thalberg believed that
to make money one had to spend money and thus Adrian, the studio’s head
designer, continued to have access to vast wardrobe budgets. Head designers
in other studios however had to make do with often vastly reduced amounts.
Studio designers’ salaries varied according to employer and reputation
but none were excessively paid (Bailey 1982). Of course their design genius
was useless without an army of skilled seamstresses, pattern cutters, and artisans such as beaders. The wages of this group were considerably lower and
many of them faced further reductions in pay as the decade and the depression progressed. As fashion had changed in the late 1920s with Paris ushering
in a more mature and sophisticated look, garment embellishment became less
prominent. Hollywood had a vested interest in adopting (if not extending)
Birds of paradise
this fashion for less bead and embroidery work as it cut down costume
production time but more importantly it also reduced the cost of garments
greatly as less skilled artisanal work was required of course to the detriment
of those workers who had previously made their living sewing on thousands
of sequins and beads.
While costume became plainer in this respect it could not however become
entirely plain as it would have lost its ability to dazzle and convey the aura
of glamour so desperately needed at the time. So instead of extensive bead
and embroidery work alternatives were found in fur and feathers, which were
much easier and faster to apply to costume, but which managed to create
the same impact in terms of ‘wow-factor’. These two alternative materials
were also a direct result of a reduction in spending. Smaller budgets for the
‘raw materials’ of costume caused a major problem: fabrics were as important
as shape as the materials used had to photograph well. Hence Hollywood
used only the finest of materials available or as Bailey points out ‘what would
photograph as looking the finest’ (1982: 20). Whereas cheaper ‘B’ productions
relied on substitute materials such as cotton or rayon, Adrian and Banton only
used true silks. Cuts in materials thus had to be made elsewhere.
On the surface fur and feathers, which are not necessarily cheap materials, do not seem to constitute such a cut. However, they could be reused
much more easily and in a far less time-consuming manner, than beads and
sequins:
Fur pieces were constantly reused. All fur was removed from
clothing and either put in cold storage at the studio or […] returned to
the department store or rental company.
(1982: 14)
It is safe to say the same was most likely true for feathers. In fact, these would
not even require cold storage as they deteriorate much less easily than fur
and were thus even more economical in terms of reuse. Equally, if fur was
damaged, whole pelts became unusable whereas damaged feathers could
be individually replaced, or in the case of marabou or goose down, whole
sections could be added in without the overall appearance of the garment
being compromised. This is something near impossible to achieve in the case
of fur whose value lies not just in its rarity but also in the uninterrupted character of the pelt. With fur, patchwork, that would be invisible in feather work,
suggests off-cuts and thus skimping.
Feathers therefore presented themselves as the ideal economical, silent
and instant glamour embellishment of the 1930s and consequently became a
favourite of Hollywood. However unlike many other ‘fashion’ styles presented
and disseminated by the silver screen, feathers did not filter through into
popular mainstream fashion.
There are several competing reasons for this. Whereas Hollywood often
took a familiar (i.e. Parisian) fashion silhouette and spectacularized it, most
costumes were nevertheless suited to be paired down and turned into
either official or unofficial spin-offs to be sold in department stores across
America.
Charles Eckert’s research into the period reveals just how closely tied up
Hollywood and mainstream fashions were. In his chapter ‘The Carole Lombard
in Macy’s window’ he discusses The Modern Merchandising Bureau, which
was set up by Bernard Waldman in 1930, and which soon took on the role of
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Emmanuelle Dirix
3. For more on Dietrich’s
use of feathers see
DelGaudio (1993).
20
fashion middleman for all the major studios. The Bureau opened a chain of
fashion shops named ‘Cinema Fashions’, which retailed star endorsed film
styles and copies of Hollywood costumes. These retailed at around $30 dollars
and were thus aimed at middle-class customers. However, the lower-middle
market company Sears Roebuck featured ‘autographed fashions’ endorsed by
film stars such as Ginger Rogers which brought Hollywood ‘inspired’ fashions to a mass audience. For those unable to afford ready-to-wear clothes
the Hollywood Patterns Company sold paper patterns for home dressmaking
based on styles worn by the stars of the silver screen. Each pattern featured the
photograph of the star whose style was being retailed and the name of their
latest production. These varied fashion ‘endeavours’ evidenced Hollywood’s
position of power in terms of fashion informant, conduit and disseminator
and indeed its hold over the market.
Feathers were mostly only used in film eveningwear and this was as a rule
less copied as the buying audience was not as developed as that for daywear
styles. This was due to the fact that most lower-middle and working-class
women did not have much need in their life for such extravagant fashions as
opportunities to wear them were few and far between. That is not to say that
evening wear was not produced for this market, Sears catalogues evidence
that it was, however in the case of evening wear plainer dresses that copied
the silhouette but not necessarily the embellishment of popular film styles
were favoured.
The reasons for this are threefold: first, feather trims were not quite suitable for ready-to-wear mass production as their use would inevitably push
up the cost of the garment both in terms of labour and material. Similarly,
a feather trimmed dress would be such a recognizable piece and thus risked
going out of fashion once the production it was copied from stopped playing at the local theatre (and was therefore replaced with another featuring
different costumes). This tier of the market could not afford to replace their
garments liberally and thus more expensive pieces such as evening dresses
had to be plainer and less ‘date-able’, in order to afford them a longer fashionable lifespan. Lastly, unlike fur coats and accessories, which were sold
by Sears, there was no real ‘space’ for feathers in ordinary women’s lives.
While much traditional consumer theory casts females in the role of passive
consumers, the absence of feathers in everyday fashions proves the opposite. When women were faced with glamorous aspirational screen styles they
did not copy (nor bought copies) at random, but instead clearly evaluated
if these fitted in with their lifestyle. However beautiful and seductive these
feathered creations were, no working woman nor housewife needed a black
feathered collar and matching hat a la Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express
(Von Sternberg, 1932).3
The only items retailed to the masses that did feature feathers appear
to have been bed jackets, a style now mostly forgotten, but still a staple of
the 1930s fashion lexicon. Inspired by the excessive feather trims of film
boudoir wear a la Jean Harlow in Dinner at 8 (Cukor, 1933) bed jackets with
very modest goose down trim were available at a relatively low cost. Women
again proved themselves to be active consumers by incorporating Hollywood
glamour into their lives in a workable manner.
Whereas the mass-market abstinence from the movies’ feathered fantasies
centred on issues of suitability, in theory the higher echelons of the market
were not restrained by such practicalities. However, this does not mean feathers were a great deal more popular, perhaps with the exception of feathered
Birds of paradise
shrugs for evening wear and those who had the money to afford them and,
who furthermore, could incorporate them into their lives.
Parisian plumes
This group’s reasons for not taking up feathered fashions are to be found in
different quarters. As previously mentioned, Hollywood took familiar silhouettes and ‘enhanced’ them and in practical terms this meant film costume
was mostly in line with Parisian fashions. As the centre of all things luxurious
and elegant, Paris was still considered the capital and indeed arbiter of good
taste and it most certainly did not take to Hollywood’s excesses. In fact many
couturiers were very outspoken about their disdain for what they considered
the movies’ ‘vulgarity’. Their dislike of American excess on the surface seems
straightforward. Parisian haute couture was about exclusivity, innovation and
the glorification of the original: therefore Hollywood could be positioned
as its polar opposite with its endless reproducibility, its standardization (of
both script and stars) and its popular appeal. However Paris’ dislike of the
American film industry and its overstated glamour was much more complex
than is often suggested.
The accessibility of cinema – and its resulting popularity and influence on
mass consumerism that Paris so despised – meant that for the first time since
the court of Louis the XIVth Paris’ monopoly as fashion dictator was being
challenged […] and by Americans no less. Like fashion, cinema was a matter
of French national pride. The history of the moving image is after all closely
aligned with France – The Lumiere Brothers screened the first publicly shown
films in Paris in 1895 – whereas by 1914 90 per cent of films shown worldwide
remained French, by 1928, 85 per cent were American (Crofts 1993: 50). It is
in this statistic we find another compelling reason as to France’s animosity
towards Hollywood.
Equally, whilst haute couture represented the pinnacle of luxury, this was
(with some few notable exceptions) a restrained luxury, which resided not only
in the quality of materials but above all in the craftsmanship of cut and tailoring. Couturiers saw film costumes, which were also often produced in very
short time frames, as inferior and furthermore as a debasement of their skills
(the making of a couture gown was a time-consuming process/ritual, which
required the production of a toile and several fittings to ensure the garment,
was perfectly tailored to the client). Such excess was also a sign of low and
tasteless American culture.4
While the French elite wore (and had historically worn) feathers, during
this period ladies of status tended to limit their use to hats and fans. While
ostrich feathers were used for hand fans (although the fashion for these had
been earlier and had waned by the 1930s), mostly less conspicuous smaller
and/or darker feathers such as those of pheasants, crows and cockerels were
used to decorate hats. Feathers’ low cultural associations in France can further
explain Parisian Couturiers’ particular dislike of ostentatious feathers – such
as marabou and ostrich – evidenced by their conspicuous absence in 1930s
haute couture.
Music Halls such as the Folies Bergere and the Moulin Rouge had featured
heavily feathered outfits and accessories in their spectacular shows for decades
and while the elite did not shun away from attending these performances and
were more than happy to be titillated by the show girls in their risqué ‘nearly
there’ costumes, they were acutely aware that this was in essence populist and
4. Some haute couturiers
like Lucien Lelong
were more willing to
embrace Hollywood
cinema and recognized
its power, others
such as Chanel were
employed as costume
designers to add
further weight to the
glamour and fashion
appeal of films by
aligning them with
French fashion.
21
Emmanuelle Dirix
low culture. As feathers, and in particular softer and more wispy feathers such
as ostrich and marabou, were so central to the performance of an exciting yet
common and vulgar sexuality, their associations mirrored that of those who
wore them: they were too close to prostitution for comfort.
This sexual connotation of feathers was not exclusive to French culture. In
America they had also been part of Vaudeville performance and used in exactly
the same sexualized manner as in French music halls: to blend vulgarity and
glamour. The Ziegfeld Follies, which were lavish stage productions inspired
by the Folies Bergere, had opened on Broadway in 1907 and over the years
featured extravagant costumes by the likes of Erte and Lady Duff Gordon,
the latter better known as the couturiere Lucille. The Americans however had
an entirely different attitude to low/popular culture and excess owing to the
absence of clearly defined hereditary class structures in the United States and
the fact consumer culture, in particular in the 1920s and 1930s, was so closely
bound up with narratives of modernity, progress and self-realization. It is no
coincidence that this in turn is closely aligned with the American Dream, a
concept rooted in the declaration of independence that gets explicitly defined in
1931 by James Truslow Adams as ‘that dream of a land in which life should be
better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according
to ability or achievement’ regardless of social background. Social aspiration and
upward mobility, so despised by the continental elite, were glorified by America
and Hollywood was an agent of their promotion. Hence it is no coincidence
that many movies produced in the 1930s feature narrative structures centred
around upward mobility and rags to riches stories for ‘deserving’ characters.
Fetishistic feathers
Feathers’ association with popular culture did not tarnish them with the same
negative associations in the United States as on the continent. However, this is
not to say their sexual appeal went unnoticed. In fact, it is perhaps through their
­association with transgressive sex (i.e., non-procreative sex) and sexuality that the
most interesting reason for their popularity in the 1930s can be uncovered. If fashion is a symbolic system linked to the expression of sex and sexuality, than examining film costume in 1930s Hollywood film from this stance can offer new insights.
In Fetishism (originally published in 1927) Sigmund Freud identified fur
and velvet, two key ‘ingredients’ of Hollywood costume in the Golden age, as
fetish materials:
Fur and velvet – as has long been suspected – are a function of the sight
of the pubic hair, which should have been followed by the longedfor sight of the female member; pieces of underclothing, which are so
often chosen as a fetish, crystallize the moment of undressing, the last
moment in which the woman could still be regarded as phallic.
(Freud et al. 1991: 354, 355).
The etymology of ‘fetish’ dates from the sixteenth-century Portuguese meaning ‘artful’ or ‘artificial’. The term has a dual meaning as it both denotes an
inanimate object imbued with magic powers and ‘a fabrication, an artefact,
a labour of appearances and signs’ (Baudrillard in Steele 1996: 5). Freud was
not the first to discuss the fetish and fetishism, and indeed earlier definitions
of the act or its ‘symptoms’ add further weight to the need to examine feathers in Hollywood costume from a sexual perspective. In the late nineteenth
22
Birds of paradise
century Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing defined fetichism as ‘the association
of lust with the idea of certain proportions of the female person, or with certain
articles of female attire’ (in Steele 1996: 11). However it was Freud who introduced the idea of castration anxiety and to him the fetish object or fabric was
thus a substitution of the female genitals in favour of the inanimate and often
‘phallic’ object.
Whilst this sounds unrelated to feathers’ use in cinema costume their
(and fur and velvet’s) proliferation in the 1930s can be directly mapped onto
the introduction of the Hays code, a ‘moral code’ that guided the content
of motion pictures. From 1934 onwards, a mechanism was put in place to
enforce the code and for the next 30 years virtually every film produced had to
be ‘morally’ approved before its release. In terms of costume this meant that
every dress had to be individually assessed for modesty and that all tests were
reviewed by the Hays office. Practically, this roughly translated into no cleavage, garters nor underwear (unless the script was able to justify their need as
essential to the plot development) and furthermore indecent or undue exposure
(was) forbidden.
Louise Kaplan’s work is valuable when considering the Hays code and the
proliferation of fetish materials in 1930s Hollywood costume. She follows Freud
in locating the root of the act of fetishizing in castration anxiety but extends
the argument to not merely include fear but also more clearly links the fetish
to repressed sexual desires and theories experienced by the young boy. ‘They
are repressed […] but persist as unconscious fantasies ready to return […]
whenever there is a serious threat […] to a man’s hard-earned masculinity’
(Kaplan 1991: 54). The Hays code can arguably be seen as such a threat to
and assault on masculinity through its moral regulation of the female body
as sexual spectacle and thus by extension the regulation of the male gaze.
As Steele, citing Freud, states ‘the fetish object thus functions as “a token
of triumph over the threat of castration and a protection against it”’ (Steele
1996: 15). Feathers, but also velvet and fur can thus be seen as a form of
symbolic resistance to the control by the Hays committee and a place where
sexual frustration and imagination come together.5
As previously explained within popular culture feathers had already
become a potent signifier of sexuality, more specifically easy sexuality, prior
to the enforcement of the Hays code. To evidence just how much feathered
costumes had become an established marker of sex, either as an allusion
to or as a promise of, one needs only to look more closely at Gold Diggers
of 1933 (LeRoy, 1933) which not merely employs feathered costumes but
evidences their culturally cemented role by using them in a tongue in cheek
and knowing manner.
When J. Lawrence Bradford arrives for the first time at the girls’ apartment
with the intention of preventing his brother from being seduced by Carol – a
mere show girl – he mistakes her room mate Polly for Carol and proceeds
to try and buy her off. Trixie, the eldest of the roommates, is listening to the
exchange from the bathroom where she was in the process of getting dressed
when Lawrence arrived. Upon hearing his reasoning as to why his brother
should not marry a showgirl – a ‘breed’ he considers to be made up of ‘parasites, chiselers and gold diggers’ – Trixie insulted by his impudence decides
she will play up to the role of vulgar femininity he has cast her in and use
mimicry to get the upper hand.
She emerges from her boudoir in a glamorous dressing gown trimmed with
feathers, a deliberately chosen inappropriate garment to receive male visitors,
5. The combination of
these two factors was
incidentally identified
by Colin Wilson (1988)
as the circumstance
that breeds fetishism.
23
Emmanuelle Dirix
Figure 4: ‘Beware […] Trixie’s a showgirl’ – Aline MacMahon, Joan Blondell, Guy
Kibbee and Warren William in Gold Diggers of 1933 (LeRoy, 1933).
and proceeds to preform a burlesque-like rendition of femininity characterized
by over the top girlish behaviour and dialogue littered with sexual allusions
and double-entendres (Figure 4). The role she assumes is in stark contrast
to the one the audience is familiar with from previous scenes: far from being
unrefined, superficial and dumb as she now presents herself, Trixie’s character
had been established as down to earth, sarcastic and intelligent. Her performance of the ‘vulgar gold digging theatre girl’ is a perfect interplay between
dialogue and costume – outré remarks supported and anchored by an equally
but suitably inappropriate outfit. This scene confronts the audience with the
humorous subversion of stereotypes associated with feather-clad women.
It has to be remembered though that one can only subvert or play around
with a visual sign once its signified is widely understood and part of mainstream cultural capital. The importance of this scene from Gold Diggers is thus
that it evidences the universal understanding by 1933 of the symbolic link
between feathers and easy but exciting sexuality. This fact is nothing much in
itself however if one considers that by the following year the ‘dream’ industry was heavily monitored and indeed curtailed, this understood relationship
between sign and signified meant that material culture could, and would, take
on a much more important role in trying to make up for what had to remain
unspoken. With story lines and dialogue morally censored to near virginal
proportions, material culture was now able to rely and draw on its well established codes to convey what was no longer allowed to be acted out or spoken
of by simply being.
When ideas, words, costumes and images that had become staples of
Hollywood cinema became out of bounds, producers had to consider new
ways to introduce sexuality and sex appeal into film without risking the disapproval of the Hays Committee. Hence materials took on a more complex role
in that they became fetish objects, sexualizing the female body, now denied a
corporeal sexuality, from the outside by literally enveloping it in fetish materials. A clear example of this is found in the bedroom scene from My Man
24
Birds of paradise
Figures 5 and 6: Carol Lombard’s ostrich feather bed jacket from My Man Godfrey (la Cava, 1936).
Godfrey (la Cava, 1936) in which Carole Lombard’s lower body is invisible,
hidden from view under her bed sheets while her upper body, clad in an
impressive bed jacket made entirely out of soft ostrich feathers, protrudes from
the covers (Figures 5 and 6). The combination of pose and costume results in
a strange and at times uncanny vision of her small seemingly dismembered
head perched on top of and dwarfed by an abundance of feathers. On the
surface, both the fact that neither her body (nor her negligee) is on show and
that the shape of the boxy jacket hides the curves of her breasts, suggests
that her physical sexuality is de-emphasized, if not entirely obscured in line
with Hays code regulations. However, she is instead effectively enveloped in
a signifier for sex and the female genitalia: her invisible body substituted for a
disproportionately large symbolic sexual act and organ.
The colour and texture of the feathers employed in this symbolic communication and substitution also needs to be considered. There appears to be a
correlation between light/soft and dark/hard in that feathers dyed in lighter
colours – which appear in shades of white on-screen – are without exception
those that are soft, weightless and fluffy in texture while darker feathers tend
to be more defined, angular and rigid. Even though the texturally softer feathers such as goose down, marabou stork and ostrich are all naturally off-white/
light grey, this in itself is not the reason for their ‘light’ coloured representation on-screen. In most cases feathers were not left in their natural state but
were dyed to match the costume they adorned: Ginger Rogers dress in Top
Hat was ‘like the blue you find in paintings of Monet’ (Rogers 2008: 120) and
so were the $1500 worth of ostrich plumes attached to it. Other costumes
featured pink, mauve and pale yellow feathers.
Looking closely at the characters that wore light and airy or dark and
rigid feathers gives a more in-depth insight into the symbolic fetishistic nature of the material.6 While older characters tend to wear darker less
exotic feathers such as pheasant or cockerel, it is always the younger attractive
characters that are decked out in the lighter plumes.7 So while colour wise
their lightness clearly represents youth, their on-screen whiteness should
not be confused nor conflated with the associations of the symbolic values
of other white materials. White film costume in this period, by drawing on
an established sociocultural religious and moral visual lexicon, connotes its
wearer as pure, innocent and most importantly virginal. However even when
6. I deliberately do not
mention the use of
dark feathers for
characterization
purposes as this
merits a whole article
in itself. I purposely
only choose to focus
on the relationship
between age, colour
and texture, as this
is more pertinent
given the centrality
of the discussion on
fetishism. This is not
to say that a Freudian
argument on sexuality
is not applicable to
such examples – one
only needs to glance
at Dietrich in her
raven costume from
Shanghai Express to
see the embodiment
of Freud’s monstrous
female and the
uncanny theories –
however an inclusion
of these theories would
extend the scope of
the work beyond the
limitations of an article.
7. In Gold diggers of
1933 the relationship
between feathers and
age is represented
on several occasions.
Trixie is clearly older
than her roommates
but tries to assume
the air of youth by
donning herself in light
coloured soft feathers
so she can pursue
Fanuel H. Peabody, the
aged Bradford family
lawyer. She employs
25
Emmanuelle Dirix
feathers to insist she
is still youthful, and
thus sexually exciting
and a worthy marriage
prospect. Trixie and
Fanual both act out
a fantasy of youth
in the second half of
the film, which is only
convincing to them and
in which costume plays
a central role. Another
example is seen when
Lawrence and Fanual
take the girls to a
dinner dance. While
Fay (Ginger Rogers)
looks glamorous and
sassy in her ostrich
feathers, two older
ladies, one looking
respectable and
conventional wearing
a hat with pheasant
feathers, and another
looking awkward and
somehow wrong and
mismatched wearing
a soft feathered shrug
over her conservative
dress, are visible in
the vestibule. Light
and soft feathers are
thus used both to
affirm youthfulness
or to highlight the
deceit of those trying
to assume youth as
they are deliberately
made to look awkward
and fraudulent
either through their
behaviour (Trixie) or
their clashing dress
signs.
26
(appearing) white, those costumes trimmed with feathers signify something
entirely different: the fetishistic nature of feathers subverts the virginal associations of white and while white feathers still clearly connote youth, it is far
from virginal youth they trade in. A young female character dressed in white
feathers does not offer the innocence of youth she offers a youthful, titillating
and exciting sexuality that is still fresh and soft to touch.
This association with youth and softness – the softness of young skin,
young breast and most pertinently young pubic hair – is thus not only represented through the colour but also the texture of the feathers employed in
the costumes made for these ‘to be desired and lusted after’ starlets. The
decade’s three most used soft feathers – marabou, goose down and ostrich –
all undeniably mimic both the visual and haptic qualities of young pubic hair.
The ostrich shrug worn in the balcony scene by Ginger Rogers in Top Hat
is made up of thin hair-like strands that softly cascade downwards from
her shoulders. Her overall appearance is strangely reminiscent of the wavy
(pubic) hair in Rene Magritte’s Le Viol (1934), a painting that deals with the
way repressed sexual desire manifests itself in the every day. Le Viol is an
apt comparison: in the picture the artist has replaced the woman’s eyes with
breasts and her mouth with the pubis; he has destroyed the obvious – the face –
yet has replaced it with the even more obvious – the acknowledgement that
humans are governed by sexual desire. This ‘new’ facial composition seems
to hint at the painter but also the observer’s understanding that even in the
ordinary sexuality finds expression. Even when a polite moral society attempts
to remove all hints of eroticism through censorship or indeed standardization and banality, those who wish to create it and those who wish to see it
will find a way: one can change the image but one can’t change the observer.
One could argue that the idea explored in the painting can be transposed onto
the moral control the Hays code tried to exert over the movie-going public,
but just as the painter was able to change the everyday to show underlying
desire, so too were film-makers able to use the everyday to circumnavigate the
code to represent that same desire. While Magritte replaced the ordinary with
the explicit to expose repressed desire, Hollywood had to use the ordinary to
substitute the explicit in their oppressed representation of desire. So where
Magritte replaced eyes with breasts and the mouth with the pubis, Hollywood
instead covered breasts, stomachs, thighs and legs with fetish materials to
achieve the same goal.
Of course a discussion on fetishism cannot be limited to a material culture
study alone. While a given material (the object) can be defined as fetishistic
owing to its haptic qualities and its prevalence in fetishistic fantasy or play, it
has to be remembered that it is the fetishist (the subject) who turns it into the
fetish, thus the relationship between object and subject is crucial.
Even though what is under scrutiny here are representations of fetish
materials and not the actual objects themselves, these images were nevertheless created to be consumed. This means that whatever their intended meaning was so as created and/or defined by the designer, their audience and their
reading of the represented costumes cannot be ignored. This is particularly
important as there is much debate on who is able to fetishize? While Laurent
(1903) concluded that we are all (both male and female) fetishists to a certain
degree, Stoller (1985) suggested that fetishizing was the norm for males but
not females and Freud was categorical that only men, due to castration anxiety, were able to fetishize. Of course, both the definition of fetishism and the
methodological approach of its study are central to where one positions the
Birds of paradise
sex of the fetishiser, however even if one uses Freud’s restrictive and exclusive perspective, this does not necessarily detract from the validity of the
argument.
In the 1930s film studios produced certain types of pictures specifically with
a female audience in mind. Film studios produced certain types of pictures
specifically with a female audience in mind. The most relevant to this study
are what were termed ‘fashion films’ (Berry 2000) which as the name suggests
were those with the highest costume budgets and which tended to have more
‘female oriented’ screenplays (romance and musicals featuring highly in this
category). Bearing Freud’s stance in mind, it would thus seem odd that feathered costumes were almost exclusively to be found in films aimed at women,
who were after all according to him unable to grasp their true sexual potential. Many women were of course accompanied to the cinema by their brothers, fathers, fiancés or husbands, who technically could transform the feathers
into a true Freudian fetish object, but it seems unlikely feathers were included
merely for the male members of the audience.
This is where the previous point about feathers as a sexual sign is pertinent.
Even if women were unable to relate to these dresses through their biological
sexuality, if they were thus as Freud suggests unable to turn the object into a
veritable fetish, their cultural sexuality (i.e. their knowledge and understanding of sex and sexuality shaped outside of their own bodies and not necessarily related to their own physical sexual preferences and experiences) would
still allow them to both experience pleasure from their representation and to
understand their signified: they may not be able to understand nor experience
them as a physical fetish but they could grasp them as a cultural fetish. Indeed
it needs to be remembered that the pioneering sexologist Havelock Ellis in
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1936) explained erotic fetishism as the human
ability to construct symbols and read meaning into objects.8
It is strange that while fur and velvet were identified as fetishistic just
prior to the Golden Age that the link to Hollywood costumes’ use of these
materials in a period when sex effectively had to be substituted, has not been
explored in depth. While Freud did not discuss feathers in his studies,9 Cecil
Willet Cunnington, when reflecting on the 1880s fashions for feathered hats,
noted their link to sex only a few years later. He believed that this demand for
bird decorations reflected sadist desires that ‘seemed to take the place of those
flagellations and funeral-orgies of the past’ (Cunnington 2003: 251), thus
linking the vogue for feathers in female attire to transgressive sexual origins.
While Freud never spoke of feathers, instead focussing on velvet and fur, they
are undeniably similar in their mimicking of pubic hair and thus equally suited
as fetish object. Feathers’ abundance in 1930s cinema in this light takes on a
whole new significance: when the female body could no longer represent sex
her clothing had to become a fetish object, it had to become both her and the
act she was now forbidden from even mentioning. Feathers therefore shifted
from being amplifiers of the sexual nature of a garment to being its sexual
nature and were thus promoted from playing the supporting role to taking
centre stage as the lead subject.
Material culture as an academic discipline has somewhat gone out of
style in recent years, but a study of feathers in Hollywood’s Golden Age is a
good case in point as to why it should not be abandoned altogether in favour
of interdisciplinary approaches that emphasize context alone. If one simply
ignored the material, the use of feathers in Hollywood costume would in
many ways merely be a practical solution to a modern technical and economic
8. Another theoretical
reading of this is
located in Studlar’s
reassessment of
Mulvey’s (1975) original
writings on the
Gaze and gendered
spectatorship.
Studlar suggests
that von Sternberg’s
collaborations with
Marlene Dietrich
produced a masochistic
reaction in the male
spectator while
allowing desire-driven
female identification
with the femme fatale
(1988: 248).
9. Feathers are equally
omitted from Steele’s
study of fashion and
fetishism Fetish (1996),
arguably the only wide
ranging examination
of the historical
relationship between
fashion and fetishism
to date.
27
Emmanuelle Dirix
problem. But if one only focuses on these contextual aspects to explain their
prolific use they become just a tool without an autonomous narrative, a footnote in sartorial, technical and economic history. When studied as a cultural,
cinematic and psychoanalytic object in their own right, feathers emerge as a
material reaction to a moral panic and function as a vehicle for reading 1930s
cinematic sexuality. They thus rightfully shift from object to subject.
References
Bailey, M. J. (1982), Those Glorious Glamour Years, New Jersey: Citadel Press.
Berry, S. (2000), Screen Style: Fashion and Femininity in 1930s Hollywood,
Minneapolis; London: University of Minnesota Press.
Bruzzi, S. (1997), Undressing Cinema: Clothing and Identity in the Movies,
London: Routledge.
Church Gibson, P. (1998), ‘Film costume’, in J. Hill, P. C. Gibson, R. Dyer,
E. A. Kaplan and P. Willemen (eds), The Oxford Guide to Film Studies,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 36–42.
Crofts, S. (1993), ‘Reconceptualizing national cinema/s’, Quarterly Review of
Film & Video, 14: 3, pp. 49–67.
Cukor, George (1933), Dinner at 8, United States: MGM.
Cunnington, C. W. (2003), Fashion and Women’s Attitudes in the Nineteenth
Century, Mineola, New York, Newton Abbot : Dover Publications, David
& Charles.
DelGaudio, S. (1993), Dressing the Part: Sternberg, Dietrich, and Costume,
Rutherford : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, London: Associated
University Presses.
Eckert, C. (1990), ‘The Carole Lombard in Macy’s Window’, J. M. Gaines,
and Herzog, C. (eds), Fabrications: Costumes and the Female Body, London:
Routledge, pp. 100–21.
Freud, S., Strachey, J., Richards, A., Dickson, A., and Breuer, J. (1991), The
Penguin Freud Library, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Gaines, J. M. and Herzog, C. (eds) (1990), Fabrications: Costumes and the Female
Body, London: Routledge.
Gordon Edwards, J. (1917), Cleopatra, United States: Fox Film Corporation.
Havelock Ellis, H. (1936), Studies in the Psychology of Sex, New York:
Random House.
Hayward, S. (1996), Key Concepts in Cinema Studies, London: Routledge.
Kaplan, L. J. (1991), Female Perversions: The Temptations of Emma Bovary,
New York: Doubleday.
la Cava, Gregory (1936), My Man Godfrey, United States: Universal Pictures.
Laurent, É. (1903), Sadisme et masochisme: Les perversions sexuelles, physiologie,
psychologie, thérapeutique, Paris: Vigot.
LeRoy, Mervyn (1933), Gold Diggers of 1933, United States: Warner Bros.
Lewis, J. (2002), Hollywood V. Hard Core: How the Struggle Over Censorship
Created the Modern Film Industry, New York: New York University Press.
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Miller, T. et al. (2005), Global Hollywood 2, London: BFI Publishing.
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Rogers, G. (2008), Ginger: My Story, New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
28
Birds of paradise
Sandrich, Mark (1935), Top Hat, United States: RKO Radio Pictures.
Steele, V. (1996), Fetish: Fashion, Sex & Power, Oxford: Oxford University
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Stoller, R. J. (1985), Observing the Erotic Imagination, New Haven:
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Suggested citation
Dirix, E. (2014), ‘Birds of paradise: Feathers, fetishism and costume in classical
Hollywood’, Film, Fashion & Consumption 3: 1, pp. 15–29, doi: 10.1386/
ffc.3.1.15_1
Contributor details
Emmanuelle Dirix is a lecturer in Critical and Historical studies who specializes in fashion history and theory. She is theory coordinator for the Textile
degrees at Chelsea College of Arts and leads the Historic research course at the
Antwerp Fashion Academy. In addition, she is an associate lecturer at Central
St Martins, The Royal College of Art and The University of Westminster. She
has previously worked as assistant curator of the textiles and wallpaper collections at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester and in March 2011 curated
Unravel: Knitwear in Fashion at the Fashion Museum, Antwerp (and edited the
accompanying book of the same name). She has contributed chapters and
articles to a number of academic publications on fashion and design and has
written several fashion histories for Carlton Books.
Contact: University of the Arts, 16 John Islip St, London SW1P 4JU, United
Kingdom.
E-mail: [email protected]
Emmanuelle Dirix has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that
was submitted to Intellect Ltd.
29
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