Born: Naugatuck, Connecticut, USA, 1903
Died: Los Angeles, California, USA, 1959
‘Twelve hundred costumes, five thousand wigs and fripperies for two poodles were Adrian’s pre-occupation during the filming of Marie Antionette,’ noted Vogue in 1938. The most prolific costume designer of Hollywood’s heyday, Gilbert Adrian’s square ‘coathanger’ shoulders and elongated silhouette captured the audiences and knocked Paris off kilter. Adrian designed for every Hollywood beauty, including Jean Harlow in Dinner at Eight (1933), Joan Crawford in Letty Lyndon (1932) and Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story (1940). His first film costumes were for Rudolph Valentino in The Eagle in 1925.
Adrian – born Adrian Adolph Greenburg – had creativity in his genes: his father ran a millinery business, his mother was an artist, his uncle a theatrical designer. In 1921 he enrolled at Parson’s School of Design in New York to study fashion and was transferred to Paris, where he met Irving Berlin. He returned to New York, designing for Berlin’s Music Box Reviews, before moving to Paramount to work with the film producer and director Cecil B de Mille.
In 1941 he formed Adrian Limited, a ready-to-wear business based in Beverly Hills, and showed his first collection the following year. He launched two complementary fragrances, Saint and Sinner, in 1946 and opened a boutique in New York in 1948. After suffering a heart attack, he retired with his wife, actress Janet Gaynor, to recuperate in Brazil. In 1959 Adrian died, having returned to his first love, designing costumes for the Lerner and Loewe production, Camelot.
