The name synonymous to costume design is Edith Head. As an influential costume designer, Head left a good mark in old Hollywood fashion. She successfully penetrated the world of costuming through Paramount Pictures in 1924. With Her 1920s costume for Clara Bow in the Academy award-winning silent film, Wings (1927), Head paved her way to a budding career in costume design. She earned her first Oscars award for Heiress (1949) and continued to increase her stature by winning 7 more - Samson and Delilah (1950), All About Eve (1950) A Place in the Sun (1951), Roman Holiday (1953), Sabrina (1954), The Facts of Life (1960) and The Sting (1973) - which she referred to as her children.

After Travis Banton left for Universal Pictures in 1938, Edith Head rose up to be the costume head in Paramount Pictures. The hard worker got an even more favorable outcome - more credibility and respect to her craft. People in Hollywood regard her not merely as lady of costumes design but also someone who can flatter any woman's figure. This is one of her strong points. Along with her fashion sense and diplomatic nature, Head has been requested as personal designer to Hollywood women in the movie industry, such as Mae West and Barbara Stanwyck. She was even Alfred Hitchcock's favorite. Head was costumes designer to 11 films of the thriller film director.

Early Life and Marriage

Born Edith Claire Posener in 1897 (unsure due to her records destroyed in a courthouse fire), young Edith moved from Searchlight, Nevada to San Bernardino, California. In 1918, she graduated from University of California at Berkeley with Bachelor of Arts in French. Two years later, she received master's degree in Romance Languages from Stanford University. She was a French teacher at Bishops School in La Jolla, California before she taught Languages and Art at Hollywood School for Girls. Teacher by day and student by night, she pursued art studies at Chouinard Art College where she met her husband, Charles Head. Thirteen years after their marriage in 1923, they divorced. She went back to married life in 1940 tying the knot with Paramount art director Wiard (Bill) Ihnen. They lived together at their lavish Mexican-style Casa Ladera in Los Angeles, California until Ihnen's death in 1979. Edith, on the other hand, passed away in 1981 with her first husband's last name still attached to her.

Career in Costuming

For 44 years, she worked in the costume department (now named as Edith Head Building) of Paramount Pictures. It was quite a funny story how she landed a job as costume sketch artist when she did not really have the background. The impressive sketches she brought during her job interview was actually owned by another students'. She revealed this later on but still kept her position in Paramount as she had proven skills.

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