1933年淘金女郎影评：Comments on the Costumes and Fashion in Gold Diggers of 1933
Like most Hollywood films, the costumes of Gold Diggers of 1933 are focused primarily on the actresses. Throughout the entire film, the four main female characters change their clothes in each different scene, whereas the male characters wear similarly fine groomed suits in the entire film. “Costume were central to a film’s success and vast sums were spent on the wardrobes of female stars” (Mendes,1999). Also, in the 1930s, Hollywood started to promote the talents of their own costume designers. In Gold Diggers of 1933, Orry-Kelly at Warner Brothers designed the special gowns for the characters to express different personalities of different characters.
Orry-Kelly led the fashion trends of the time.The new designs were fashion-forward and bold for the 1930s. In the film, the four main characters are show girls who work for Barney (Ned Sparks) the producer. The opening scene is on center stage, where all the show girls wear costumes made of shiny dime coins. The costumes only covered the breasts and groin with large coins, causing the show girls to look skimpy and sexual. The film was made before the mass censorship of the 1940’s. However, these costumes present a theatrical and burlesque effect. When the camera zooms in for a closeup, the makeup is heavily applied with finely arched eyebrows, red lipstick and false eyelashes. This is a reflection of the new beauty trend of the 1930s Hollywood, when cosmetics were very popular and applied by all star actresses in films. “Penciled-in eyebrows...False lashes...developed in the 1930s, originated in Hollywood.” (Mendes,1999). Also, when Fay (Ginger Rogers) shows up in the apartment, she wears a pair of sunglasses. Sunglasses was not as ubiquitous as today and had just become a very fashionable accessory in the early 1930s when the film was produced. Regarding daily wear, Carol (Joan Blondell) has a bare shoulder dress which is very feminine, and yet also a bold move during the conservative period of the 1930s.
The film also articulates a message that women should take special care of their dresses, because it was also the only way to impress men and get a job. Carol (Joan Blondell) said she and the other girls need to dress ‘modish’ to impress Barney (Ned Sparks) to nail a performing job. Also, every time the female characters go out they will put their hats and gloves on. Women in these times refused to go out without certain fashion items because it would make them seem poor or destitute, which could lead to a lost performing job. In the film, Trixie (Aline MacMahon) and Carol (Joan Blondell) ask Lawrence (Waren William) to buy them corsages or they won’t go out with the men. The men acquiesce and make the purchase because they want the beautiful women to go with them. The source of power for these women is their looks, and their looks are the only bargaining chip they have in a power struggle against a male dominated world.
The film is also a reference of fashion during the Depression. In the last musical finale, the leading female character Carol (Joan Blondell) changed into a costume that is a simple black and white, factory style monogram dress - typically worn by those whose fortunes took a nose dive during the Depression. The fact that the faceless men surrounding her wore tattered and discolored garments represents the horrors of an enormous depression that swiftly followed a terrible resurgence of flu, which followed four years of world war. These men - judging by the lyrics of “Remember My Forgotten Man” - were swallowed alive by the terrors of life in that age, only to emerge as forgotten shadows to their former lovers who now hardly had time to feed themselves. The fashions in this scene are an expression of the emotions of that age when the Victorian optimism was shattered by a loss of hope for a better future.
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