Jean Louis

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Jean Louis (born October 5, 1907 in Paris , † April 20, 1997 in Palm Springs , California ; actually Jean Louis Berthault ) was a French - American costume and fashion designer .

Live and act

Marlene Dietrich in a Jean Louis swan-down dress and coat at her one-woman show (1960)
Marilyn Monroe in Jean Louis dress after the Presidential Gala with Robert and John F. Kennedy (1962)

Jean Louis studied fashion design in Paris and moved to New York in the early 1930s . There he worked for the successful jewelry and fashion designer Hattie Carnegie for seven years .

He was then chief designer at Columbia Pictures between 1944 and 1960 , where he often designed the film costumes for Columbia's greatest star at the time, Rita Hayworth . Jean Louis went down in film history with his famous black satin dress, which Hayworth wore in the title role of the classic film Gilda . For Hayworth's famous Dance of the Seven Veils in the Bible adaptation Salome , he invented a kind of body tights made of skin-colored nylon , which should suggest a certain nudity to the viewer without actually exposing Hayworth.

His stage dresses for Marlene Dietrich and her one-woman show , which, according to critics of the London press, were "the greatest achievement in the theater world since the invention of the trapdoor" , also caused a sensation .

From 1961 Jean Louis worked as a freelance designer for film productions.

The skin- tight dress he designed, which Marilyn Monroe wore together with an ermine stole at the birthday party of US President John F. Kennedy in Madison Square Garden in 1962 and sang " Happy Birthday, Mr. President " , is also very well known . This gown sold for $ 4.8 million at auction in 2016.

Jean Louis was married twice in his life. In 1993, six years after the death of his first wife, he married his former customer, actress Loretta Young .

Other works (selection)

Awards

Between 1950 and 1967, Jean Louis was nominated thirteen times for an Oscar in the category of best costume design . In 1957 he won the coveted trophy for the film costumes of The Woman in the Golden Cadillac ( The Solid Gold Cadillac ). He received further Oscar nominations for the following films:

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946)
  2. ↑ boulevard-der-stars-berlin.de
  3. ↑ Marlene Dietrich
  4. ↑ Marilyn Monroe (1962)
  5. ↑ today.com , accessed December 19, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Louis, Jean
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Berthault, Jean Louis (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French-American costume and fashion designer
DATE OF BIRTH October 5, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 1997
Place of death Palm Springs