'Ascot horse race ~ Audrey Hepburn & Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady, 1964)'

04:43 Dec 7, 2021 0 0

'https://www.wattpad.com/294929442-ulysse-sans-ithaque-15-peau-d%27ane-le-para%C3%AEtre A classical masterpiece (8 Academy Awards), based on the George Bernard Shaw\'s play \"Pygmalion\" and on the eponymous  musical by Lerner & Loewe (1913).  When George Cukor was selected to transform the successful Broadway play Pygmalion into a lavish silver-screen extravaganza, one of the most important personnel choices he faced was the costume designer. However, it soon became clear to him that there could be no other choice other than Cecil Beaton, who had designed all of the costumes for the stage version of the musical, and whose beautiful fashions had nearly out-shown Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews.  Cecil Beaton\'s costume designs for \'My Fair Lady\', made by M Bermans Ltd, added immeasurably to the success of Lerner and Lowe\'s musical both in New York and London. Set in 1914,  A runaway success, the play garnered several awards, including a Tony for Beaton. He later remarked (somewhat tongue-in-cheek): “The success of the Pygmalion musical was beyond all expectation… It made success seem easy and now, when I am stopped on all sides to receive compliments, I wonder why it never happened before. It has not come too late, but I am perhaps a bit bitter that some of my friends in the theatre (if there is such an anomaly) did not spot my talent years before…” Beaton was able to look back on the period of his childhood and to incorporate fashions remembered from relatives, family friends and the picture postcard beauties that he avidly collected.  He had written an article for Vogue in 1930 entitled “Ascots of the Past”, and as one writer put it, had been preparing for such an Edwardian fantasy since childhood. As both the costume designer and art director for My Fair Lady, Beaton was responsible for both the costumes and sets – essentially the entire production sans acting and story.  The famous black and white Cecil Beaton dress designed for the Royal Ascot scene of My Fair Lady was sold at auction for $3.7m in 2011. The four hundred women in the scene each required magnificent gowns designed for them individually. For this, Beaton consulted his mother on her own early wardrobe and asked his friend Diana Cooper what her mother, the Duchess of Rutland, had worn for Ascot. She replied, “Certainly cream, a straw hat trimmed, of course, by herself with little bits of bird’s breast and/or ribbon in dirty pink; wide-ish brimmed and fairly shallow, and the Sarah Bernhardt fringe in front. Good beige gloves. Very high heeled shoes she hoped didn’t show. Parasol, of course!” For his film designs, Beaton took these eyewitness accounts and infused them with the historical description of the famous Black Ascot of 1910, the first Ascot racing season after the death of King Edward VII. At this somber event, society dressed from head to foot in black mourning clothes, styled in the Ascot fashion of the day. Beaton made some key departures from the historical and idealized Ascot fashions, and arrived with a wonderful cinematic spectacle intended solely for the camera. Audrey Hepburn’s dress is certainly one of the most impressive examples of Edwardian finery ever stitched. It is constructed of a silk linen undergarment with back zipper closure, overlaid with fine lace which is hand-embroidered in a delicate flower motif. The dress is trimmed in black velvet striped ribbon, with a large bow at the left breast. The large picture hat is constructed of a lightweight cotton burlap, trimmed in black velvet with white and black ostrich feathers on one side, as well as a small sprig of faux lavender pansies attached to the crown. Finishing the ensemble is the obligatory white parasol of matching lace fabric.  Source:i-collector and V&A Museum' 

Tags: audrey hepburn , my fair lady , Rex Harrison

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