Hollywood Before Glamour: Silent Screen Fashion for Silent Screen Sirens
Prior to the establishment of well-stocked wardrobe departments with in-house costume designers, budding starlets often had to wear their own clothing for films. As the film industry grew and professionalized, the sartorial challenge of striking the right balance of fashionability and on-screen presence eventually shifted to the realm of the costume designer. Step behind the scenes of the silent film era with Michelle Tolini Finamore, author of Hollywood Before Glamour: Fashion in American Silent Film and curator of a forthcoming exhibition on the subject, for insight into the evolution of Hollywood’s distinctive brand of glamour.
LECTURE TICKETS
James C. Meade Lecture Series tickets are $15 for the public and $5 for OKCMOA Individual, Dual, and Fellow members. Reserve your tickets online or by calling 405.278.8207 to guarantee your seat.
EXCLUSIVE BENEFITS FOR FRIEND AND SUSTAINER MEMBERS
OKCMOA members at the Friend and Sustainer levels are invited to join us at 5 pm for a private reception prior to the lecture and can register for the Annual Friends’ Dinner immediately following the lecture. For questions about the private reception or Annual Friends’ Dinner, please contact rsvp@okcmoa.com or 405.278.8207.
MEET THE SPEAKER
Michelle Tolini Finamore, PhD, is a Fashion and Design Historian, Curator, and Author. She has curated numerous exhibitions, including the recent Fashioning America: Grit to Glamour as well as the groundbreaking Gender Bending Fashion, #techstyle, Hollywood Glamour: Fashion and Jewelry from the Silver Screen, and Think Pink at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She is passionate about silent film and her 2014 Hollywood Before Glamour: Fashion in American Silent Film was the first in-depth book on the subject. She has written numerous books and articles for both the scholarly and popular press on topics as varied as American fashion, menswear, contemporary fashion, sustainability, studio jewelry, and food history and has taught courses on fashion/design/film history at various colleges in the Northeast. She has also interviewed fashion luminaries such as Hamish Bowles, Fern Mallis, Isaac Mizrahi, Liz Goldwyn, Hussein Chalayan, Diane Pernet, Viktoria Modesta, Virgil Ortiz, and Rodarte on stage.
Photograph by Kim Indresano Photography
