1903-1959
Hollywood Dress Designer

Designer of the Stars.

Adrian, described as "Hollywood's highest- priced couturier," designed the look that dominated American fashion in the first half of the 1940s. Gilbert Adrian studied at the Parsons School of Design in New York and at its Paris campus before becoming a costume designer for revues in New York. Adrian then moved to Hollywood and designed clothes for M-G-M through the 1930s. In 1942, with American designers cut off from Paris, Adrian opened his own fashion house in Beverly Hills, showing both ready-to-wear and custom-made clothes and hats. In 1944 he won a Coty American Fashion Critics' Award, and in 1946 he brought out two perfumes, Sinner and Saint, with accompanying lipsticks.

The Look.

The look Adrian made famous in the 1940s consisted of a long jacket with little or no collar or lapel, a single-button front closure at the waist, wide shoulders...