ADRIAN Gilbert (Designer)

Joan Crawford wears Adrian's famed “coat hanger look”: a suit with padded shoulders and slim skirt producing an “inverted triangle” silhouette that has since intermittently returned to fashion - not least in the 1980s. Here that shape is exaggerated further by triangular lapels that reach over the shoulders and taper, pointing at the waist. As Adrian told Life magazine in 1947, “American women's clothes should be streamlined in the daytime.” He is also known for long, elegantly draped dinner gowns, like those he designed for Joan Crawford in Grand Hotel (1932), and for his silver satin bias-cut dresses for starlet Jean Harlow. As a costume designer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the 1930s and 1940s, Adrian - born Adolphus Greenburg - found a vast audience for his work and became an influential fashion designer. In 1942 he retired as a costume designer to open his own fashion house, continuing to create his trademark suits and gowns.

Also look up for Garbo, Irene, Orry-Kelly, Platt Lynes