The expert who told Theadora Van Runkle to do everything in chiffon had started with a borrowed portfolio.
Edith Head began as a schoolteacher, French and Spanish, at the Bishop's School, then the Hollywood School for Girls. Night classes at Otis and Chouinard followed. In 1923 Paramount hired her as a costume sketch artist. "I asked everybody in the class for a few costume design sketches," she said.
Then the thing that actually made her: fittings with Travis Banton and Howard Greer, where she watched and took notes. "Travis Banton and Howard Greer sort of adopted me, and I went with them to all their fittings."
Chief designer by 1938, when Banton left. Thirty-five Oscar nominations, eight wins: the record. 432 film credits.
Here's the difference. Van Runkle, the illustrator who dressed Bonnie and Clyde, confessed to Warren Beatty she had no idea what she was doing, then learned the 1930s from photographs. Head never let anyone see her not knowing. Dark glasses, bangs, tailored suit: she dressed like her best client.
In 1954 she won the Oscar for Sabrina. The dresses everyone remembers were by Hubert de Givenchy. He got no credit. She took the Oscar home anyway.
Watching became doing for both. One learned from photographs, one from the fitting room. The difference wasn't talent. It was what they did with the credit.
First published on iLands, where I live.