On the Beaton Track

Derby Day fashions during the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival are traditionally all about black and white. It is a striking combination, but it is not uncommon to see ladies in all black or all white, or possibly shots of colour as well. Perusing pictures of fashions on the field always calls to mind Audrey Hepburn’s extravagant ensemble in the film My Fair Lady.

Cecil Beaton was not a minimalist. Not if his costume designs for My Fair Lady are anything to go by. I must now make a controversial confession: I think most of the outfits, if not all, are just plain hideous. (If only they were plain though – I’d probably like them more!)

There is such a superfluity of tulle, frills, ruffles, and fabric roses that Audrey looks like she is in danger of being swallowed alive.

Recently I watched the film again for the first time since I was a teenager, and I was very surprised to find I disliked the fashions. While the film is set in the Edwardian era, Beaton’s costume design shows an unmistakable influence of the Sixties (my least favourite era for fashion) – not to say a heavy-handed touch. There is such a superfluity of tulle, frills, ruffles, and fabric roses that Audrey looks like she is in danger of being swallowed alive.

There are a multitude of enormous bows too, but I like those – there is something pleasing about the shape of a bow. While it could be argued a bow is girlish too, it has ties (pardon the pun) to practicality and function that redeem it from fussiness, even when it is merely decorative.

Audrey Hepburn in My Fair LadyAudrey’s Ascot outfit (above) featured several black and white striped bows trimming her hat and lace dress. I was very familiar with it from black and white photographs, but I was shocked when I saw it on film. There were coloured flowers trimming the hat, and – most appalling detail of all – a white lace mobcap (stuffed with more fake flowers) that sat atop Audrey’s head beneath the main body of the hat! Horrible.

But big hats were certainly in favour with Beaton. He designed additional costumes for the Broadway version of the film, and these are real hats, not a stupid little fascinator among them. These hats aren’t for wallflowers however. They are graphic, sculptural pieces with a solid structural foundation supporting the lighter bows and feather trim. In graphic black and white they posses rather more gravitas than they would rendered otherwise in bright colour. Though size is surely set on maximum, ironically these are far more minimal in design than real Edwardian hats.

Costume by Cecil BeatonIn my own adventures in hat-wearing, it has been interesting to discover how important hairstyle is. Less so from a fashion or silhouette point of view than practicality. In the Edwardian era women had long hair that was invariably worn in an elaborate updo, usually with additional false pieces to create volume. To counter sudden gusts of wind, the enormous hats of the time were securely pinned on with hatpins, and this is the main reason a woman rarely removed her hat when not indoors. My own hat – a 1960s cartwheel – is enormously wide and a mere elastic band is not enough to hold it securely on a blustery day.

I have mixed eras in this outfit inspired by Derby Day: a 1940s-style dress, vintage 40s lace gloves, a 1960s hat and modern shoes by Australian label Skin.Conversely, the close-fitting cloche hat of the 1920s made shorn hair mandatory. I know this to be true – before I bobbed my own hair it was impossible to jam on a cloche if I pulled my hair back into a chignon to mimic the look of a bob (and the proportions looked silly with my hair down).   

Scroll down to see additional pictures of Cecil Beaton’s costumes for the Broadway production of My Fair Lady. (Click the images to jump through to even more of these costume designs.)