Time for Costumes: Dressing Up the Stars

        

This time of year, you & your family may be thinking about what your costumes will be for Halloween festivities. Some of you have changed your minds several times already! It's a fun time of year, yet there are people whose profession it is to create costumes year 'round for cinema and theater.

I was elated to win Dressing Up the Stars, written by Jeanne Walker Harvey and illustrated by Diana Toledano in an online raffle. This new picture book tells how Edith Head, winner of 8 Oscars for Best Costume, got started. 

We find out that Edith's life began far from Hollywood's glamour. She grew up in mining camps in the deserts of Nevada and Mexico. As an isolated only child, her imagination led her to dress up her pets for pretend tea parties--her first designs! 

Edith never sought the stage spotlight herself, but her designs added to actors' star power in many movies, developing their characters. She finally did end up in the spotlight when she accepted her Academy Awards.

Dressing Up the Stars will inspire young readers to pursue their dreams, employ their imaginations, persist, and practice, practice, practice--Edith's keys to success. The Author's Note gives a summary of Edith's life, and Selected Sources leads readers to more information about this Hollywood icon. Harvey has created an Activity Kit available for free download to extend the fun and learning of this book: https://www.jeanneharvey.com/projects. 

The illustrations are perfect from the cover to the end papers to the spreads in-between. Toledano's mixed media drawings show the pattern, texture, and color that make up the design world, while giving them a child-like simplicity.

I enjoyed learning how Edith Head came to costume fame and remember rooting for her when watching the Academy Awards. 

Marianna Diamos, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

I wonder what kind of Halloween costume Edith Head would design for us. Hmmm....