Collection of (4) Walter Plunkett personal photo albums. ...

Description

Collection of (4) Walter Plunkett personal photo albums. (1930s-1980s) Personal career scrapbooks/ photo albums (4) assembled by famed costume designer Walter Plunkett, which include a fair cross-section of his general Hollywood career, but which are principally devoted to his creations for Gone With the Wind, for which he most certainly would have received an Oscar if the costume category had existed at that time. One and a half entire albums, in fact, are devoted to Plunkett's methodical and faithful recreation in 1979 of Scarlett O'Hara's green-sprig "Barbeque" dress for San Francisco socialite DeDe Traina to wear to a Napa Gone With the Wind garden party. Enclosed within are both an original 1939 fabric sample, showing acidic dye deterioration to silk chiffon, and not only a sample of Plunkett's recreated fabric, but a detailed step-by-step of the entire process, including his actual printing acetates. The (60+) black and white and color photos scattered throughout the four albums, though mainly 1960s-70s reprints from earlier originals, are a fascinating time capsule of his creations and those he created for, including performers (Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, Jennifer Jones, etc.), production executives (Vincent Minnelli, George Cukor, etc.), and even other designers like Edith Head, Bob Mackie and Travis Banton. Newspaper clippings are understandably toned from age, otherwise contents are in fine condition overall.

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