Travilla "Subway Dress" costume design for The Seven Year Itch. ...

Description

Travilla "Subway Dress" costume design for The Seven Year Itch. Travilla "Subway Dress" costume design for The Seven Year Itch. (TCF, 1955) In this landmark film from the mid-1950s, Tom Ewell reprises his Broadway role as a husband whose wife goes on a brief vacation with their children. He remains behind in New York on business, alone for the first time in seven years of marriage, and begins fantasizing about a model who has sublet the apartment above. Marilyn Monroe plays The Girl with her characteristic mix of innocence and sexual allure. The Seven Year Itch storyline, unlike some of Monroe's earlier films, held forth no promise as a costume showcase. It was not a period piece and she had no dance routines. Still, this was to become the vehicle for Travilla's most famous dress design. It was a deceptively simple dress, classic but sexy, and it was meant to make Monroe look cool on the hot, sticky sidewalks of New York. "I'm going to have my precious baby standing over a grate," Travilla remembered. "I wanted her to look fresh and clean. So I wondered what could I do with this most beautiful girl that Marilyn was to play to make her look clean, talcum-powdered and adorable," Travilla mused. "What would I give her to wear that would blow in the breeze and be fun and pretty? I knew there would be a wind blowing so that would require a skirt." In his trademark painterly style, Travilla then drew his visualization of what would become the most famous garment in Hollywood history - a white crepe bias-cut dress with a halter-top and sunburst pleated skirt. Accomplished in gouache and ink on a 15 in. x 20 in. sheet of artist's illustration board, the sketch features the now-famous skirt billowing around her waist, in the scene that would electrify audiences all over the world and reportedly bring an abrupt end to Marilyn's celebrated marriage to slugger Joe Dimaggio. Giving the actress a broad smile, Travilla positioned her left arm delicately across her body, while her hand holds up the skirt in a playful tease. The sketch is signed boldly at the lower right of the image in black ink, "Travilla", with notation at the upper right corner in dark graphite, "7 Year Itch - Wind Scene at Subway". When she stood over the subway grate and a blast of air caused her pleated skirt to swirl above her waist, Monroe made Hollywood history. Travilla's contribution was almost forgotten, although he often mused in private about the fame of The Dress. "Here's how famous it was," he said. "We were traveling in London to promote the Littlewoods catalog in the 1970s, and my copy of the dress was on display along with millions of dollars in jewelry." There was a break-in at the show, but the only item stolen was The Dress (which was later anonymously returned). This sketch perfectly embodies the many competing themes of American life during the conservative 1950s, all of which seemed to converge in this film and in this dress at the very moment Marilyn paused over the Subway grate: the responsibilities of modern life as represented by Tom Ewell's character, the growing independence of American women, and the changing attitude of the country towards sex and desire, which would culminate in the sexual revolution of the 1960s just a few years away. The crown jewel of Travilla's Lost Collection, this sketch is not only a wonderful piece of Hollywood history, but an important snapshot of American popular culture from the apex of Marilyn Monroe's meteoric film career. Provenance: Profiles in History Auction 20, Lot 114.

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