| Trivia about Garbo's Gowns - Part I |
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Odalisken från Smolna (Sweden/Germany 1924)
Costumer: Unknown
This is a rare costume-test portrait from the film that never was.
December 1924 in Constantinople (Istanbul/Turkey). Garbo and director Mauritz Stiller visited the mosques and tombs, ate in the most elegant restaurants and whiled away the hours sitting in coffee houses, where Stiller looked for characters that might be used in his film. On leisurely shopping expeditions they wandered through the hundreds of den-like stalls of the Grand Bazaar.
 
Stiller loved to match wits in haggling with the native shopkeepers, and laid in a rather ample supply of Persia carpets. He also took great delight in buying Greta Garbo elaborate Oriental costumes.
 
The most striking of these, according to Cavallius, was a beautiful Chinese gown of deep red silk lavishly embroidered with gold flowers. She appeared in this at a party given by the Swedish Legation and there gaily danced the Hambo, a boisterous Swedish folk dance, with Cavallius.
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The Torrent (USA 1926)
Costumer: Max Rée
 
The Torrent costume was a boldly patterned blackwhite- and-gold fur coat.
Danish designer Max Rée was her costumer for Torrent. Her costume was a homage to opera diva Marcella Sembrich. |
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The Temptress (USA 1926)
Costumer: Max Rée
Danish designer Max Rée was her costumer for The Temptress. During production, Ree left the film. He wanted more money.
  
Garbo suffered through endless costume fittings for The Temptress, and had no sympathy for the people who were poking and prodding her, but when costumer Max Rée quit during the production, Garbo told Borg that she would not continue without him.
Rée wanted more money than Mayer would pay. “Niblo at last agreed to get Rée,” said Garbo's interpreter and friend, Sven-Hugo Borg “if he had to pay him out of his own pocket, which I know he did."
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Flesh and the devil (USA 1926)
Costumer: Clément Andréani
Clément Andréani was her costumer for Flesh and the Devil. Greta had many dislikes.
She didn't want to wear anything with fur on it. She wanted neither lace nor velvet garments. But she'd liked flaunting bizarre collars and cuffs. One day she stopped going to costume fittings.
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Love (USA 1927)
Costumer: Gilbert Clark
 
Flesh and the Devil was a runaway hit. It is said that she now had no patience for the long hours she was spending in costume fittings with costumer Gilbert Clark.
A dressmaker's dummy was out of the question, but a stand-in was not. A dress extra who bore an uncanny likeness to Garbo soon took her place in fittings - Geraldine Dvorak.
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New style for her return to Sweden (USA 1928)
 
In late 1928, Garbo planned her first trip to Sweden since. It is also said that she planned to go in style.
She enlisted the assistance of Lilyan Tashman, who was known as one of Hollywood's best-dressed actresses and whom Garbo had met through John Gilbert, to help her select a new wardrobe.
“She has bought some really divine things,” Miss Tashman reported at the time to a friend. “Several smart tweed travelling suits, two lovely velvet dresses, a gorgeous grey fur coat, heavenly evening gowns in which Garbo will look – well, as only Garbo can look. She also bought some beautiful things with lace of them. I was surprised – she can't tell real lace from machine-made. She would always turn to me and ask, ‘But, Tashman, how do you know it is handmade?'”
 
Garbo boarded the Kungsholm on 10 December, 1928 and was wearing her new fur coat.
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Garbo Paper Dolls
Garbo Paper dolls in costumes of her most famous films.
   
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Trivia about Garbo's Gowns Part II |
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Film costume exhibitions |
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