Winner of eight Academy Awards for her costume designs, Edith Head dressed some of the best-known stars of the '40s while working at Paramount Pictures. She created a plethora of diverse looks for Dorothy Lamour, Ginger Rogers, Betty Davis, Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn. Her designs ran the gamut from a noted mink-lined gown for Ginger Rogers to a sarong-style native dress for Dorothy Lamour. "Period" looks and modern 1940s dresses and suits were all part of Ms. Head's repertoire. She is reported to have been the costume designer of choice for Hitchcock throughout his career
Adrian was the creative design genius behind some of the most sumptuous Hollywood costumes of the 1940s. Usually listed in film credits as "Gowns by Adrian," Gilbert Adrian was the head costume designer at MGM throughout its heyday, even extending his fashion sense to a line of ready-to-wear items during the 1940s. His costumes were renowned for creating dazzling, memorable looks for some of Hollywood's top stars like Joan Crawford, for whom he created the iconic style of wide shoulder pads. This look crossed over into the mainstream as a street wear fashion trend of the 1940s.
Hollywood also created and costumed looks for publicity purposes, like the classic "pin-up." Starlets of the 1940s, notably Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, Jane Russell and Betty Page, often first gained fame as sexy pin-up models for calendars and posters. The original pin-up prints were sold to servicemen overseas and hung up as reminders of the American beauties awaiting the brave boys' return from "over there." Pin-ups were often depicted costumed in cheeky take-offs of military dress, sexy renditions of maids and farmers' daughters or in scanty bathing suits.
Many films of the 1940s centered on the trials and tribulations of the brave men and women fighting for freedom in Europe and the Pacific. In order to express its support for the hardships and rations endured during the War by regular citizens, Hollywood created simple and subdued costumes during this period. Women dressed in simple suits or slacks with sensible shoes. Even more expensive Hollywood outfits featured muted colors and prints. Costumes fit the war-related themes of the movies, with men and women in military uniforms and women dressed as nurses serving the wounded in military hospitals.