Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1928 - Feb 1929)

90 There Are Styles in Stars, Too Mary Pickford's curls and organdies were not only copied by girls everywhere, but she set the style for screen heroines. Irene Castle was something else again ! Irene was the styLesetter de luxe, whose vogue had not been equaled before or since. Consider what Irene started — bobbed hair, sway backs, Pekingese dogs, Dutch caps, and dancing contests ! She was the last word — and the first. Her slightest preferences were fashion mandates. Quick to follow her lead in everything, the ladies cashed in sweetness for chic as a popular motif. The village queen of every town was the girl who dressed as Irene dressed, walked as Irene walked, danced as Irene danced. In place of the cute-little-girl type, the tall, slender brunette mounted the pedestal as queen of the hour. It was a Castle year. In fact, several Castle years. Following Irene's long and brilliant reign, there was more or less of a lull in screen style-setting. True, popular ladies came and went, but few of them were responsible for a vogue until along came Gloria Swanson. As a feminine idol Gloria became the rage. Even more so than Pickford, and almost equal to Irene. If nine tenths of the women had had any choice in the matter, they would have had themselves done over in exact duplication of the Swanson mold. Tilted noses, previously despised, became the profile outline supreme. Bizarre coiffures were the mode. If Gloria wore her hair frizzy and curled, so did eveiy shopgirl in the country. If she slicked it down in a nice, smooth bob, so did the rest of femininity. Pink-and-white skin went out of style and sun-burned brown replaced it with a vengeance. Girls Then came the flapper, inwho weren't naturally dusky went in for troduced by Colleen Moore. deep-ocher powder, and some even took' dye baths to tint themselves the popular shade. Where Irene had introduced chic, Gloria sponsored sophistication. Little girls around sixteen spoke in blase drawls, and looked on the world with unsurprised eyes. Ladies with "pasts" became interesting and popular. Ladies who had no "pasts" invented one or two. Some one once asked Mack Sennett when bobbed hair would go out of style. "When Gloria Swanson decides to let hers grow," he replied. And Mack was right. When Gloria decided to let hers nestle in a low knot on the back of her neck, so did a lot of other women in Hollywood and points north, south, east, and west. Gloria's chief rival in her heyday was Pola Negri, and while Pola never equaled Gloria's vogue as a personality, she was responsible for the dead-white make-up that swept the country for a few months. The smart color scheme of the moment was to drain one's face of all natural color, blanket it with dead-white lotions and powders, and carmine the lips. The whole effect was of a slash in a white mask — ■ but it got over, thanks to Pola. She wore her face that way. The style set by Gloria and Pola was so extreme that a lot of girls could not follow it, so F. Scott Fitzgerald and Colleen Moore got together and introduced the raging type of a few years ago — the flapper. She was cute, was the flapper. That was all that was necessary, She did not have to be pretty, or exotic, or extreme. All she needed to do was to show her knees, tip | her hat back on her I head, smoke a cigarette, cart a flask, and talk back to her parents. All the kids tried to' look like Colleen and talk like Fitzgerald heroine. Necking became the popular pastime, supplanting any form of romance. Clara Bow was a runner-up on Colleen as queen of the flappers, and between the two of them they kept the style in fashion for a much longer time than it deserved. But everybody got a lot of fun out of Continued on page 107