“Fashion on Film: How the Studio System Shaped the Century” examines the golden age of Hollywood as perhaps the most powerful cultural export machine in American history. Costume departments dictated taste long before Vogue reached mass circulation, television entered the home, or ready-to-wear became ubiquitous. Designers such as Adrian at MGM, Travis Banton and Edith Head at Paramount, Irene, and Orry-Kelly at Warner Bros. did not follow fashion—they created it, with a single gown on screen capable of shifting the entire industry within weeks.

Through close readings of Midnight, Now, Voyager, and Le Amiche, this presentation considers costume as both a narrative device and a cultural artifact. Bennett Williamson, WCW’s Member Liaison, also works as a fashion designer, stylist, and archivist. His exploration of “Fashion on Film” presents the perspective of a precise and compelling analysis of how the studio system continues to shape the aesthetics of modern fashion.