A Dream of Beauty

Gary Chapman’s biography of Dolly Tree reclaims British designer’s legacy

One of my oldest friends in the area of fashion history is Gary Chapman. As long as I’ve known him, which is now more than 20 years, he has been researching Dolly Tree, the British fashion and costume designer whose work, whether for the London musical stage, the Folies Bergére in Paris or Hollywood films, was marked by inspiration and innovation.

Gary and I used to commiserate on the difficulty of securing the attention of publishers for our subjects — designers who were influential in their day but who were often unremembered — and we were emotional supports for each other through years of travel and writing, he on Dolly and I on Lucile. The 21st century brought new technologies in publishing which enabled Gary to segue from that profession’s public relations end to setting up his own publishing platform for releasing niche titles.

I have watched the increasing success of his company, Edditt Publishing, and been so impressed by Gary's commitment to releasing much needed original texts on costume, theater and film history. But nothing has been more thrilling than seeing Gary finally go to print with Dolly Tree: A Dream of Beauty.

I recently spoke with Gary about Dolly and the release of his much awaited study of her extraordinary life and career.

Randy Bryan Bigham: How long have you been interested in Dolly Tree and when did you know you were going to write a book on her? Gary Chapman: Dolly Tree has been an enduring passion of mine since I first heard about her when I was about thirteen (I am now 61). Inexplicably, my grandfather used to talk about her and knew quite a lot about her life, including her work in Paris and at MGM. How this was possible, I have no idea and, being so young, I never even thought to ask him. So just how he knew about her remains shrouded in mystery. After finishing university, and entering the world of book publishing as my profession, I decided to make some inquiries about her. One thing led to another and gradually the jigsaw puzzle of her working career began to take shape along with my collection of relevant ephemera. It has become an enduring passion that has lasted for several decades. I have been eager to get a biography about Dolly Tree published for many years but endured numerous rejections from publishers over the years. Only recently has the technology been available for me to publish it myself and to write and design the book to give justice to Dolly Tree’s vast, unrecognized talent. Equally, the advent of the Internet has enabled access to a vast number of different sources that just have become available in the past decade, and this has transformed the content of the book. So, in a way, it has been worth the wait. RBB: What, for you, are the most exciting aspects of Dolly Tree's career? GC: Dolly Tree was unique in the breadth and scale of her productivity by working in London, Paris, New York and Hollywood, and having several distinctive careers designing for the legitimate stage (pantomime, revues and musical comedies), cabaret, couture and film. Very few of her contemporaries could match her myriad achievements. Each of these areas provides a vivid glimpse of her artistic genius. She had a huge success dressing Julian Wylie’s revues at the London Hippodrome in the 1920s and her costumes were regarded as a high artistic achievement, described as ‘gorgeous and beautiful.’ Her work on the stage was so prolific and was so well known that she was described as ‘the ubiquitous Dolly Tree.’ Her varied output confirms her versatility as a designer for all forms of entertainment.

Along with contemporary gowns and specific ensembles for dancers, she could create any type of costume for revues, musicals, cabarets and pantomimes. This included historical costumes for any number of periods and situations, such as ballroom dresses of the Louis XII period; Watteau gowns in French Regency style; ruffles and periwigs of the King William and Queen Mary period; the dainty Empire ‘Kate Greenaway’ style of the late 19th century and the crinoline dresses of the mid-19th century. Her more exotically-themed creations took many forms including the ingredients of a wedding cake, liqueurs of the world, fans, Persian carpets, drugs, items from a ladies boudoir table, handbags, emblems of the Empire, all kinds of feathered birds, Mah Jongg, an Old World flower garden, sea creatures and fish, tobacco, living Christmas presents, shawls, roses of the world, jewelry and beads. Her work in the Paris music hall and in other European cities in the 1920s was extensive, mostly due to her connections with the legendary costumier Max Weldy. She was able to really let herself go with no restrictions such as creating semi-nudity which was prohibited in London. In late 1922 a rather amazing syndicated newspaper feature flashed across America entitled, ‘The Last Word in Daring Gowns,’ saying that Dolly Tree, an Englishwoman, had ‘successfully invaded Paris, the fortress of fashion, and created the costumes for the Folies Bergére itself. An Anglo-Saxon, not a Frenchman, is thus responsible for the most spectacular gowns in the naughtiest revue in the world’. She was in fact the first English person and the first woman to design specific tableaux for the Folies Bergere from 1920. Cabaret, was another exciting and new format that took London by storm in the 1920s, and Dolly Tree was at the forefront by designing costumes for the Queens Hall Roof, the Grafton Galleries, and the New Princes Restaurant. Her work at the Piccadilly Hotel for Dolly Revels, and then the Piccadilly Revels, became legendary. One of her dresses for the chorus in the first show in 1924 was nothing less than sensational. The garments comprised bows of different shades of mauve from petunia to pale orchid on frills of black silk net and formed an abbreviated skirt with a strapless bodice that was also backless. The design was staggering for its brevity and audaciousness and can be interpreted as a clear prelude to the styles of the 1960s, including the mini-skirt. At the same time here was a strapless, backless creation long before it became popular. One of her plum assignments in the 1920s was to dress the British silent film Woman to Woman (1923) starring American actress Betty Compson. Regarded as the most groundbreaking British film released in the ‘20s, Woman to Woman effectively launched the careers of Michael Balcon, Victor Saville and Alfred Hitchcock. The most praised creation was the ostrich–feather dress Betty Compson wore toward the end of the film, which was ‘suggestive of those worn by Gaby Deslys,’ and was allegedly composed of over 200 ostrich feather plumes and 1,000 pearls. It was described as ‘one of the most extraordinary dresses that has ever been seen on the screen.’ In New York she created a stir when she created the quintessential 1890s look for Mae West in Diamond Lil (1928) which was later immortalized on screen.

In Hollywood in the 1930s Dolly worked alongside Adrian on an equal footing, creating a mass array of gowns and costumes for the screen. Her work for such stars as Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, Rosalind Russell, Virginia Bruce, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Maureen O’Sullivan and many others was prolific. Each contemporary film was a mini-collection, expressing a particular theme or character and usually with a full range of wardrobe ideas from suits, negligees, day-wear and gowns.

Besides specific items for each film, she usually created many more outfits not seen in the film but used for publicity. Despite the fact that MGM failed to promote her as effectively as Adrian, she was hailed as ‘one of Hollywood’s foremost fashion designers’ by the Los Angeles Times in 1940 and was also regarded as ‘the outstanding modern style expert in movieland.’ RBB: What was her personality like? GC: Dolly Tree was slim and of medium height, with dark bobbed hair and a smile that lit up her face. She had something in her whole appearance that was best labelled ‘Parisienne’. According to designer and producer Alec Shanks, Dolly was a typical stylish twenties beauty “a chic, bobbed ex-flapper, cigarette holder and all.” She was a cheery, simple girl but was unquestionably reserved and did not like talking about herself. But she was one of those elegant, ‘Bright Young Things,’ who despite a fondness for work, was also out and about in all the fashionable nights-spots in London or Paris. But her cheerfulness and social bouyancy masked a nervous disposition, and she found it difficult showing people her work and being assertive. It was almost as if there were two divergent and opposing sides to her character. This may provide a key as to why she never really pushed her own publicity, and why she faltered in later life. One of the most insightful descriptions of Dolly came from journalist Mary Hampton in 1939, who wrote that she was ‘an awfully hard person to see – but that isn’t because there is a shred of snootiness in her gracious English makeup. It is simply because MGM always has so many pictures in the making that she works overtime getting out the glamorous clothes.’ Hampton thought Dolly was as ‘charmingly gracious as a story-book princess – with deliberately casual soft bob and large gray blue eyes… She is the sort of magnetically charming personality that wins one with a warm enthusiasm.’

RBB: What has it been like to finally complete this journey, to see this labor of love to fruition? GC: It has been a long and fascinating journey but it was time to draw the line! I hope I have created a book that will be an enduring monument to Dolly Tree’s brilliance. I also hope it will pave the way for a new period of awareness about her artistic genius, and that through it she will be reclaimed as one of the great British dress designers of the 20th century. One valuable result has been that the journey of researching Dolly Tree’s life opened up so many other doors for me. It brought me to write my biography of the Dolly Sisters, the account of the Islington Film Studio in London’s Hollywood, and my latest book about the Rocky Twins, not to mention at least a dozen other projects bubbling away. It started me collecting all sorts of Jazz Age ephemera, and I now have such an extensive collection that the images are licensed to the Mary Evans Picture Library.

RBB: What do you see as Dolly Tree's greatest legacy? What achievement should we remember her for the most?

GC: Because she worked in so many different spheres, I think there are a quiet few. Certainly her impact on the London stage was extraordinary. In an advert she placed in Variety when she arrived in New York in 1926 she claimed she had created costumes for about 100 stage shows, 37 pantomimes and 31 touring revues in the UK. It is no wonder that Tatler once said that ‘Miss Tree has a genius for dress design as all of us who go to the theatre know.’ Dolly Tree’s work expressed female freedom and aspiration through movement and agility and her figures displayed a natural rhythm. She veered toward more simple but effective designs and used simple color combinations. She believed this created a much better visual impact and once said “simplicity is the best thing.” This is no doubt one of her strengths and one of her important style features. Dolly Tree was also a pioneering figure in the use of off-the-shoulder and strapless gowns, using these styles at an early point in her career in the 1920s. She used this strapless style to create Mae West’s enduring 1890s look in the stage show Diamond Lil (1928), a look copied in Mae’s later Hollywood films. She also continued to use the strapless evening gown throughout her Hollywood years. In Hollywood, besides stressing simplicity she was conscious of wearability and refused to create highly stylized creations - everything had to be simple, wearable and glamorous. Overall, Dolly Tree’s creativity had a profound impact on fashion, and her modern approach to dress designing with its chic air of simplicity has given her creations a timeless quality that can still be glimpsed in modern couture.