Adrian

Born Adrian Adolph Greenburg in Naugatuck, Connecticut, in 1903, the designer known professionally by his middle name grew up amid ribbon and felt in his family's millinery shop. He studied art in New York and Paris, broke into show business designing for the stage and for Rudolph Valentino's circle, and by 1928 had become chief costume designer at MGM—the most star-laden studio in the world, and the perfect stage for his talent.

For more than a decade Adrian dressed MGM's constellation of leading ladies and, in the process, dressed America. He draped Greta Garbo in severe, sculptural elegance, gave Jean Harlow her liquid bias-cut gowns, and famously reshaped Joan Crawford: judging her shoulders too broad, he leaned into them instead, building the wide, padded-shoulder silhouette that became the defining line of 1930s and '40s fashion. His creations leapt off the screen into the marketplace. The ruffled white organdy gown he made for Crawford in Letty Lynton (1932) was copied and sold by the hundreds of thousands, one of the first times a movie costume dictated mass fashion.

He worked across MGM's prestige pictures—Grand Hotel, Dinner at Eight, the dazzling all-star gowns of The Women—but his most beloved assignment was The Wizard of Oz (1939), for which he designed the whole storybook wardrobe of Oz and the sequined ruby slippers that remain among the most famous objects in film history.

In 1941, chafing under changes at the studio and unwilling to compromise, Adrian left MGM. He opened his own couture house in Los Angeles, becoming a genuine force in American fashion beyond the movies, and married the actress Janet Gaynor. Because he predated and stood apart from the industry's later costume awards, he never received a competitive Oscar—an omission that speaks to how the era undervalued the craft rather than the man.

A heart attack forced him into semi-retirement, and he died in 1959 while preparing costumes for a Broadway musical. His influence outlived him in every strong-shouldered jacket and every gown designed to be recognized at a glance.