Fashion in Motion

Silent films created new opportunities for communicating the dynamic and ever-changing nature of fashion in motion. Garments, accessories, hairstyles, makeup, and other aspects of style were animated by bodies that could reach millions of people by traveling thousands of miles on film reels and into theaters in big cities and rural towns alike.

At the same time in the early 20th century, important shifts were happening in the beauty and fashion industries. Factory-made clothing, known as ready-to-wear, had supplanted made-to-measure dressmaking, and clothing became more affordable and accessible. Innovations in cosmetics, hair, and other beauty products drove a growing consumer base. Silent films offered something that print media could not: fashioned bodies-in-motion. Film stars substantiated the adage, “it’s not what you wear, but how you wear it.” Through physical embodiment, what anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu has called habitus,1 silent serial actresses transformed cultural expectations of women through a fashioned trifecta of athleticism, autonomy, and aesthetics.

Serial Queen Fashions

Silent films were produced as early as 1888 but came into their heyday in the early 1910s and remained popular until the invention of synchronized sound in the late 1920s. Serial motion pictures, sometimes called “chapter plays,” were episodic silent films edited to be about 15 to 20 minutes in length (i.e., one or two film reels) and “suspensefully plotted,” as film scholar Barbara Tepa Lupack has noted.2 Serials were released over weeks, months, and sometimes even years, often with a corresponding “serial story” published in newspapers or magazines. Serials were filmed and edited quickly, which meant that future episodes could respond to audience feedback. Audiences were captivated by the action, romance, mystery, humor, and sometimes even science fiction in their storylines. Suspenseful cliffhanger endings ensured moviegoers would return in the months and weeks to come. Serials ruled supreme from 1912 until the early 1920s when feature-length silent films supplanted the shorter format.

The height of the serial’s popularity coincided with a larger cultural transformation afoot in the United States: the emergence of the “New Woman,” a first-wave feminist ideal that challenged Victorian sensibilities and championed women’s education, career pathways, suffrage, autonomy, and independence.

Fashioning the “New Woman” was nowhere more visible than the silent silver screen, especially in serial productions. The “serial-queen melodrama,” a retronym coined by film historian Ben Singer, was the most popular genre of serials and starred powerful female leads. 3 The serial queens were fearless and performed incredible stunts: they jumped from moving train cars, piloted airplanes, tamed wild animals, dove into large bodies of water and swam great lengths, and performed daredevil trick riding on horses.

Pearl White once managed to escape from a hot air balloon in midair by clambering down a rope onto a cliffside.

Helen Gibson, who replaced Helen Holmes to star in the longest running silent serial, Hazards of Helen (1914-17), was a media favorite because her stunt work was easily sensationalized.

As reported in The Picturegoer magazine, “She dropped from the arm of a water-tower on to the roof of a train; she rode a motor-cycle off a drawbridge into the river; she leaped from the roof of one train to another; she travelled for several hundred yards tied to the piston-rod of an engine; she drove a motor-car between two halves of a broken train, and performed a hundred-and-one feats of this description. And she always came through scot-free.”4

The combination of athleticism and fearlessness was magnified by the fashions serial queens wore while performing such daunting stunts.5

The serial queens were stylish, savvy, and strong, which made them hugely popular with the moviegoing public. They destabilized gender roles, transformed ideas about femininity, and introduced new fashion possibilities with each costume change.6

The “New Woman” of Silent Serials

By challenging cultural expectations around women’s behavior, dress, and social status, serial-queen melodramas realized, visualized, and widely popularized the “New Woman.” According to film historian Shelley Stamp, “women were more engaged in movie culture at the height of the silent era than they have been at any other time since.” Stamp has argued that women were foundational in building movie culture.7 Not only were women starring in films and dominating audience numbers, they were also writing, editing, directing and working in theaters.8 Some of the serial queens, including Helen Holmes, Helen Gibson, and Ruth Roland, founded production companies and even directed serials.

Forging new career paths in a nascent industry was also a process of defining what moviemaking could be. Astute businesswomen and innovative thinkers, the serial queens manufactured stardom, capitalized on the fame they cultivated, and became arbiters of style and social change. The serial-queen melodrama was a vehicle for launching industry partnerships, media tie-ins, and a variety of fashion and beauty-related collaborations.

Fashion and Fearlessness in Silent Serials

The serial queens were models of independence, physical prowess, courageous heroism, and daring style choices for women of the time. Cinema studies scholar Marina Dahlquist argued that the combination of fashion and fearlessness increased dramatic effect by juxtaposing “extravagant fashion” and “athletic performance.”9 This tension between aesthetics and functionality only drew more attention to styles on the screen. Singer has pointed out that fashion was a critical part of early cinematography, and “the camera tended to linger on carefully composed views of the heroine’s modish and opulent outfits.”10 Curator and fashion historian Michelle Finamore noted that a single reel of a serial-queen melodrama could include “the same range of garments as typically featured in a fashion show.”11 Fashion designers became aware of this opportunity for visibility, which was possible because costume departments were not yet formalized and the serial queens were responsible for providing their own wardrobes.12 Working with their already-favored designers and forging new connections in the fashion, cosmetic, and beauty industries enabled cross-promotions and secured the serial queens as authorities of style.

Media Tie-Ins and Fashioned Personas

Media “tie-ins” were already critical to the success of silent serials. Because serials were episodic and “re-runs” unlikely, a moviegoer had to catch up through recaps in print media if they missed an episode. William Randolph Hearst, for example, grew his media empire of newspapers and magazines by publishing written accounts of serial episodes. 13 He also founded the International Film Service, an animation studio, and created newsreels through the International Picture Service to cross-promote between media-business ventures.14

Hearst is often credited with the genesis of “tie-in media deals,”15 but the serial queens expanded tie-ins through product placement, publicity stunts, and the fashioned personas they created. Hearst helped to finance and distribute many serials, including Patria (1917) starring Irene Castle, Beatrice Fairfax (1916) starring Grace Darling, and The Mysteries of Myra starring Jean Sothern (1915), among many others. He ran profiles of silent film stars in his magazines, especially Cosmopolitan, and merged character and actor into a new kind of celebrity that straddled fact and fiction.16

Several serial queens played protagonists with the same first name, which tightened the connection between actor and character. Through media cross-promotions and the platforms they provided, serial queens cultivated stardom and profitable public personas.

New Fashion Brands

Serial queens, and the larger silver screen industry, enabled the promotion, transformation, and ultimately the creation of new fashions, both for the actors themselves and the designers who dressed them. Best known is Lady Duff Gordon, the designer behind Lucile Ltd., who began her career as a dressmaker and ascended to fame in the United States by fashioning theater actresses and later, silent film stars. Many serial queens wore her designs, which pushed Lucile’s fashion in new directions to accommodate and enhance the intrepid, athletic, and courageous protagonists.

Pearl White, who starred in The Perils of Pauline (1914) and many other serials, was a perfect example of the mutually beneficial synergy between actor and designer.

Inspired by White, who was dubbed “Fearless, Peerless Pearl,” Lucile created her signature sportif look, which would become a larger fashion trend. Fashion historian Randy Brian Bigham has described the look as “a perky beret, loose blazer and deep-pocketed, button down skirt.”17

Lucile designed for several other silent film stars, including Alice Joyce, Mary Pickford, and Irene Castle. Castle was regarded as “The Best Known and Best Dressed Woman in America” and wore Lucile gowns in the 1917 serial, Patria.18

While Lucile dressed many of the biggest names of the day, she was not the only designer who used films to enhance visibility. Finamore has argued that the impact of World War I and the convenience of New York City’s garment district also fueled cross-promotion, “largely because it was simpler to showcase local products rather than foreign ones.”19

Since the film industry was initially based in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, New York City-based fashion houses predominated: Faibisy, Maison Maurice, Madame Frances, Max Meyer, Hickson, Inc., and Mme. Simcox, among others, all claimed film stars as their clients.20

In today’s world of Instagram influencers and Hollywood celebrities, partnerships with fashion brands typically involve some kind of payment and/or complimentary garments. However, this was rarely the case in early film, and it is unclear how much of a discount, if any, was provided to actresses who were still referred to as paying “clients” in the media. In an article in Motion Picture Magazine, for example, William Lloyd Wright explained that fashion was both an expense and expectation for film stars:

“These actresses have wardrobes costing hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars. . . . The gowns worn by these actresses are necessarily of the latest styles. Their employers demand that the latest modes be worn, and the gowns are the highest item of expense to these actresses. No more can it be asserted that ‘any old thing will do for the movies.’ Any old thing will no longer accomplish the purpose, and the ‘very latest thing’ is demanded and expected, not only by the high-class manufacturer, but by the discerning women in the audiences.”21

Celebrity Fashion Branding

With the presupposition that serial queens be in the latest fashion at their own expense, some augmented their paychecks by using their celebrity personas to endorse a range of beauty and fashion products. Some modeled for design houses, and Irene Castle even created her own eponymous fashion line.22

Celebrity Cosmetic Endorsements

Actress Mary Fuller, who starred in What Happened to Mary (1912), Who Will Marry Mary? (1913), and The Active Life of Dolly of the Dailies (1914), endorsed Ingram’s brand Milkweed Cream and its face powder, Velveola Souveraine.

Kathlyn Williams, who also starred in an eponymously named serial, The Adventures of Kathlyn (1914), among other short films, serials, and features, endorsed Sempre Giovine: The Pink Complexion Cake, which was manufactured by the Mariette Stanley Company.  

Avertisements noted the “severe test of the camera,” and “powerful lens of the Motion Picture Camera [that] magnifies the complexion on the Screen in ‘close-ups.’” By endorsing products that emphasized the necessity of a blemish-free face, the serial queens helped to produce beauty ideals and expectations that undoubtably contributed to the growth and acceptance of women’s cosmetics.

A Dramatic Look

Cellulose nitrite, the highly combustible and chemically unstable film used for silent serials, enabled cinematographers to produce beguiling moving pictures in high contrast fettered by rich, glimmering greys. The film’s wide tonal range likely inspired and empowered actresses to experiment with high-contrast hair, makeup, and fashion designs.

While women used eye makeup in theater and dance performances in the early 1910s, it was not a socially acceptable practice for everyday women at that time. 23 The cosmetics industry had grown since the late 19th century but focused on products that would give a “natural” look.24

Serial queens were the antithesis of this look. They wore lipstick, eyeshadow, eyeliner, and mascara on screen, and thus played a critical role in launching, promoting, destigmatizing, and normalizing the use of these cosmetics in daily life.

Serial queens could profit from cosmetic endorsement contracts as they did with fashion brands. Ruth Roland, another actress who starred in several eponymous serials like The Adventures of Ruth (1919), Ruth of the Rockies (1920), and Ruth of the Range (1923), appeared in Lashbrow advertisements to “reveal the secret of alluring eyes.”25 Not only did the silent film actresses make eye cosmetics acceptable, they also guided and advised women about products to use and purchase.

While makeup helped draw attention to eyes, lips, and brows, and powders concealed blemishes, some beauty products claimed to make more enduring changes to the body. Depilatories could solve the “problem” of “unwanted hair” and claimed to “destroy the growth” by “lifting out roots with hairs.”26

Ruth Roland also offered recommendations in this area, thus establishing another bodily maintenance regime. She endorsed depilatories like Sulfo Solution and Zip, which claimed to be “Hair Destroyers” that also curtailed sweating. Advertisements for these products capitalized upon women’s anxieties, established beauty ideals, and name-dropped celebrities for validation. “Once you are free of hair and free of perspiration troubles,” began one Zip advertisement in Vogue, “the quest for charm has been attained. On the other hand, you may be beautifully attractive, but a trace of unsightly hair or a suggestion of perspiration will mar that beauty.”27 In another advertisement, Roland thanks Zip for “bringing such a perfect Hair Destroyer to the attention of Filmland,” thus suggesting its widespread use.28

Serial Queens Influence Hairstyles

But the question of length and how to style one’s head of hair was up for debate amongst the serial queens. Irene Castle famously bobbed her own hair in 1914. She made the groundbreaking fashion decision part of the historical record by donating the cut tresses to the Museum of the City of New York with the note, “These were part of the 1914 batch removed to make way for the ‘Castle Bob.’”29

She also reenacted a version of the haircut in the 1917 serial Patria. In the fourth episode (“Double Crossed”), she played both Patria Channing and a dancer named Elaine who looked exactly like Patria except for her long hair. In an act of fearlessness, Elaine cut her hair and is relieved once she sees how chic the new hairstyle is. In an early use of split screen, audiences were able to enjoy two “Castle Bobs” at once.

Castle then invented the “Castle Band,” which was worn across the forehead, to keep unruly shorter hair in place. She also endorsed wigs with the National Hair Goods Company who assured consumers that “every woman can wear the bobbed effect without cutting her hair.”30

Other serial queens celebrated long tresses, and Ruth Roland appeared in numerous advertisements for hair extensions and switches manufactured by Frances Roberts, Co.31 

The most prolific serial queen, Pearl White, was known for her hyperbolically long blonde hair that signaled femininity that contrasted sharply with the dauntless stunts she performed on screen. After The Perils of Pauline (1914), she played Elaine Dodge in the wildly popular serials (themselves in series), The Exploits of Elaine (1914), The New Exploits of Elaine (1915), and The Romance of Elaine (1915).

White’s style was animated by her fashioned physical body and captured what film studies scholar Barbara Cohen-Stratyner called the “trinity of health, beauty, and independence.”32 Off screen, White frequented the pages of newspapers and women’s magazines to offer fashion advice. On the topic of hair, she explained that “the hair-line is the most important thing to settle in a coiffure. Go to your mirror, comb your hair straight back from your forehead, and study yourself closely. If your forehead shows a spot where the hair-line is not straight, remember to conceal this when arranging your hair.”33 Media articles and product advertisements established serial queens as authorities on style and grooming practices. 

Conclusion

Serial-queen melodramas combined fashion with athleticism, daring stunts, and the courage, intellect, and resourcefulness that female heroines needed to transform cultural ideals of beauty and style for the “New Woman.” The serial queens lived this mentality, not only by performing many of their own stunts and working tirelessly on set, but by pursuing a variety of business endeavors, exploiting the media tie-in, and in some cases, founding production companies and taking on other authority roles in a nascent film industry.

With the consolidation of many smaller production companies into the big business studio system in the 1920s, relocation to the West Coast, and supremacy of synchronized sound by the end of the decade, the empowerment of women on screen and off soon changed. The film industry became male dominated, productions perpetuated sexist stereotypes, the gender pay gap grew, and women were excluded from positions of power in the industry.

Looking back at the history of early film, and particularly the stylish and industrious serial queens, offers an antiserum to the problematic nature of the industry today. Supported by an industry that more equitably employed women as directors, screenwriters, producers, and editors, the serial queens were empowered to make change. By creating stylish celebrity personas, they embodied and modeled for the masses a new kind of woman who was powerful, independent, smart, resourceful, and always pushing the boundaries of fashion to challenge norms and create new possibilities.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the Wharton Studio Museum, Finger Lakes Film Trail, Tompkins Center for History and Culture, Humanities New York, and the program series “Making Noise About Silent Film: Conversations About Cinema, Culture, and Social Change” for inspiring a deeper dive into this topic and creating opportunities to share with the public. In addition, I am grateful to the following individuals and institutions for their ongoing support: Cornell University Library, The History Center of Tompkins County, Cornell Fashion + Textile Collection, Cornell University’s College of Human Ecology, Terry Harbin of Ithaca-Made Movies, Diana Riesman, Barbara Tepa Lupack, Andrew Moisey, Park Doing, Susie Bright, Yasser Gowayad, Randy Brian Bigham, Pat Longoria, PJ LeVine, Castle McLaughlin, John Foote, and Kristen Rupert.

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