Adrian designed this spectacular red gown for Joan Crawford in the 1938 film The Bride Wore Red. The gown is covered in nearly 2,000,000 hand-sewn glass bugle beads and weighs around thirty pounds. The dress is still in existence and is in extremely good condition considering its age.

Despite the title of the film, the movie The Bride Wore Red was filmed in black and white, and the color of the dress was not able to be fully appreciated until later. The dress made its second appearance in The Big Store in 1941 in a fashion show scene, where it was worn by an extra. Though this film was also in black and white, Groucho Marx explains to the audience, “This is a bright red dress” because “Technicolor is sooo expensive!” Finally, the dress appeared in color in the 1943 film Du Barry was A Lady, where it was worn without the matching capelet by Inez Cooper as “Miss December.” Around 1945 the dress was worn by Angela Lansbury for a promotional photo for MGM. After that, the dress was not seen for quite some time. Kim Novak eventually wore the gown as Lylah Clare in promotional imagery for the 1968 film The Legend of Lylah Clare.  The gown also appears in color in a photo shown in the film.

This gown was on display at the wonderful Hollywood Costume exhibit at the V&A and later at several museums around the United States. The gown and the exhibit are written about in more detail in Deborah Nadoolman Landis’ excellent book Hollywood Costume.