Escoffier

Marcel Escoffier (1910). French costume designer for theater and cinema. The son of a very famous chef, he studied the decorative arts and made his début as an assistant to Christian Bérard. During the 1930s he was completely absorbed by the theater. In 1943 he worked in the cinema, designing the costumes for Carmen, a French-Italian film directed by Christian Jacques with Jean Marais and Viviane Romance. His working partnership with Jean Cocteau would be long and fruitful, resulting in costumes for Ruy Blas and L’Aigle à deux Testes in 1947, Orphée in 1949, Nez-de-Cuir in 1951, and Princesse de Clèves in 1961. He belongs to the historicist school, which in Italy is represented by Gino Sensani and which aims at an exact reconstruction of a period’s costumes. He dressed Gina Lollobrigida and Gérard Philippe in Fanfan la Tulipe. In 1953, Visconti entrusted him with the complex costumes for Senso and he was assisted, in creating the military uniforms, by Piero Tosi. Almost 20 years later, still successful, he created the costumes for Les Mariés de l’an II and Joan of Arc directed by Fassini at La Fenice in Venice.